Biocontainment Zoning at PANOPTICON
Zoning decides who may stand where and what may move between zones. Each tier — T1 Open, T2 General, T3 Controlled, T4 Restricted — sets a fixed bar for entry requirements, the direction and form of permitted material flow, and the decontamination owed on exit. Tiers map onto the Biocontainment Level framework: the higher the tier, the tighter the seal and the heavier the rule.
What Each Tier Requires
Four tiers run the length of the site. Each one names a clear standard for people (PPE, escort, and the two-person rule) and for material (what may enter, what may leave, and how it is cleaned in transit). Nothing crosses a seal on convenience — every crossing is a procedure held in the SOP library.
T1 · Open Floor
Production synthesis sectors, the atrium, command core, and mesh control. Badged staff move freely; entry asks only standard PPE and a current badge. Benign subjects and routine yield move in and out without restriction beyond inventory. No exit decon beyond hand hygiene.
T2 · General Containment
Strain, triage, vector bay, and dispatch. Entry is badge-gated behind the first seal, with veiled handling and a compound-exposure protocol on file. Defensive lines and staged material may move out only toward equal-or-lower tiers; gowning and a wipe-down precede exit.
T3 · Controlled Containment
Compound extraction lab and cryo gamete vault. Entry requires the two-person rule, logged sign-in, and antidote staged at the door. Dangerous and irreplaceable material stays sealed; anything leaving is double-contained and passes a full decon step on exit.
T4 · Restricted — BSL-4 & Gain-of-Function Vault
The BSL-4 & Gain-of-Function Vault alone. Director-authorised, logged two-person entry, full doctrine before any seal breaks, and no shared air handling with the rest of the site. Material flow is one-way and exceptional; exit is a supervised decontamination line with no overrides.
| Tier | Entry requirements (people) | Permitted material flow | Decon on exit |
|---|---|---|---|
| T1 · Open | Current badge; standard PPE. No escort, no two-person rule. | Free movement of benign subjects and yield, by inventory only. | Hand hygiene. No formal decon. |
| T2 · General | Badge-gated entry; veiled PPE; compound-exposure protocol on file. Escort for visitors. | Out only to equal-or-lower tier; defensive lines stay contained. | Gowning removed; surface wipe-down at the seal. |
| T3 · Controlled | Two-person rule; logged sign-in; antidote staged at door. | Sealed in, double-contained out; no lateral transfer to T1. | Full decon step — gown-out, wash, instrument wipe. |
| T4 · Restricted | Director-authorised; logged two-person entry; full doctrine pre-entry. | One-way, exceptional, and authorised per item; nothing routine leaves. | Supervised decon line; no shared air; no convenience overrides. |
The Three Controls
Zoning rests on three standing controls: a quarantine pathway for everything new, a strict clean-to-dirty flow that never reverses, and active exclusion of pests and disease. Together they keep the site sealed without grinding the floor to a halt.
Quarantine Pathway
Every accession enters through quarantine and triage before it touches a production zone — held, screened, and cleared against the genebank record and the SOP library intake procedure.
Clean-to-Dirty Flow
Material and people move unidirectionally from clean zones toward dirty ones — never back. Crossing up a tier means full entry procedure; crossing down means decon. The flow never reverses across a seal.
Pest & Disease Exclusion
Seals, screening, and decon together exclude pests and pathogens from contained zones. Suspect material is isolated to triage and escalated rather than carried across the floor.
Related: the live facility map, the charter BCL framework, and the containment drill program.