Team:Wageningen UR/Safety/Four

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Latest revision as of 20:52, 21 September 2011

Building a Synchronized Oscillatory System

Biosafety and biosecurity considerations

Risks and benefits

Under Good Microbiological Practices the risk of working with the BioBrick system is rather small to the researcher. If the system was to be released into the surroundings, there is a low risk that it would enter a pathogenic host organism that relies on quorum sensing for its pathogenicity.

However, the potential effects have not yet been studied, so unforeseen hazards might turn up. Regarding the benefits, it is our opinion that a robust biological oscillator that could be integrated into more complex genetic circuits would be of great utility for more advanced synthetic biology applications; particularly related to cell synchronization. One could also envision the oscillator as a core component of a system sequentially performing highly specific enzymatic reactions.

Based on these considerations, we conclude that the potential benefits in successfully executing our project outweighs the estimated risks.

@@ Line 34: / Line 34: @@
 === Risks and benefits ===
-Under Good Microbiological Practices the risk of working with the BioBrick system is rather small to the worker. When the system would be released into the surroundings, there’s a small risk that it enters a pathogenic host organism that relies on quorum sensing in its pathogenicity.
+Under Good Microbiological Practices the risk of working with the BioBrick system is rather small to the researcher. If the system was to be released into the surroundings, there is a low risk that it would enter a pathogenic host organism that relies on quorum sensing for its pathogenicity.
-Though the effects can’t have been studied yet, so unforeseen hazards might turn up. A robust biological oscillator that could be integrated into more complex genetic circuits would be of great utility for more advanced synthetic biology applications, especially related to quorum sensing – while this ability also can be very useful. One can envision the oscillator as a core component of a system sequentially performing specific enzymatic reactions.
+However, the potential effects have not yet been studied, so unforeseen hazards might turn up. Regarding the benefits, it is our opinion that a robust biological oscillator that could be integrated into more complex genetic circuits would be of great utility for more advanced synthetic biology applications; particularly related to cell synchronization. One could also envision the oscillator as a core component of a system sequentially performing highly specific enzymatic reactions.
 Based on these considerations, we conclude that the potential benefits in successfully executing our project outweighs the estimated risks.
 }}