Team:Bielefeld-Germany/Safety

From 2011.igem.org

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

The bacteria we are currently working with are defined as biosecurity stage 1 (S1). Our produced GMOs (genetically modified organisms) are therefore harmless to the user, mankind and the environment. Thus they are GRAS - generally regarded as safe. Further we are working in a biosecurity laboratory of the stage 1 (S1). There is no possible access for the public. Every person working in the lab is trained and instructed by the safety rules for laboratories S1.

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

No. All GMOs are S1 biosafety level. We did a risk assesement and know what kind of modulation we did on the GMOs. There are no risks of hazard or biological safety issues to mankind.

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

There is no specifical group. There is a safety and a desinfection officer at our institution who support our project.

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?

Every team must be aware of the risks that are based on the organisms they use. Risks that might arise by modyfing organisms have to estimated before. Maybe a general safety instruction, which can be downloaded from the igem.org page would be helpful to secure the research done in this competition. Moreover a list of risk organisms, with easy accessibility on the igem.safety page, would be a great benefit. Additional the safety page could be tidied up to ease the access to the key facts. Hence a small safety summary, like a checklist would be useful. Certainly, it has to be noticed that the safety of the project must be reviewed by the team performing the experiments.