Team:ECUST/Safety
Lab
During the whole process of our project, we do experiments in a low-risk-level lab (Level 1), and experiments are carried out in the open bench and biosafety cabinet. Before and during the experiments, we are strictly trained by our supervisors on safety rules to ensure we will obey the rules. We choose E.coli as our chassis, which is one of the most-widely used safe strains in synthetic biology, and it will not do any harm to human or environment.
Hardware
With 4 different sensors, the device can collect related data on temperature, pH, oxidization-reduction potential (ORP) and electrical conductivity of the cooling water. The implemented blue LED light trigger the expression of suicide gene, which can be turned on or off manually. That is to say, if people think it’s time to renew the recycle cooling water or the risks of blockage and corrosion are removed, they can kill the engineered E. coli by turning on the blue light manually to ensure the highest level of biosafety.
Discussion
On top of being trained by supervisors on biosafety rules, Iron Guardian will also gather together to have discussion on biosafety issues. Based on the Safety Form we filled before, when we have problems or make progress in the lab, we will seriously reflect from the view of biosafety, in order that we can keep improving ourselves.