Team:UC Davis/Safety

From 2011.igem.org

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Revision as of 18:30, 10 August 2011

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Criteria

View our judging criteria for iGEM 2011 here.

'''Would any of your project ideas raise safety issues in terms of: researcher safety, public safety, or environmental safety?'''
Our project raises few biological safety concerns with regard to researcher, public, or environmental safety. We are using standard parts from the registry which have been used by many teams and research labs, are included in the distribution every year and are known to be safe. We minimize the risk of public and environmental hazards by keeping any dangerous compounds contained within the lab in designated areas. All waste liquids that might contain cells from the bacterial strains we work with are bleached prior to proper disposal, and all contaminated plastic waste is autoclaved.

'''Do any of the new BioBrick parts (or devices) that you made this year raise any safety issues?'''
Our BioBrick parts pose little safety risk. As always, the use of antibiotic resistance in bacterial selection does introduce the possibility of spreading this resistance to bacterial populations outside of our lab. Because of this, we take care to ensure that there is as little transmittance as possible between our antibiotic resistant strains in the lab and bacteria populations in the local environment.

'''Is there a local biosafety group, committee, or review board at your institution?'''
Yes, there is a biosafety group here at UC Davis. Our lab is inspected regularly and has passed the safety tests each time.

'''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 that accountability and responsible engineering are key when designing a safe and effective system. Thorough testing is helpful in producing safe products, and our project involves a great amount of characterization of our constructs. Adding barcodes or other identifying features to DNA parts submitted from our lab to the registry could promote responsibility for parts and accountability for any future safety concerns, but great care should be taken to ensure that any DNA-based tags on parts do not affect their function.

@@ Line 17: / Line 17: @@
 <b>'''Would any of your project ideas raise safety issues in terms of: researcher safety, public safety, or environmental safety?'''</b>
 <br>
-Our project raises few biological safety concerns with regard to researcher, public, or environmental safety.  We are using standard parts from the registry which have been used by many teams and research labs, are included in the distribution every year and are known to be safe.  We minimize the risk of public and environmental hazards by keeping everything contained in lab.  Also, all of our parts contain antibiotic resistance plasmids, so the likelihood that foreign strains grow unintentionally is reduced.
+Our project raises few biological safety concerns with regard to researcher, public, or environmental safety.  We are using standard parts from the registry which have been used by many teams and research labs, are included in the distribution every year and are known to be safe.  We minimize the risk of public and environmental hazards by keeping any dangerous compounds contained within the lab in designated areas. All waste liquids that might contain cells from the bacterial strains we work with are bleached prior to proper disposal, and all contaminated plastic waste is autoclaved.
 <br><br>
 <b>'''Do any of the new BioBrick parts (or devices) that you made this year raise any safety issues?'''</b>
 <br>
-None of the parts or devices we have made raise any safety issues.  We are simply manipulating existing low-risk parts which should not raise any safety risks.
+Our BioBrick parts pose little safety risk. As always, the use of antibiotic resistance in bacterial selection does introduce the possibility of spreading this resistance to bacterial populations outside of our lab. Because of this, we take care to ensure that there is as little transmittance as possible between our antibiotic resistant strains in the lab and bacteria populations in the local environment.
 <br><br>
 <b>'''Is there a local biosafety group, committee, or review board at your institution?'''</b>
 <br>
-Yes, there is a biosafety group here at UC Davis.  Our lab is inspected and has passed the safety tests each time.  They are supportive of our project and recognize that this lab operates safely and responsibly.
+Yes, there is a biosafety group here at UC Davis.  Our lab is inspected regularly and has passed the safety tests each time.
 <br><br>
 <b>'''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?'''</b>
 <br>
-We think that accountability and responsible engineering are key when designing a safe and effective system.  Thorough testing and a good understanding of what you have made also can help to ensure that labs are producing safe products.  Other ideas such as adding a barcode or some sort of signature can also be a viable means to maintaining a reasonable amount of safety however, attention must be paid to the specific sequence so as to not affect the function of the part.
+We think that accountability and responsible engineering are key when designing a safe and effective system.  Thorough testing is helpful in producing safe products, and our project involves a great amount of characterization of our constructs.  Adding barcodes or other identifying features to DNA parts submitted from our lab to the registry could promote responsibility for parts and accountability for any future safety concerns, but great care should be taken to ensure that any DNA-based tags on parts do not affect their function.