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Does your institution have its own biosafety rules and if so what are they?
Wageningen UR has its own biosafety rules that can be found on [http://www.wageningenuniversity.nl/UK/informationfor/Current+students/Student+information/healthsafety/Laboratory+general/?wbc_purpose=basic#basic this page].
Did you receive any biosafety and/or lab training before beginning your project?
Next to the biosafety rules from Wageningen UR, techniques for working aseptically to perform Good Microbial Practices are generally learned in a Microbiology introductory course.
Does your institution have an Institutional Biosafety Committee or equivalent group?
Instead of having a Biosafety Board at Wageningen UR, all chair groups of the institution have their own Biosafety officer(s) (Biologische veiligheidsfunctionaris[sen] in Dutch). We have discussed our project with Hauke Smidt, the Biosafety officer for our project. The Biosafety Clearing House of the Netherlands handles licenses for genetic modifications, which have to be requested. Hauke Smidt was the Biosafety officer that looked to our project and has subscribed it to the Bacterial Genetics license. We could approach him if there would be any questions. The Law on Environmental Management notes especially the actions that should be taken in case the environment gets into contact with genetically modified organisms. These actions are stated generally. If this occasion would appear, we are responsible to do everything in our ability to solve the problem. This means we should inform the Biosafety officer, which then will inform the license holder, that again informs our Minister and environmental agencies for thoroughly sterilization. To provide directly available information to the Minister, furthermore, there’s a document with information about the micro-organism that is used and a safety assessment of the project.
Although our team did not choose to design constructs in order to help and to be present in the environment, we would like to notify that such a genetic modified organism might be approved under European legislation. The presence of a genetically modified organism in the environment can be allowed under several conditions. According to Eur-Lex Home states that an environmental impact assessment would have to be made and safety and emergency measures have to be documented well (2001). Eur-Lex Home moreover indicates that an accredited Dutch institution would have to approve the introduction (2001). Finally, Eur-Lex Home stresses that each case would have to be treated separately (2001). Thus, introducing a potentially beneficial BioBrick system or device that should be beneficial to the environment is not restricted by all means, but the application can be laboreous.
