Committee on Chemical Safety

2023 ACS Safety Summit

2023 ACS Presidential LST Summit

The 2023 ACS Presidential Safety Summit focused on Laboratory Safety Teams (LSTs). LSTs are student-led groups that play a pivotal role in promoting a strong safety culture within their respective laboratories, departments, and institutions.

During the summit, participants discussed strategies to best support graduate students in starting and growing LSTs at their universities and excel in the following areas of laboratory safety:

Highlighting the diversity and benefits of LSTs across the US.
Identifying what LSTs need to start and thrive.
Defining how partnerships can best support LSTs and why they benefit both parties.
Enabling LSTs to prepare scientists for academic and industrial safety standards.

LSTs emerged as an academic grassroots movement in 2012 as a way for university students to take independent initiative to evaluate safety concerns within their departments and institutions and offer solutions to address these issues. LSTs operate with the backing and support of department heads, safety professionals and advocates. The American Chemical Society (ACS) is committed to its core value of safety and continuously promoting the safe practice of chemistry throughout the chemistry enterprise.