Team:Duke/Safety
Safety
Please visit the Safety Hub to find this year's safety requirements & deadlines, and to learn about safe & responsible research in iGEM.
On this page of your wiki, you should write about how you are addressing any safety issues in your project. The wiki is a place where you can go beyond the questions on the safety forms, and write about whatever safety topics are most interesting in your project. (You do not need to copy your safety forms onto this wiki page.)
Our lab 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. 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 Project Design
Does your project include any safety features? Have you made certain decisions about the design to reduce risks? Write about them here! For example:
- Choosing a non-pathogenic chassis
- Choosing parts that will not harm humans / animals / plants
- Substituting safer materials for dangerous materials in a proof-of-concept experiment
- Including an "induced lethality" or "kill-switch" device
Safe Lab Work
What safety procedures do you use every day in the lab? Did you perform any unusual experiments, or face any unusual safety issues? Write about them here!
Safe Shipment
Did you face any safety problems in sending your DNA parts to the Registry? How did you solve those problems?