Welcome Andrew Houppert
Hello, my name is Andrew Houppert. I am the new Assistant Biological Safety Officer. I am replacing Amanda Snyder, who took the Manager for Biological Safety position at Indiana University Bloomington. My responsibilities include reviewing IBC protocols and protocol amendments and performing lab inspections. I am originally from Indianapolis, but I have spent the last eight years living in Bloomington with my wife and our seven month old son. My family and I are excited to be returning to Indy because we will be closer to our parents and extended family.
I have a B.S. Microbiology from Indiana University in Bloomington. After graduating, I worked at the Indiana Blood Center here in Indianapolis as a Clinical Laboratory Specialist performing infectious disease testing on donated blood and platelet products. After two years at the blood center, I decided to return to IUB to pursue my Ph.D. in Microbiology. My dissertation work focused on how the type III secretion system of Yersinia pestis is regulated. Yersinia pestis is the bacterium that causes bubonic, pneumonic, and septicemic plague. While in graduate school I worked with a variety of bacterial species, eukaryotic cell lines, and animals. Though most of my work was done at BSL-2, I do have experience working at BSL-3 with the select agent strain of Y. pestis.
I became interested in a career in Biosafety while working in the select agent lab. Many of the Biosafety professionals I met encouraged my interest. They stressed how important it is to have people with experience working at the bench overseeing research safety. I am excited to be working at IUPUI under Jim Klenner. He has a reputation for being extremely knowledgeable and trusted by the research community as a person they can turn to when they have questions. I am committed to making sure that the Biological Safety program continues to be a trusted resource for researchers here at IUPUI.
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