Biosafety Guidelines

Neither of our institutions (INSA Lyon and ENS Lyon) have a biosafety group. However, we have a general safety and health committee that deals, among others, with issue related to GMOs and that allowed their handling in the different institution, that has however not reviewed our project. All students follow a 4 hour general health and safety lecture, teaching how to handle chemical, biological and fire risks among others, completed by additional biosafety and lab training all along the year by the professors, in relation to their course. Our institutions do not have any specific biosafety rules and follow the general french laws on biosafety.

As far as the legal aspect is concerned, synthetic biology doesn’t have specific rules yet in France. As our bacteria are Genetically Modified Organisms, we are due to respect the general laws about the use of GMOs and ethics, which are relatively restrictive in France, based on the the precautionary principle. And even if synthetic biology doesn’t have a specific regulation nowadays, the French government begins to think about it. Indeed, a reflexion is on-going in the National Assembly to measure all the possibilities of Synthetic Biology and define what can be allowed and what should be forbidden. A first congress and public audition (Program) occurred in May. One of our instructors made the trip to the public audition. You can read the conclusions here.
To sum-up, it appears that Synthetic biology is a useful way to answer to future challenges. However, to avoid a miscomprehension from public like with the GMOs, it’s necessary to improve communication and education.

In industrial conditions, additional safety rules about handling radioactive material will need to be applied because of the accumulated radioactive cobalt in the bacteria : confinement, limitation of human exposure, storage in adapted radioactive waste containers ensuring that no cobalt escapes to the environment during its lifetime, control of the composition of the water liberated into the environment... These rules are already implemented.

Public and Environmental Safety For a Safer Genetic Engineering ?