Safety

For iGEM 2011 teams are asked to detail how they approached any issues of biological safety associated with their projects. Specifically, teams should consider the following questions:

Q1. Would any of your project ideas raise safety issues in terms of researcher safety, public safety or environmental safety ?

A1. No, our project ideas do not raise any safety issue in terms of researcher safety, public safety or environmental safety. All the experiments are carried out in the lab, they are safe for the researcher and the environment, and they do not have any impact outside the lab.

Q2. 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?

A2.No, none of the BioBricks parts (or devices) that we have made this year raises any safety issue, they are all BL1 and BL2.

Q3. 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?

A3. Yes there is. The biosafety committee of our organization accepted part of our applications. The other part of the applications is going to be evaluated. After all of our applications have been accepted, we will start wet experiments.

Q4. 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?

A4. We think is a good idea to use review sheets to have information about the parts. These review sheets can be made in collaboration with the local biosafety group.

Q5. Isn't isoprene you used in the project harmful to human or E. coli ?

A5. No, isoprene is not harmful to E. coli or human unless being inhaled over 0.19 mg/L(59 mg/kg).The amount of isoprene produced by our E. coli is 0.04 mg/batch-L and it is too small to have influence on human and E. coli. There is some reports that isoperene might have chance to be carcinogenic, but the chance is as higher as that of coffeic acid.