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From 2011.igem.org

Safety proposal

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1. Would any of your project ideas raise safety issues in terms of:

   • researcher safety,
   • public safety, or
   • environmental safety?

   Our Project works with bacteria (Escherichia coli) as a biosensor and it does not mean a biological risk to plants, animals or human beings.

   With a fully-characterized recombinant organism (a clone of E. coli K12, for instance), there is no reason to think that the hazard will be any more than indicated by the insert and its product. The risk assessment will then simply be a consideration of the extent of expression of the insert and the chance of damage caused by the product of such expression. (Tzotzos, 1995)

   The microorganism that we will be working with is a microorganism that belongs to Hazard Group 1 which means is unlikely to cause a human disease, and so we can say we are working in Biosafety level 1.

2. 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?

   Our new biobricks are devices created to stop and regulate the expression of non-essential genes. This means that they do not represent a risk due to the incapability they have to interfere with normal cell functions.

   They do not require a toxic component to operate and are designed to be implemented in an a bacterial environment that can be considered safe for humans and that is easily controlled.

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

   • If yes, what does your local biosafety group think about your project?
   • If no, which specific biosafety rules or guidelines do you have to consider in your country?

   Our college has no committee or biosafety group to guide us. Nevertheless, our advisors are very well qualified in such matters. They have taught us the usage of laboratory manuals and how to work safely at the laboratory.

   In Mexico, we have two main institutes in charge of biosecurity:

   • InDRE (Instituto de Diagnóstico y Referencia Epidemiológicos)
   • CIBIOGEM (Comisión Intersecretarial de Bioseguridad de los Organismos Genéticamente Modificados)

   However, the InDRE does not produce enough manuals and information, and CIBIOGEM is a new and developing institute incapable of providing us with mentoring. We decided to base our laboratory practices in accordance to : World Health Organization (WHO) Laboratory Biosafety Manuals and the US government CDC manuals.

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?

   Many countries do not have proper biosafety protocols and although many teams have not engaged in risky projects, as the competition evolves and more BioBricks become available to future teams the complexities and hazards involved in the design of biomachines will increase; therefore this problem will gain even more significance. Preparedness is essential.

   Considering this we came to think it would useful or even necessary to create a committee of biosafety for the iGEM competition that regulates all the procedures in the laboratory. This safety protocols would be created by the iGEM community and would be enforced by competing teams.

   The development of this idea could help to every competing team that doesn’t count with a biosafety supervisor to provide a path to follow regarding the biosafety of the environment, the public and themselves.