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From 2011.igem.org

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Safety

Would any of your project ideas raise safety issues in terms of: researcher safety, public safety, or environmental safety?

Researcher Safety:This summer, the Duke iGEM team’s work largely consisted of building and testing gene networks in E. Coli Bacterium. Although the biological and chemical reagents used were fairly standard, proper safety precautions were practiced at all times when handling these reagents. Nitrile gloves were used at all times when handling reagents and all disposable lab equipment which came in contact with E. Coli plates, such as pipette tips and spreaders, were disposed of in the appropriate containers and autoclaved. In addition, researchers were required to wash their hands with soap both before and after lab work in order to both avoid contaminating bacterial plates and picking up stray bacteria (even though the e. coli strains were non-pathogenic). Since high school students were also a part of the team this year, special care was taken to train them in proper lab safety technique prior to research through Duke’s own General Laboratory Training program for working in a BL1 Lab.

Public Safety/Environmental Safety: Although, the E. Coli strains grown were non-pathogenic special care was taken to kill off any bacteria prior to disposing of bacterial plates. Special care was given when disposing of bacteria that had been selected for using antibiotic resistance; these plates were first treated with an alconox solution before being autoclaved to ensure elimination of resistant bacteria. In addition, the biobrick parts created did not code for anything toxic, infectious, or pathological, so there were no issues regarding safety to the public, accidental environmental release or malicious intent.

Do any of the new BioBrick parts (or devices) that you made this year raise any safety issues? If yes, did you document these issues in the Registry? how did you manage to handle the safety issue? how could other teams learn from your experience?

The BioBrick parts created by the Duke iGEM team this year were primarily to increase the robustness of bacterial gene networks. Subsequently, none of the parts created coded for anything toxic, infectious, or pathological in E. Coli. These parts have no major purpose outside of bolstering the functionality of gene networks and so do not pose a threat to the public or environment.

Is there a local biosafety group, committee, or review board at your institution? If yes, what does your local biosafety group think about your project?

Duke University has an in house review board for projects of this nature which can be found at http://www.safety.duke.edu/BioSafety/ibc.htm . In addition, the High School students have their own Student Research Committee at their home high school which approves all student research projects that approved their project prior to their summer work. All students worked in a BL1 lab for the duration of this project and received the Duke mandated general laboratory training for working in a BL1 lab.

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?

The Duke iGEM team is committed to creating a safe environment for synthetic biology and engineering. As such, we have been trying to reach out to local high school students to educate them about both the benefits and potential dangers of synthetic biology. We plan on continuing to offer spots on the Duke iGEM team to interested and motivated high school students from the North Carolina School of Science and Math (a local high school) as well as other area schools. In addition, we plan on supplementing the basic Duke General Laboratory Safety Training with more hands-on training sessions on standard lab techniques and safety precautions led by veteran iGEM team members.

Although the parts created by our team this year were relatively safe, we believe that additional information about the functionality and uses of some parts could be helpful in maintaining safety standards. A great deal of parts in the biobrick registry are lacking in characterization information about potential functionalities, and the descriptions given for many parts and their potential uses are often vague.