Team:Bordeaux/Safety

iGEM - Bordeaux - Safety

The Bordeaux team is really concerned about safety of the team members and of the environment. Here is the description of all the decisions made in order to lead our project in a safe way.

General safety

Our experiments were led in the lab of Denis Dupuy, located in the IECB (European Institute of Chemistry and Biology) among other labs and team. The lab has obtained all the authorizations to work with genetically modified organisms as demanded by the French and European laws.

Everyone must were a lab coat when in the lab. Enough lab coats were available for this purpose. If necessary, gloves (latex or nitril) and glasses were available to fully protect the operator. In addition, an extractor hood is located inside the lab to use harmful powders. Here it was used to prepare the chloramphenicol solution and gel with ethidium bromide. Thick gloves are available to work with either very hot or very cold materials to protect the operator from burning.

It is forbidden to bring any food or drinks in the lab.

A room is dedicated to the manipulation of bacteria. The manipulations were done in this room under another extractor hood. The incubators are also located in this room so no one has to carry cultures in and out of the room.

It is forbidden to work isolated and outside the presence hours (Monday to Friday: 7a.m to 8p.m). Each team member was given a card to access the lab during these hours.

All team members have been given a copy of the safety rules of the IECB. The emergency exits are always opened and were shown to any new member of the team. In case of alarm, everyone has to go out by the closest exit. People are in charge of checking that no one is left inside the building, so it is not an individual responsibility to check for anyone else. If someone is hurt, burnt or sick, the security center is in charge of taking care of the problem and give first aid. The phone number of the security center is written above the phone and on the doors. It is advisable to record this phone number in the mobile phone memory.

All safety rules about working in a laboratory and how to behave in case of accident are posted on the walls and the doors.

Benches must be cleaned before and after conducting an experiment. The material used has to be cleaned. Any waste is eliminated in the right way: biological waste goes in a special bin, chemical waste in another one; glass and broken glassware are collected separately. Unused cultures are added bleach and left for an hour before elimination. For liquids containing chemicals they are either filtered or collected for special treatment. As we also care for the environment, paper and cardboard are separated from other waste and recycled.

Safety related to the iGEM project

Our project relies on working with DH5α strains of Escherichia coli. These bacteria are genetically modified and thus resistant to some antibiotics. Then we must be careful about not releasing it in to the environment. The unused cultures or remains have to be inactivated with bleach.

The operator is advised to wear gloves and wash hands afterwards.

The project aims at creating a communication path between cells. The communication will be seen thanks to the expression of different colors, depending on the location of the bacteria in the plate. Thus, our transgenic bacteria are not meant to be used in any applications, so it raises no safety issues in terms of public safety.

To make this work, we used genes from bacteria mainly from quorum sensing. The colors will be generated by proteins which are not dangerous (GFP, mCherry). Thus, even if our bacteria should mutate or not work as expected, no harmful molecules could be released.

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