Team:Duke/Safety
Safety
Our lab is an extension of the Lynch Lab, and as such follows Biosafety Level 1 requirements and guidelines laid out by the CDC "for work involving well-characterized agents not known to consistently cause disease in immunocompetent adult humans, and present minimal potential hazard to laboratory personnel and the environment" (CDC guidelines). These guidelines include such basic precautions as washing hands before and after labwork, wearing gloves, waste decontamination, and separated disposals of sharps, glassware, and biohazard waste.
Safety Training
As an extension of the Lynch Lab, we are also under the supervision of the Duke Occupational and Environmental Safety Office (DOESO); all members of the Duke iGEM team completed requisite safety training through the DOESO in General Laboratory Safety, Chemical Safety, and Fire and Life Safety before beginning work in the lab. More information on this training can be found on the DOESO website and the Duke Laboratory Safety Manual.
Safe Lab Work
In lab, we routinely wore gloves, disinfected bench tops and fume hoods with ethanol, and kept a separation between personal possessions and gloves-only laboratory items. Hands were washed upon leaving laboratory. The only sharps used routinely in this work were razor blades for gel extractions, which were disposed of appropriately in labeled plastic biohazard sharps bins. Biohazard waste was double-bagged in autoclave-safe biohazard waste bags and autoclaved periodically.
Safe Project Design
Our project was designed to be easily and safely carried out by students largely on the open lab bench. Our project choice itself reflects this; most of the work to be done in our project to show proof-of-concept of a modular assembly design to optimize Taxol production was genetic cloning and assembly work. This work is easily accomplished with safe and well-documented procedures. We chose a non-pathogenic chassis for these procedures - K-12 strains of E. coli are safe for open bench work. Design choices like ours minimize the risks associated with Taxol biosynthesis.
Safe Shipment
Using the iGEM supplied shipment package presents few safety problems unaddressed by iGEM, despite shipping DNA outside the lab. Dehydrating DNA prior to shipment and submission to the iGEM Registry took longer than expected but the shipment process itself went smoothly.
Project Risks
The risks associated with this project were minimal because of our compliance with the various safety rules and regulations provided to our laboratory. General laboratory risks, such as chemical splash, culture spills, and broken glass were mitigated in the proper manner by safe handling of chemicals and biohazardous substances and prevention measures. General laboratory risks were the only risks really present in our project because we were working in a biosafety level 1 environment.
Future Risks
The end goal of our project was to create a K-12 strain of E. coli that could produce Taxol in an industrial bioprocess. This would pose no risk to the general public, but like any industrial bioprocess would require careful oversight and consideration of biosafety in operation.