Team:KAIST-Korea/Human Practices/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 under standard laboratory safety guidelines. 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.

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. 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.

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.

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?

Although there is no organization in Korea that specializes in the safety issue of synthetic biology, 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 Safetyand Security Team approves of research that abides by the safety regulations which it enforces.

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.