Team:Wageningen UR/Safety/Four

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(Biosafety and biosecurity considerations)
(Biosafety and biosecurity considerations)
 
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=== Risks and benefits ===
=== Risks and benefits ===
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Under Good Microbiological Practices the risk of working with the BioBrick system is rather small to the researcher. If the system were 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.
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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.
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.

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.