Team:UC Davis/Safety

From 2011.igem.org

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<font size="6" color="#bb66ff">Environmental Safety</font><br><br>
<font size="6" color="#bb66ff">Environmental Safety</font><br><br>
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As in any form of biological engineering, there is a risk that our new strains could be introduced into the environment. Even in the unlikely event that this happens, our strains of E. coli would do no harm to the surrounding ecosystem.  First, our strain is non-pathogenic which means all persons in the surrounding area are completely safe from disease.  Next, it is highly improbable that our strains would grow at all in the soil or local vegetation given that growing them in the lab with the ideal conditions of temperature and abundant nutrients is not always trivial!  If somehow our strains got into the environment, found ideal conditions and grew, the engineered plasmids would not offer any selective advantage to the cells and would most likely be kicked out by the cells. The only possible advantage would be a resistance to carbenicillin since it is used as a selective marker in lab, but this resistance would offer no significant selective advantage in the wild. Additionally, we autoclave and often bleach any lab materials that were used with cells before disposing of them. This also helps to ensure that our strains are not introduced into the environment.    
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All parts in the BioBrick system are placed into backbones containing antibiotic resistance genes which aid in the culture and selection of bacterial strains during the culturing process. These genes pose some risk to the environment in that there is a possibility that they could be transferred to local bacterial populations. For this to occur, strains containing antibiotic resistance genes would need to escape the controlled environment of our lab and to survive and grow. We take protective measures to prevent this from happening: all plastic materials that come in contact with bacterial strains are autoclaved thoroughly prior to proper biomedical waste disposal. All liquids that might contain resistant cells are bleached before disposal. Lab workers do not wear gloves when outside the lab to avoid transmission of these bacteria to other parts of the facility.
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If somehow our strains were introduced into the outside environment, it is unlikely that they would do serious damage. The antibiotic resistance genes offer very little selection advantage outside of a laboratory setting, and it is unlikely that strains would out-compete other bacterial strains. Our strains contain no islands of pathogenicity or other genes that would cause them to pose a threat to animal or plant populations outside of the lab.
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<font size="6" color="#bb66ff">Public Safety</font><br><br>
<font size="6" color="#bb66ff">Public Safety</font><br><br>
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Our project poses no public safety concerns. The strains of E. coli we work with are non-pathogenic and well characterizedWe are at no risk of releasing any toxins, dangerous chemicals or starting an epidemicWe work in a closed lab which is not accessible to the public and nothing from lab is taken outside without proper containment.    
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Our project poses no more public safety concerns than any other iGEM project. The strains of E. coli we work with are non-pathogenic and considered safe, standard laboratory organisms. They do not possess any resistance to antibiotics not conferred by BioBrick backbonesParts included in our constructs do not code for any toxins that would pose a threat to local flora, fauna, or peopleOur lab is not accessible to the public, and no materials are removed from lab without proper containment.
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<font size="6" color="#bb66ff">Researcher Safety</font><br><br>
<font size="6" color="#bb66ff">Researcher Safety</font><br><br>
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We take personal safety very seriously. Every member must sign safety forms after being familiarized with general lab safety equipment such as eyewash stations, showers, spill cleanup kits, and chemical safety.  We work in a clean lab where all hazardous materials are clearly marked and contained and we always wear gloves and closed toed shoes when working at the bench. We       
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All personnel working in our lab are familiarized with our safety protocol regarding hazardous chemicals, biological waste, and mechanical hazards around the lab. They are required to sign safety forms to acknowledge their understanding of safety procedures and expectations. They are familiarized with lab safety equipment such as eyewash stations, emergency showers, spill cleanup kits, and first aid kits.  
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Our lab is kept clean, with minimal clutter on lab benches. This reduces the risk of chemical spillage and fire. When possible, we take effort to use chemicals that pose low risk to our researchers. For example, instead of using Ethidium Bromide to stain our gels, we use an alternative called SyberSAFE that poses much lower health risks. When dangerous chemicals must be used, we have several fume hoods available to researchers to minimize aerosol exposure, and designated containment areas for flammable, corrosive, and otherwise hazardous reagents. Researchers are required to wear face and eye protection, a labcoat to minimize skin exposure, and rubber gloves whenever working with ultraviolet light.
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Yes, there is a biosafety group here at UC Davis.  Our lab is inspected regularly and has passed the safety tests each time.
 
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We think that accountability and responsible engineering are key when designing a safe and effective system.  Thorough testing is helpful in producing safe products, and our project involves a great amount of characterization of our constructs.  Adding barcodes or other identifying features to DNA parts submitted from our lab to the registry could promote responsibility for parts and accountability for any future safety concerns, but great care should be taken to ensure that any DNA-based tags on parts do not affect their function.
 
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Revision as of 23:32, 17 August 2011

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Criteria

View our judging criteria for iGEM 2011 here.

Safety Questionnaire

1.Would any of your project ideas raise safety issues in terms of:
  • Researcher safety? No
  • Public safety? No
  • Environmental safety? No

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?
  • None of our parts raise any more safety concern than other parts in the registry. All BioBrick parts in backbones contain antibiotic resistance genes, which always confer some risk of environmental contamination if released into the local bacterial population. If we discover that any part used in our project is potentially dangerous, we will note it on the Registry page and take extra precaution when handling strains of bacteria containing constructs which include said part.

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?
  • Our laboratory facility has a health and safety officer who performs regular inspections of all the labs in the building. The facility in which we work is a designated center for biomedical and genetic research. Because of this, the materials and techniques used by the iGEM team follow pre-existing health and safety standards covered by our parent lab, which are already approved by local safety personnel.

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?
  • We think that proper testing and characterization of each part is important to understanding the risk it might pose to researchers or the environment. A primary focus of our project is on the detailed characterization of parts: this will not only help us understand how the parts will work under various conditions, but should also reveal any potential safety concerns. Responsibility for providing details about the safety concerns for a given part should fall first on the team responsible for submitting it to the registry. A greater emphasis on teams submitting well-characterized parts would not only allow said parts to be used more efficiently, it would also reduce the risk of unsafe parts being widely distributed without the risks of their use being well-known.

Environmental Safety

All parts in the BioBrick system are placed into backbones containing antibiotic resistance genes which aid in the culture and selection of bacterial strains during the culturing process. These genes pose some risk to the environment in that there is a possibility that they could be transferred to local bacterial populations. For this to occur, strains containing antibiotic resistance genes would need to escape the controlled environment of our lab and to survive and grow. We take protective measures to prevent this from happening: all plastic materials that come in contact with bacterial strains are autoclaved thoroughly prior to proper biomedical waste disposal. All liquids that might contain resistant cells are bleached before disposal. Lab workers do not wear gloves when outside the lab to avoid transmission of these bacteria to other parts of the facility. If somehow our strains were introduced into the outside environment, it is unlikely that they would do serious damage. The antibiotic resistance genes offer very little selection advantage outside of a laboratory setting, and it is unlikely that strains would out-compete other bacterial strains. Our strains contain no islands of pathogenicity or other genes that would cause them to pose a threat to animal or plant populations outside of the lab.
Public Safety

Our project poses no more public safety concerns than any other iGEM project. The strains of E. coli we work with are non-pathogenic and considered safe, standard laboratory organisms. They do not possess any resistance to antibiotics not conferred by BioBrick backbones. Parts included in our constructs do not code for any toxins that would pose a threat to local flora, fauna, or people. Our lab is not accessible to the public, and no materials are removed from lab without proper containment.
Researcher Safety

All personnel working in our lab are familiarized with our safety protocol regarding hazardous chemicals, biological waste, and mechanical hazards around the lab. They are required to sign safety forms to acknowledge their understanding of safety procedures and expectations. They are familiarized with lab safety equipment such as eyewash stations, emergency showers, spill cleanup kits, and first aid kits. Our lab is kept clean, with minimal clutter on lab benches. This reduces the risk of chemical spillage and fire. When possible, we take effort to use chemicals that pose low risk to our researchers. For example, instead of using Ethidium Bromide to stain our gels, we use an alternative called SyberSAFE that poses much lower health risks. When dangerous chemicals must be used, we have several fume hoods available to researchers to minimize aerosol exposure, and designated containment areas for flammable, corrosive, and otherwise hazardous reagents. Researchers are required to wear face and eye protection, a labcoat to minimize skin exposure, and rubber gloves whenever working with ultraviolet light.