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From 2012.igem.org

Safety

In accordance with the iGEM guidelines all teams are asked to detail how they approached any issues of biological safety associated with their projects. The following questions and answers depict how our team did approach the topic of lab safety.

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

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

Our project does not raise any further safety issues for researcher, public or environmental safety. All team members are skilled in laboratory work and were briefed in potential health risks and hazards of the chemicals and equipment used, they where further introduced in the rules of good laboratory practice ([http://www.bfr.bund.de/de/gute_laborpraxis__glp_-258.html GLP]) by the officer of safety in our department. Chemicals are stored in corresponding flasks in separate lockers. All chemicals were stored and used according to their properties including H/R guidelines. Further on our team members are well trained in practical lab work by their university education and apprenticeship. To protect our lab workers, safety glasses and laboratory coats are always worn. Thus avoiding direct contact with harmful chemicals like arcylamide. To minimize potential health risks, the laboratory is always kept tidy and after each procedure containing microorganisms or genetic material potential contaminated surfaces are sterilized. The laboratory is consequently closed for public and people who are not instructed in rules of good practice for chemicals and genetics.

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?

Non of our BioBrick parts are known to cause any safety issues. In our labs we work with E.coli, S.cerevisiae and C.testosteron. They all are classified as non harmful and categorized in biosecurity stage S1 after the [http://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/gentsv/ GenTSV].

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?

The Technische Universität Darmstadt has it's own [http://www.intern.tu-darmstadt.de/dez_iv/sicherheit_gesundheit_1/iva_sicherheitgesundheit.de.jsp safety department], which is responsible for all safety issues concerning work and environment. Every laboratory at the TUD has it's own safety officer who ensure that all guidelines provided by the government are implemented. For our labs the safety officer Harald Kolmar and Heribert Warzecha are familiar with our project and gave us the allowance to work.

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?

In our labs not only the safety officers take care of the good practice guidelines, the whole team is involved to make sure that working is safe for everyone. Before starting with the experimental work concerns of safety and good practice are discussed in a group to make sure that everyone is informed about what and how the work should be done. Due to the human nature especially concerning routine work we implemented a system that mercilessly avenges any stupidity thus effectively reducing the risk of anything going wrong. Violation of the lab guidelines and GLP (e.g. forgotten do sterilized hands after work) is noted and punished by small amount of money that are deposited in the so called „Box of shame“. At the end of the iGEM competition we will spend the money on a BBQ. The person with the majority of perpetrations will have to carry the equipment.

For more information feel free to browse through the links featured in the iGEM safety section.