UT Dallas iGem 2011: Project Description

Tissue damage characterizes a range of medical conditions that can be particularly difficult to manage without restrictively risky or expensive intervention. The human body hosts a rich diversity of symbiotic microflora that provides a powerful engineering platform for synthetic bacterial systems. We aim to construct a probiotic solution that successfully interfaces with the immune system to facilitate localized tissue repair.

Safety Proposal

1. Would any of your project ideas raise safety issues in terms of researcher, public, or environmental safety?

Materials that pose a safety risk (i.e. cell cultures, ethidium bromide, UV transilluminator, etc) are handled according to standard lab safety protocol and Materials Safety Data Sheets. Materials containing safety hazards are disposed in separate containers with “biohazard” designations. Appropriate protective gear, such as gloves, is worn at all times. Our bacterial chassis, E. coli DH5α, is disabled to where it is nonpathogenic and cannot survive outside of lab conditions. In addition, all exposed counters are disinfected using 70% ethanol after each use of the lab. All lab equipment is thoroughly cleaned and autoclaved after use and access to the lab is limited by cardkey.

2. Do any of the new BioBrick parts (or devices) that you made this year raise any safety issues?

We are working with genes encoding known properties and utilized safety measures to ensure that biohazardous materials including antibiotic-resistant cells are contained within the lab and are appropriately disposed. Therefore, we assess that none of our planned parts raise safety issues.

3. Is there a local biosafety group, committee, or review board at your institution?

UT Dallas has an Institutional Biosafety Committee that manages all safety responsibilities under NIH “Guidelines for Research Involving Recombinant DNA Molecules”. Throughout the course of this work, we ensured that all lab activity respected safety measures.

4. 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 are engineering a suicide mechanism whose induction can be used to regulate the activity of cells harboring our BioBricks. Disseminating pertinent safety information through the Registry is a practical alternative to engineering biosafety measures into parts, devices and systems.

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