Safety of our project

This year, we aimed to produce isobutanol with modified E.coli by synthetic biology approach. Our chassis, E.coli, has been generally used in many biological experiments and is classified under biosafety level 1 and most acceptable bacteria strain. Therefore, if we follow the standard procedure during experiment, we will be very safe. As to our final product, isobutanol has already been used in lots of purposes. For example, the ingredient of organic solvent, the reactant of organic mechanism, or antifreeze and so on are all widely applied to people’s life. So, we may not have to worry about the safety of isobutanol we produced. Moreover, according to many researches, we found that the E.coli used to produce isobutanol always died because of the rising concentration of isobutanol. That is one of the advantages of our modified E.coli that causing Biosafety issue of environment will be prevented. What’s more, if we want to apply our project to industry, we can make use of fermentation tanks to produce large number of isobutanol in a safe and widely used way. Last but not least, everything which has something to do with bacteria after we used will be sterilized and decontaminated before we reuse or dispose them. In conclusion, we have confidence that our project will not raise any Biosafety issue indeed.

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

　researcher safety

No, all our team members follow the basic lab safety rules strictly and were trained properly before we carry out our project. As long as we conduct an experiment, gloves, laboratory coats and protective eyewear should be worn to prevent our hands, eyes or clothes from contacting with microorganism or chemical materials. Besides, our team chose Escherichia coli, which is non-pathogenic and very general resident of the natural gut flora found in humans, as our chassis. Therefore, we have confidence that everyone who participates in this project can work under safe circumstances.

　public safety

No, the places where we work and practice have good surveillance. Any unintended person without specific admission will not have access to our workplace. On the other side, all practices with live E.coli are conducted in the laminar flow to make sure that there is the minimal possibility of releasing Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) to public areas or other places. After we finished our progress for a step or a day, we use 70% alcohol to sterilize our hands, equipments and platform we used. All stocks, wastes and cultures are decontaminated carefully before disposal by Autoclaving and then all sterilized wastes will be packaged and executed base on standard decontamination procedures. So, our project does not raise public safety issues according to above reasons.

　environmental safety

No, as previously stated, all wastes are sterilized before disposal. In fact, E.coli is classified under biosafety level 1 and is non-hazardous, non-infectious, commonly used and accepted bacteria strains. Even releasing by accident will not cause any risk to environment. Furthermore, genetically modified E.coli, which we use to produce isobutanol , is thought of as less competitive than wild type in environment . Hence, we really don't worry about raising environmental safety issues. Another, our final product, isobutanol, exists in natural environment and is also safe, non-hazardous.

　Do any of the new BioBrick parts (or devices) that you made this year raise any safety issues? If yes,

　1.did you document these issues in the Registry?
2.how did you manage to handle the safety issue?
3.How could other teams learn from your experience?

No, our goal is to let E.coli produce isobutanol from glucose and then try to promote the yield . The BioBrick parts we used aim to translate enzymes or proteins which the pathway need and most of them are from MIT or the old BioBricks parts. Actually, they are really safe. As to promoting the yield, we use a temperature control mechanism, which was built up by our 2011 iGEM team, and add zinc finger to our primary BioBrick parts. Both of them are also quite safe though the latter is new part. For conclusion, no matter new or old, the BioBrick parts we used will not raise any safety issues.

　Is there a local biosafety group, committee, or review board at your institution?

　1.If yes, what does your local biosafety group think about your project?
2.If no, which specific biosafety rules or guidelines do you have to consider in your country?

Yes, we have local biosafety committee and well discussed our project with them. In our university, National Chiao Tung University (NCTU), the Environmental and Safety Center (ESC) is strictly responsible for safety of all laboratory in the school. [http://esc.nctu.edu.tw/web_e/index.php (National Chiao Tung University - Environmental Protection and Safety Center)] All things we do or conduct in our project should follow the rules they have established. ECS manage all instruments and chemical materials, especially for toxic and dangerous ones. Before we begin our project, we have informed ECS on the basis of our project and what we are going to do and planning to do as detail as possible. We started the project only if we got ECS’s permission. In fact, they support our project and think it will not raise any safety issues in terms of researcher, public, even environment.

　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?

Enhancement of biosafety in the iGEM competitions needs the collaboration of every team as well as the iGEM committee. Every team should seriously follow the rules or guidelines their country, local biosafety group, or review board established. With doing so, we believe any issues about biosafety will be minimize. Moreover, everyone who participate in this competition should has some basic knowledge background and attend special lectures about how to minimize and deal with biosafety issues raised by experiments in synthetic biology. People who have nothing to do with iGEM or synthetic biology should also have simple concept about what synthetic biology or iGEM is. As so-called Human Practice, we really think that is very important. By knowing what we are doing, they will understand it can be safe if we conduct experiment properly. Issues raised because of misunderstanding will be eliminated. Besides, in terms of biosafety engineering, we can insert or delete some specific gene in the plasmid of E.coli to restrict its living condition. For example, make it live only in particular medium which can only be made in the laboratory. With combination of above suggestion, we believe that biosafety issues will decrease gradually.