Team:Cambridge/Safety

Please use this page to answer the safety questions posed on the safety page.

Safety is of utmost importance during projects involving synthetic biology. Not only must the welfare of scientist and non-scientific staff within the department be considered, but also that of the wider community. It is therefore important that safety procedures are in place to minimise the risk of harm to both employees and the wider community.

This can be done in many ways, many of which are mostly common sense, but it is important to make certain that the whole team understands. Clear physical separation of 'wet' and 'dry' areas within the laboratory as well as the wearing of lab-coats and gloves during experiments are clearly requirements. However, many other areas must be addressed in order to ensure safety.

Project Approval

Before carrying out work with GM bacteria, the relevant risk assessment forms must be submitted to the Head of Group within the Department for approval.

Also, all workers intending to work with GMs must read and sign the Department's Code of Practice for working with genetically modified organisms.

The Cambridge Biosafety Group

The biological safety officer for our department is Dr Ed Tanner. An interdepartmental team, the Biosafety Group has reviewed our project brief and has passed our nominations for Hazard Class 1 for all members of the team to be able to work with Hazard Class 1 organisms in the plant sciences department which is itself an approved containment level one facility. This means that work can be carried out on open bench tops, but gloves and facial protections must be worn. We are cleared to work with relatively safe organisms such as non-pathogenic strains of E.coli.

Containment

Genetically modified material must not be allowed to leave the laboratory. While the likelihood of the strains of bacteria with which we will be working surviving in the wild is low, the environmental impact of such an event could be severe, and thus every reasonable precaution must be taken to prevent such an occurrence.

During the competition we shall only be working with the least severe containment level bacteria, Containment Level 1, meaning the bacteria with which we work are classified as being "unlikely to cause human disease".

On a more practical level, all items which have come into contact with hazardous material must be autoclaved before disposal, and lab-coats must not leave the laboratory. Gloves must be worn during experiments, both to protect the worker and to reduce the risk of contamination.

Waste Disposal

Disposing of equipment used for experimental purposes is a significant challenge, and detailed procedures are in place within the department in order to ensure the safe disposal of all equipment, or it's recycling where possible.

TODO: add flow chart of waste disposal. For reasons best know to the plansci department webmasters it's not available externally (i.e. check that it's OK for it to go on an external site.)

Autoclave

All reasonable measures must be taken to prevent the release of biological material from the department, and so all biological matter must be autoclaved before disposal.

fig 1.The Autoclave Room

fig 2. Barbara Landamore, demonstrating glassware ready for autoclaving

Glasses for autoclaving should be:

• Only partially filled: the solution will boil during autoclaving and hence expand
• Lidded (loosely) - gas must be able to escape (to prevent explosion)
• Labelled 'iGEM' so any problems can be reported back to us
• Left on the table to the right (see picture)
• Collected from the autoclaving room

Other equipment, e.g. petri dishes, should be bagged, labelled and placed in the yellow box to the right (see picture)

Items which are unsuitable for autoclaving (e.g. sharp pipette tips which could damage the autoclave bags) will not be autoclaved, but will be returned.