Biosecurity duties can be assigned to a Biorisk Management Advisor (BMA). A BMA is responsible for biosecurity within the organisation and the implemention of biosecurity measures.

The government’s aim is for biosecurity to become firmly anchored within an organisation. One way of doing this is to assign biosecurity to a Biorisk Management Advisor (BMA). The duties of a BMA can be carried out by quality assurance officers, such as biological safety officers, consultant microbiologists, occupational hygienists or safety personnel. The BMA’s duties include examining whether laboratories and knowledge are sufficiently secure, and whether employees have sufficient awareness with regard to the biological materials that they work with. The BMA is the organisation’s point of contact and knows where in the organisation biological agents can be found. One of the other duties of the BMA is to ensure that biosecurity measures are implemented – for example, in quality assurance systems – and complied with. The BMA is on call 24/7 to respond to the emergency services, in the case of emergencies during non-business hours.

The ISO 35001 (Biorisk management for laboratories and other related organizations) describes Biorisk Management Advisor and attributes roles, tasks and responsibilities to this position. Further details of the functions, competencies and knowledge of a BMA are described in ISO/TS 5441:2024 (Competence requirements for biorisk management advisors).