Team Safety Policy

The South African Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) act regulates all research and development with these organisms to ensure environmental, researcher and public safety. The legislation governs all activities with these microbes including their transport and work in the laboratory by researchers. The GMO Act has three main focuses guarding human, environmental and socioeconomic safety. As the Wits iGEM team, we work hard to ensure that our safety policy is aligned with our country’s GMO Act.

Researcher Safety

The organism used in this iGEM poject is a strain of E.coli which requires that biosafety level 1 guidelines are adhered to in the laboratory. Regulations of this biosafety level indicate that lab coats and gloves should be worn at all times while working with E. coli. The team implements these rules without exception.

Microbes are not the only dangers presented to our team when working in the laboratory. Some chemicals, such as ethidium bromide pose a risk to the biologists. When working with this chemical, gloves are worn and disposed of immediately after contact. The team also works with atrazine and theophylline (see later).