Team:Valencia UPV/Safety
Introduction
As Theodor Reik (Sigmund Freud disciple) said: “In science, like in all life fields, a slogan is imposed: security first”. Nowadays, safety is an essential requirement when creating new devices that humans will use, and Printeria is not different.
On the one hand biosafety describes the containment principles, technologies and practices that are implemented to prevent the unintentional exposure to pathogens and toxines, or their accidental release [1]. On the other hand biosecurity describes de protection, control and accountability for valuable biological materials within laboratories, inorder to prevent their unauthorized access, loss, theft, misuse, diversion or intentional release.
Printeria is designed to be a secure device, because is going to be used by Bioartists, schools and researchers (our identified potential users according to MIT table) and we don’t 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 how and why we implemented biosafety and biosecurity requirements in Printeria.
Lab safety
Safety design in Printeria
Lab Safety
Our laboratoy
We have planned this project consequently with the tools we have. Our lab follows the current legislation about risk 1 (Ley 31/1995, RD 664/1997) and as it is written is provided with an autoclave and an extractor hood with UV sterilization. The waste generated are minutely controlled by CGROM ( UPV waste management center ). They prove every lab with special containers and instructions for the correct classification of wate. FOTO CONENEDORES As an additional safety measure we use SYBR Safe instead of Ethidium 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 lab. Thats why we did several seminars directed by Alejandro Vignoni and Yadira Boada (DOCUMENTOS SEGURIDAD DISA) to teach the basics of their lab. However, not everybody is allowed to work in the lab, only biotechlogistan and Biomedical engineers could be there without surveillance.
Strains
Printeria use E.coli and V.natriegens as chassis. Both are classified as risk 1 so the risk to people is minimal. 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 design in Printeria
Paris-Bettencourt team was right when they said : “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. In the next table you can se diferent safety problems we saw and how we solved them.
Safety Problem |
Solution |
|---|---|
Sterilization of the PCB |
How do we clean the PCB without damaging the 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. Furthermore we have an especial reaction that use little droplets with HCl and ethanol to clean perfectly the PCB. |
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 droplets with ethanol and HCl. |
Protection of the user |
We want the user to see what is happening inside Printeria but also we want them to be protected if something wrong happens inside. Thats why we thought that a meetacrilate box that cover the machines would be a nice option. Besides, it is useful to pin up the elements which will be part of Printera. |
Overheating of the PCB |
As the PCB has a cold zone and a hot one as well, it is necessary to evacuate the heat generated in the hot zone we use a Peltier which extracs the energy to stabilize the temperature. This energy has to be disipated, thats why we added some ventilation holes to allow convection. |
Electroporator |
Ha sido diseñado en una PCB dedicada y compacta para aislarlo correctamente de cualquier exposición del usuair a 1600 V. |
Tips |
Tips which go in the revolver wheel are disposable to ensure the purity of each reaction. |
A science without ethics is cruel, and an ethics with science is empty. Ethics become really important when a project is being thought. For this reason we wanted to pass the UPV (Universitat Politécnica de Valencia) ethics committee. Here you can download the document we send them to approve and the answer of the committee.