Team:Harvard/Safety

Biosafety

Key Questions

1. Would any of your project ideas raise safety issues in terms of:
   • Researcher Safety:

   Working in a laboratory environment is not without its risks, so we took a variety of steps to ensure the safety of our team during our lab work. Our protocols and materials were reviewed by the Institutional Biosafety Committee of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard, the Committee on Microbiological Safety (COMS), and were found to be in good standing with the NIH Guidelines for Research Involving Recombinant DNA Molecules and the Harvard University COMS policies (see also Key Question #3 below). In addition, all team members were required to attend a certified COMS lab safety training course.

   Advanced synthetic biology research does at times require interaction with potentially dangerous substances. Listed below are those substances which posed the most significant hazards to researcher safety. Again, however, it should be noted that our use of these substances was consistent with the University's stringent safety standards.

   • Ethidium Bromide (EtBr): A known toxin and mutagen, which was used in some of our gels. The harmful effects of ethidium bromide can be avoided by avoiding direct, skin contact and inhalation, which can in turn be avoided by proper observance of safety precautions. In order to minimize primary contact, ethidium bromide is directly contacted only with micropipette tips. Skin contact when handling ethidium bromide-stained gels was avoided by the use of nitrile gloves. Secondary contact was avoided by the disposal of ethidium bromide-contaminated gloves and pipette tips, and the designation of a specific bench, fume hood, and set of micropipettes exclusively for use with ethidium bromide. [MSDS]
   • The laboratory strain of E. coli used is non-pathogenic and therefore not a threat to researcher safety. We have conferred antibiotic resistance to our E. coli, but because these strains are unlikely to survive in human intestines, this resistance is unlikely to become problematic.
   • Public safety:
     • Our project harbors no significant public safety concerns.
   • Environmental safety:
     • No environmental safety concerns.
   • Note: We are conducting our project in a Biosafety Level 1 (BL1) envrionment.
2. Do any of the new BioBrick parts (or devices) that you made this year raise any safety issues?
   • • At this time we have not currently finalized plans for our BioBricks. At this point, our projected BioBricks do not pose any notable safety concerns.
3. Is there a local biosafety group, committee, or review board at your institution?
   • Why yes, there is!
   • If yes, what does your local biosafety group think about your project?
     • We have presented our project proposal to them, and after a review of our materials and procedures, the biosafety office has approved our project and deemed our practices consistent with Harvard's biosafety regulations.
       • To view a copy of our letter of approval from Harvard's biosafety office, please click here
       • For more about biosafety regulations at Harvard, please see Biosafety @ Harvard below.
4. Do you have any other ideas how to deal with safety issues that could be useful for future iGEM competitions? How could parts, devices and systems be made even safer through biosafety engineering?
   • In response to questions posed on the 2011 iGEM Safety Page, synthetic biology often seems to be perceived in the public eye as a double-edged sword. While advancements in synthetic biology hold many potential benefits, the risks—real or imagined—posed by many synthetic biology-based technologies can, and have, scared people away from investment in or application of such methods. Take for instance, gene therapy. While one school of thought holds that gene therapy is the foundation of a new wave of personalized pharmaceuticals that will revolutionize modern medicine, the same technologies employed in medical gene alterations raise new ethical questions: for instance, where do we draw the line between personalized medicine and personalized life? The potential to "customize" the genome, far-fetched or far-off as it may seem, opens another door in the already-complex realm of modern bioethics.

Biosafety @ Harvard

Harvard University Committee on Microbiological Safety, FAS Division: http://www.hms.harvard.edu/orsp/coms/Forms/FAS-Forms/FAS-forms.htm
(This division oversees undergraduate research—inlcuding our project—specifically)

Harvard Campus Services, Department of Biosafety: http://www.uos.harvard.edu/ehs/biosafety/
(Harvard's main biosafety page)