Opening of the personnel lock for cleanroom training at the Umwelt Campus Birkenfeld

Guests could view the new personnel lock for cleanroom training during the opening. (Source: Jannik Scheer; Copyright: Umwelt-Campus Birkenfeld)

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Percy Kampeis (center) hands over the key to the personnel lock to the later users Prof. Dr. Roman Kirsch (left) and Prof. Dr. Denis Theobald (right).

With the opening of the personnel lock, an training infrastructure is created that is consistently aligned with the regulatory requirements of the pharmaceutical industry and represents a central component for practical, GMP-compliant training. GMP stands for "Good Manufacturing Practice" and refers to a quality assurance system for production, control, and storage in the pharmaceutical industry. It ensures, through binding guidelines, a consistent high product quality to eliminate risks for patients.

In the pharmaceutical environment, personnel are considered one of the most critical potential sources of contamination. The personnel lock therefore plays a key role, as it is not just an access point but a quality-critical process step that significantly contributes to minimizing biological and particulate contamination, thereby influencing product quality and patient safety. The cleanroom personnel lock enables students and company employees to conduct practical training of essential GMP-relevant processes, such as cleanroom qualification according to guidelines and assessing the impact of personnel movements, monitoring airborne particles in rest and operational states, microbiological surveillance of microbial contamination, and GMP-compliant personnel entry and exit, considering clothing concepts, documentation obligations, and training requirements.

Through this practical training, targeted preparation is provided for real pharmaceutical work environments, benefiting students and cooperating companies. With the commissioning of the personnel lock, targeted investment is made in training qualified graduates, enabling them to be quickly integrated into pharmaceutical processes productively.

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Percy Kampeis, Program Director of the Master's program "Cleanroom Technology in Pharmaceutical Manufacturing," expressed his thanks to all contributors and the companies that, as sponsors, made the construction of the personnel lock possible. A project of this quality would not have been feasible without strong industrial partners and the dedicated involvement of technical experts. As a symbolic conclusion, the key to the personnel lock was handed over to the future users, Prof. Dr. Roman Kirsch (Specialist fields: Pharmaceutical Technology and Mechanical Process Engineering) and Prof. Dr. Denis Theobald (Quality Assurance in Pharmaceutical Technology).