Safety Questions

1. Would any of your project ideas raise safety issues in terms of:
   • researcher safety,
   • public safety, or
   • environmental safety?

Researcher safety

The majority of our research is conducted with E. coli bacteria. E. coli is a Gram-negative, rod shaped bacterium that is commonly found in the lower intestine of mammals. It is one of the most widely studied prokaryotes, and is used by scientists all over the world as a host organism when working with recombinant DNA, as well as for protein expression.