"

From 2011.igem.org

• Home
  Main What is iGEM?
• Project
  Overview Ethanol Sensor Alkane Sensor Microcompartment
• Team
  Members Faculty Sponsors
• Notebook
  Protocols Calender Experiment References
• Outreach
  Science Olympiad REU Poster Session Social Media Presentations
• Safety

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Safety Q&A

Would any of your project ideas raise safety issues in terms of: researcher safety, public safety, or environmental safety?
The only organism we use in our lab is E. coli, strain DH10B. We follow standard BSL1 protocols to work with it, and any recombinant strains we produce. We have needed to extract genomic DNA from other organisms during the course of our research. When necessary, we have used the lab of our advisor, which is BSL2 rated. As with all recombinant DNA, our project should not, without proper extensive testing, be exposed to the environment or public.

Do any of the new BioBrick parts (or devices) that you made this year raise any safety issues? If yes, did you document these issues in the Registry? How did you manage to handle the safety issue? How could other teams learn from your experience?
All the parts we plan on producing involve better sensing of certain biofuel molecules. These parts will have no inherent safety issues, but should of course be used with caution when being paired with parts that do have risks associated. By only creating parts dealing with inputs, we run no added risk of producing dangerous compounds.

Is there a local biosafety group, committee, or review board at your institution? What do they think of your project? The Office of Biological Safety (OBS) in the Department of Environment, Health, and Safety at the UW-Madison runs a biological safety course which was mandatory for all iGEM participants. Beyond adhering to all guidelines established in this, we have not further discussed project specifics with the OBS.

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? Maintaining best practices established by biosafety committees is always useful, but there are even more interesting options that could be useful for broader synthetic biology safety down the road. For example, making engineered organisms dependent on non-standard nucleotides or amino acids which are only provided in a laboratory setting could help prevent the accidental release of recombinant organisms.

Safety Statement

"The attitudes and actions of those who work in the laboratory determine their own safety, and that of their colleagues and of the community. Laboratory equipment and design can contribute to safety only if they are used properly by people who are genuinely concerned and knowledgeable about safety issues." If scientists in this new field want to reach for the sky, they must first pull themselves from the underground, for they have the World to prove to us. xsadsa

ff

sdf

adf dfdsfs

dsfsdfs