Team:KAIST-Korea/Safety

Safety Issues

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

Researcher safety

All of our protocols and experiments were conducted in the laboratory of Biosafety level 2 under the supervision of Dr. Im and Dr. Cho, both professors at the department of biological science at KAIST. We used standardized equipment and kits routinely used in transformation, amplification, polymerase-chain-reaction, mini-preparation, and incubation. Because we used non-pathogenic strain of E. coli, namely the TOP10 (BBa_V1009), we worked on clean benches of Biological Safety Cabinet class II A2.

Not only are researchers aware of the dangers of accidents that may occur in the laboratory but they are also trained to take standard safety procedures to prevent them and to handle them if they may occur. Standard precautions such as sterilizing hands were taken before and after each procedure. Specifically, we used the RedSafe DNA stain instead of ethidium bromide in conducting gel electrophoresis.

Wastes were disposed in biohazard waste bins.

Public safety

Our project utilizes the random expression of four inducers and four subsequent reporter fluorescent proteins. These genes are not dangerous to the public. The cells used for engineering are harmless strains of E. coli. Because all procedures were conducted exclusively in laboratories designated for the purpose of synthetic biology, the public cannot possibly come in contact with the genetically engineered bacteria that we produce. Thus, the engineered cells pose no evident danger to the public safety.

Environmental safety

To prevent the spread of our engineered E. coli and potential chemical leaks, chemicals, bacteria, and other potential biohazards were disposed as biohazard waste. Bacteria and media containing bacteria were bleached before disposal. We determined that the genetically modified E. coli that we produce cannot possibly harm the environment even if it were to leak into the environment because (1) we use a non-pathogenic strain of E. coli, and (2) the major products of our engineered bacteria, quorum and fluorescent proteins, pose no threat to the environment in any direct way.

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?

Every component of our new biobricks came from the iGEM 2011 distribution kit. The components thereof are guaranteed to be safe, which we confirmed by browsing each one of them in the parts registry.

Our system consists of two components; the random event generator and the color generator. The random event generator is composed of two vectors that work together to produce Cre, CinI, LasI, LuxI, RhlI, all of which are proteins harmless to the body and the environment. The color generator produces fluorescent proteins in response to quorum molecules. And as all of us know, fluorescent proteins and quorum are harmless. The safety of our system is again confirmed through the fact that the system occurs naturally in bacteria.

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? If no, which specific biosafety rules or guidelines do you have to consider in your country?

Because synthetic biology is not researched as extensively in Korea as in other countries, there is no official organization in Korea that specializes in the safety issue specific to it yet. Instead, all researchers dealing with synthetic biology are subject to regulations set forth by the Ministry of Knowledge Economy with regards to Living Modified Organism, which prohibits unrestrained proliferation of genetically engineered organism into the environment as well as other activities detrimental to the environment and the public as deemed by the ministry. Because our laboratory has been approved by this governance, we are abiding the guidelines set forth in the country.

Also, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology has a Safety and Security Team which is in charge of making KAIST a safe environment for study and research. The Safety and Security Team approves of research that abides by the safety regulations which it enforces.

Waste management guidance provided by KAIST safety and security team

Refer to the site: [http://www.biosafety.or.kr/english/laws/The%20Act%20on%20Trans-boundary%20Movements%20of%20Living%20Modified%20Organisms.pdf Relevant domestic law on LMO (translated in English)]

Refer to the site: [http://safety.kaist.ac.kr/english/main/index.php KAIST Safety and Security Team]

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?

We think the best way to deal with safety issues is to encourage all iGEM teams to contribute in making one solid safety standard and make it official. This way, judges can grade the biosafety issues of the participating teams and perhaps give out awards to the teams that best meet this safety standard. Also, lectures related to safety issues can help ensure the enforcement of rules and requirements put forth by this official standard.

Also, it would be better to publish more safety issues on the web for all future iGEM teams. It would also be great if the safety issue pages of all iGEM teams are compiled and organized in a web-page and/or PDF file so that even students participating in the iGEM competition for the first time can start thinking about safety issues at the onset of the preparation.

In the field of architecture and mechanical engineering, some programs help users visualize the potential hazard.

We believe that synthetic biology could be done safer with the implementation of software that considers a given combination of BioBricks that the researcher intends to use and alerts him or her of the threats, direct and potential. For example, in the field of architecture and mechanical engineering, there are programs that help construct a computer model of a building or a machine and subject it to stress analysis to notify the architect or the mechanical engineer of any potential hazards that can occur. This can be done in many ways, including the traditional approach of using [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Event_tree event tree analysis] or [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fault_tree_analysis fault tree analysis]. Someone familiar with synthetic biology could work together with a computer scientist to come up with such software. He or she need only to come up with a list of possibilities of events that can occur with synthetic biology, such as mutation or contamination from an outside source. By using such programs, researchers can visualize the potential harm in his or her genetic circuit even before experimentation begins.

It has been the goal of synthetic biologists to make synthetic biology more accessible to new practitioners while minimizing the potential to harm the environment and the public. Not only is the creation of such software congruent with the de-skilling agenda proposed by synthetic biologists, but also it opens up the future for a safer synthetic biology.