Team:HIT-Harbin/Safety

From 2012.igem.org

Latest revision as of 13:57, 27 August 2012

1.Would any of your parts or project ideas raise safety issues?
A. Risks to the safety and health of team members or others in the lab?
B. Risks to the safety and health of the general public if released by design or accident?
C. Risks to environmental quality if released by design or accident?
D. Risks to security through malicious misuse by individuals, groups or states?
No, our project didn’t raise any safety issues. All the parts, bacteria (E. coli) and instruments that we use in our lab are harmless to humans and the environment under normal conditions. Once we finished our experiment, all wares we used would be sterilized in high temperature, then we discard waste in waste bins designated for our iGEM lab, and we would wear gloves when we washed wares.

2.Do any of the new BioBrick parts (or devices) that you made this year raise any safety issues?
None of the new BioBrick parts we made this year would raise any safety issue according to our current profession context.

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?
A Does your institution have its own biosafety rules?
B. Does your institution have an Institutional Biosafety Committee? Have you discussed your project with them?
C. Did you receive any biosafety and/or lab training before beginning your project?
D. Does your country have national biosafety regulations or guidelines?
Yes. Both our institution and the state government have committees that establish guidelines and policies on biosafety. Evaluation of biosafety in research laboratories are regularly carried out, including evaluation of research proposals that may determine whether grants are given, as well as monitoring of experimental procedures in the laboratories to ensure that they meet the standards of biosafety.
To learn more about PR China's administrations and regulations concerning biosafety, please click the following links:
National Biosafety Office, Ministry of Environmental Protection, PR China
This website lists policies, regulations and contracts on ensuring safe research in biology and publishes latest domestic and international news on biosafety.
Biosafety regulation on pathogenic microbes, PR China
This webpage declares rules and policies established by the State Department that regulates laboratory management regarding pathogenic microbes, including classification of pathogenic microbes, respective treatments and control of laboratory infection.

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?
The collaboration and experience sharing among teams is important. Also, workshops held in each year could invite professors specialized in bio-security to introduce the latest technologies and developments on securities issues.
We think of three useful steps as following to make parts, devices and systems even safer: Firstly, every lab should have strict disciplines. Secondly, parts, devices or systems should be added with a label, such as fluorescent label, so that we can easily track them. Thirdly, suicide system should be applied into engineered bacteria, and so engineered bacteria would kill themselves once they are out of control.