Team:SSTi-SZGD/Safety

Overview

Safety has always been a serious issue we considered from the design of the project all the way to lab work. We believe it is of vital importance in iGEM competition understands the inherent risks of working in a lab facility and aims to take all necessary precautions to ensure no personal or environmental harm occurs. To this end, we have implemented the following safety procedures below.

Safety Training

To guarantee the safety of our team members, students and lab personnel, we emphasized on precautions practices when doing experiments involved bacteria, toxic reagents, fire and electricity. All team member were required to maintain a tidy and clean working area to ensure that no harmful chemicals or traces of bacteria agents are left behind after the experiment.

At the beginning of our project, the first session we had was Safety Training, which was provided by the Laboratory Center at our school. Contents covered in the first session included: Safety Level of Laboratories and personal rotective equipment (PPE); Chemical Reagent Classification, GMO experiment regulation. We also learned about biological hazard, including levels of biohazard and instructions on dealing with biological trash. Furthermore, basic laboratory practice codes are posted on the wall of our laboratory. All members were properly trained before started working in the lab, and every six months we had instructors from Laboratory Center to review the safety practice procedures.

Project Specific Laboratory Safety

This year, our project involves basic genetic operation on the chassis Bacillus Subtilus.168. According to DSMZ , it is defined as the Risk 1 Group with low potential risk. In our wet lab, all the upstream genetic engineering operations, such as transformation, vector expression and protein measurement, are strictly obeyed the regulations and supervised by teachers or elder students.

Since our project is the production of hyaluronic acid by microbial fermentation, including our downstream applications, is done in factories where strict production safety regulations are required. For example, the cleanliness of the production workshop and the treatment of fermentation waste liquid.

General Laboratary Safety

  • Waste disposal

    The biological safety waste containers, sharps disposal containers,all wastes need to be sterilized with proper treatment. Any container that has been exposed to bacteria cannot be released until they have been exposed to high temperature and high pressure sterilization.

  • Personal protective equipment(PPE)

    Lab coats was to be worn at all times, and long hair had to be tied back. When working with corrosives, acids, bases, and alcohols, gloves and safety glasses were also required. Upon leaving the lab, a disinfectant hand-wash had to be used as well.

  • Safety equipment

    The operation of emergency showers and eyewash were demonstrated, as well as other emergency equipment including a fire blanket, extinguisher, and the panic button.

  • Building safety

    The location of fire escapes, fire evacuation plans, and First Aid Officers.

  • Chemical safety

    The location and appropriate storage methods of different classes of chemicals e.g. in the fume hood, flammables cabinet, and general chemical store cabinet.

Environment Safety

We choose Bacillus Subtilus.168 as our genetically modified chassis organism in our project. Our chassis bacteria have not acquired any characteristics that would enable them to compromise human immune system/other systems or evade detection and destruction by the former or facilitate spread between people/animals, which makes them harmless from both a personal and public health point of view. Our parts are all safe for human. We ensure that none of the genes or parts that we were assembling would act as virulence factors according to current professional knowledge, and that no known pathogens would be involved in our research. It is thus conclusive that none of the parts would raise any safety issues.

And our production is done in factories where strict production safety regulations are required.

So, our project is safe for the environment.


Copyright © 2018 SSTi-SZGD All Rights Reserved.
Copyright © 2018 SSTi-SZGD All Rights Reserved.