Biosafety is the maintenance of safe conditions in biological research to prevent harm. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) established a set of biocontainment precautions to isolate dangerous biological agents. Biosafety Levels 1 through 4 provide laboratory practices and techniques to safeguard against harmful incidents. Failure to follow practices can lead to increased risk of exposure to biohazards or pathogens.

The International Standards Organization (ISO) is responsible for the latest classifications for clean room environments. These global standards, which have more classes than previous United States systems, are carefully judged, since the slightest error can often affect the sensitive materials that must stay in them. Because of this, you can only get cleanroom certification if you meet the standards in several categories. Here we have a brief explanation of the major categories in this process so that you can learn a bit about the subject before diving into your own classification process.