Team:Valencia UPV/Safety
Introduction
As Theodor Reik (Sigmund Freud disciple) said: “In science, like in all life fields, a slogan is imposed: safety first”. Nowadays, safety is an essential requirement when creating new devices which humans will use, and Printeria is not different.
This document describes the safety of our project so, a clever step before begining is to know what is it. Safety describes the containment principles, technologies and practices that are implemented to prevent the unintentional exposure to pathogens and toxines, or their accidental release [1]. Furthermore, safety is how you have protected yoursef and other in order to avoid any harms which could occur.
Printeria is designed to be a secure device, because is going to be used by bioartists, schools and researchers which are our identified potential users according to MIT segmentation table and we do not want it to be a variable which create concern in those users. This approach toguether with our lab tools and posibilities, have influenced the experiments we did and the way we build Printeria. Next paragraphs describe our lab safety and how and why we implemented biosafety and biosecurity requirements in Printeria.
Lab safety
Safety design in Printeria
Ethics in Printeria
Lab Safety
Our laboratory
We have planned this project consequently with the tools we have. Our lab follows the current spanish legislation about risk 1 (Ley 31/1995, RD 664/1997) and as it is written, our lab is provided with an autoclave and an laminar flow cabinet with UV sterilization. Waste generated are minutely controlled by CGROM (waste management center of the Polytechnic University of Valencia). They provide every lab with special containers and instructions for the correct classification of waste which can be seen in the next photos:
Images 1-2. On the left, Roger explaining Marc how to deal with chemical containers, on the right, the containers which CGROM manage.
As an additional safety measure we use SYBR Safe instead of Eidium bromide. Its use is identical in all the protocols but without carcinogenic risks.
Access to the laboratory
As we are a multidisciplinary team formed by biotechnologists, engineers and artists, not everybody knows how to behaviour in a laboratory. That is why we did several seminars directed by Alejandro Vignoni and Yadira Boada to teach the basics of their laboratory. However, as a security measure, they decided that not everybody would be allowed to work in the lab alone, only biotechlogists and biomedical engineers could be there without surveillance due to their experience and knowledge adquiered during their degree.
Over the course of these seminars we were informed about the evacuation protocols, waste management and our rights and liabilities as UPV staff. These information can be seen in the information sheets they gave us and that you can download through these buttons:
Strains
Printeria uses E.coli and V.natriegens as chassis. Both are classified as risk 1 so the harm which can cause to people is minimal. The E.coli are from strains DB3.1, 10G and TOP10, for V.natriegens we use the strain ATCC 1404 from CECT (Colección Española de Cultivos Tipo). To do constructions we use biobricks and parts supplied by IDT prepared with the Golden Gate grammar.
Safety by design
Paris-Bettencourt 2012 team was right when they said in their page "How safe is safe enough?": “Biosafety is an exciting design challenge, an essential enabling technology for synthetic biology, and a fundamental ethical obligation of all bioengineers”.
This sentence describes perfectly what we did with Printeria. Printeria was designed to ensure safety for all audiences, to be safe enough for the world. In the next table you can see different safety problems we saw with our instructors help, and how we solved them.
Safety Problem |
Implemented solution |
|---|---|
Sterilization of the PCB |
How do we clean the PCB (Printed Circuit Board) without damaging metalic and plastic components? Well, we decided to copy what flow cabins do. Based on this, we decided to use UV led lights to achieve this objective. This idea was given by Mojica as a part of our intergrated human. Furthermore we have programmed an especial reaction that use little droplets with HCl and ethanol to clean and ensure we have perfectly sterilized the PCB which is protected by a plastic film as well and this feature prevents acid from attacking it. |
Sterilization of the microfluidic tubes |
The reaction fluid is going to pass through microfluidic tubes and it will contaminate them. To reverse this situation we will use the same special program wich usses droplets with ethanol and HCl. |
Protection of the user |
We want users to see what is happening inside Printeria but also we want them to be protected if something wrong happens inside. That is why we thought that a metacrilate box that covered the machine would be a nice option. Besides, it is useful to pin up the elements which will be part of Printeria. |
Overheating of the PCB |
As the PCB has a cold and a hot zone, it is necessary to evacuate the heat generated. The hot zone can achieve more than 80º degrees and can be a potencial danger. A resistance is responsible of heating, and a peltier plate is responsible of chilling. Peltier effect is based in a semiconductor metal where you apply a potential difference. Then, you create a hot part and a cold one in that semiconductor. We use the cold part to extract the energy and stabilize the temperature via conduction of the PCB's hot zone. |
Ventilation |
The peltier plate is responsible of chilling the PCB but how do we evacuate all the energy generated? Well, the answer is simple, Printeria just needed ventilation holes and watercooling to do it. Watercooling is based in the higher termic capacity of fluids (water in this case) to absorb energy. Water is pumped through microfluidic tubes to reach the peltier and chill it. |
Electroporator |
This device is capable to reach high voltages, so if you require one of these in your design first of all, ensure no one can harm himself/herself. This is the reason why we designed our own electroporator in a dedicated and compacted printed circuit to isolate it from any exposure. It can reach until 1600V, which is not a joke. |
Tips |
Tips which go in the revolver wheel are disposable to ensure the purity of each reaction. |
Ethics in Printeria
Science without ethics is cruel, and ethics without science is empty. Ethics become really important when a project is being thought. For this reason we wanted to pass the UPV (Polytechnic University of Valencia) ethics committee. Here you can download the document we sent them to approve and the positive veredict of the committee.
References
1. Dual use: A report by iGEM team Bielefeld-CeBiTec 2015. [Germany]. Universität Bielefeld, . 30 pages.