Safety

From 2012.igem.org

Revision as of 13:48, 7 September 2012

Before answering these questions on your team Safety page, be sure to read the Safety in iGEM page. and the FAQ section below.

Key questions

For iGEM 2012, teams are asked to detail how they approached any issues of biological safety associated with their projects. Specifically, teams should consider the following questions:

Teams, please document any answers to these safety questions on your wiki safety page. Judges will be asked to evaluate your project, in part, on the basis of if and how you considered and addressed issues of biological safety. If any questions arise regarding iGEM and biological safety please send an email to safety AT igem.org.

Question 1: Why does iGEM ask teams to address safety questions and screen projects?

iGEM safety questions and screening procedures are designed:
*Ressearcher Safety
We have isolated and cultured the bacteria sample from landfill at Galuga, West Java Indonesia. To prevent contamination by some harmfull bacteria, we have followed the instruction of safety procedure, such as using sensigloves, mask, and washing hand after sampling. Hazardous chemicals that we used are aclrilamide and ethidium bromyde. Acrylamide (or acrylic amide) is a simple organic compound with the chemical formula C3H5NO. It’s potentially hazardous to health (cancer or carcinogenic). Acrylamide can form long polymer chains known as polyacrylamide, which is also carcinogenic. Inhalation: irritation, disorientation, burning, convulsions. Contact with skin: irritation, disorientation. Eye contact: irritation, a burning sensation of the eyes, eye damage. Ethidium bromide will reduce the rate of migration of linear DNA molecules by 15%. This solution is extremely dangerous and carcinogenic. All solutions which contained ethidium bromide should be decontaminated before disposal. Ethidium Bromide (EtBr) will fluoresce under UV exposure. These dyes can be added to the gel and buffer so there is no staining after electrophoresis process. The advantage is more practical, but the possibility of EtBr contamination is greater. Due to the carcinogenic factor, it must be avoided for direct contact.

*Public Safety
We have ethics to minimize the danger possibility to public. We usually wear single-used gloves, covered shoes, lab coat, and mask so the accumulation of materials and impurities are not exposed to participant directly. We have a liquid discharge valves which equipped with running water, so it won’t settle. We also have a separated solid waste disposal for potentially hazardous materials. Those ethics are rules in our work on this project.

*Environmental Safety
No harmful effect on our enzyme product. E. coli bacteria which inserted by Cutinase gene has been set for its life period by sonicator so there’ll no blooming act in nature. Destruction of PET by using our products is done at indoor laboratory so the waste does not impact to the environment directly. The enzyme does not cause further effect especially for chemical / physical danger.No harmful effect on our enzyme product. E. coli bacteria which inserted by Cutinase gene has been set for its life period by sonicator so there’ll no blooming act in nature. Destruction of PET by using our products is done at indoor laboratory so the waste does not impact to the environment directly. The enzyme does not cause further effect especially for chemical / physical danger.

FAQ

Question 2: How does this work? Does anyone actually read answers to safety questions and review project wikis?

Members of the iGEM Safety Committee and Graduate Safety Screeners review all safety pages and project wikis for consistency, identify potential safety issues and contact iGEM teams and external advisors if additional information is needed. Teams may be disqualified if they do not demonstrate that their projects are safe.

iGEM Safety Committee:

• Todd Kuiken, Synthetic Biology Project, Woodrow Wilson Center, Smithsonian Institution;
• Piers Millett, UN Biological Weapons Convention, Implementation Support Unit, Geneva;
• Kenneth Oye, Engineering Systems and Political Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology;
• Megan Palmer, Deputy Director, Practices, NSF Synthetic Biology ERC, Stanford University;
• Sam Yu, Biosafety Officer, Hong Kong University of Technology, Clearwater Bay, Hong Kong

Graduate Safety Screeners:

• Shlomiya Bar-Yam, MIT,
• Julie MacNamara, MIT,
• Ralph Donald Turlington, MIT

External Consultants:

• Rocco Casagrande, Gryphon, former Director UNMOVIC Biological Lab;
• George Church, Harvard Medical;
• Chan-Wha Kim, President Asia-Pacific Biosafety Association and Korea University;
• Michael Imperiale, U Michigan Medical and NSABB; Allen Lin, Cambridge University;
• Scott Mohr, Chemistry, Boston University;
• Pamela Silver, Harvard Medical

Question 3: We need clarification on the safety questions. Would you please provide guidance on each iGEM safety question?

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

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

Guidance:

There are three recommended steps in addressing this question.

1. To start, please list organisms you are using and organisms from which your parts are derived, indicating the risk group or biosafety level for each. For help, see Table 1 and 2 of the [http://www.who.int/csr/resources/publications/biosafety/Biosafety7.pdf World Health Organization (WHO) Laboratory Biosafety Manual]. You are welcome to use your national standards if you prefer. If national standards do not use the WHO 1-4 scale, please provide a link to an explanation of your standards.
2. Then consider risks to team members, publics and environment if the project goes according to plan. Please describe risks posed by lab equipment and chemicals as well as biological parts and organisms. How are you addressing these issues in project design and lab work? Have you received biosafety training and other laboratory safety training? If so, please briefly describe the training.
3. Then consider risks to team members, publics and environment if the project does not go according to plan. What are risks if safety measures such as containment procedures go wrong and organisms or parts are released? What are risks to security from malicious misuse? How are you addressing such risks?

2. Do any of the new BioBrick parts (or devices) that you made this year raise 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?

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?

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?

To ensure the biosafety, it will be more certified for documents which related materials provided to the participants. Each institution must have own fire fighters and integrates directly with the center of fire fighters and the local police. iGEM is required to add a safety tool for iGEM participants in the DNA kit. To minimize hazardous chemicals, so far the equipment that is used is fairly easy to control these biosafety. The system is recommended to used, better security, is an safety accordance, such as safety SOP, JSA (Job Safety Analyst).