Team:TzuChiU Formosa/Safety

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  1. Do the biological materials used in your lab work pose any of the following risks? Please describe.

  1. Risks to the safety and health of team members or others working in the lab?
    No, because the host that we have chosen to use (BL21) is categorized under risk factor one hence, not having much impact on human health.

  2. Risks to the safety and health of the general public, if released by design or by accident?
    Due to academic research purposes, BL21 has been modified and the virulence gene has been removed. It requires artificial modification and an appropriate environment in order for it to grow. From a scientific point of view, if it were to be released into the public environment, there is no impact on the human health.

  3. Risks to the environment, if released by design or by accident?
    Due to academic research purposes, BL21 has been modified and the virulence gene has been removed. It requires artificial modification and an appropriate environment in order for it to grow. From a scientific point of view, if it were to be released into the public environment, there is no impact on the human health.

  4. Risks to security through malicious misuse by individuals, groups, or countries?
    We wont give out biobrick materials arbitrarily. If it is for the purpose of academic research, we will first clarify their aim and use if the material then decide whether to give it out or not.

  1. If your project moved from a small-scale lab study to become widely used as a commercial/industrial product, what new risks might arise? (Consider the different categories of risks that are listed in parts a-d of the previous question.) Also, what risks might arise if the knowledge you generate or the methods you develop became widely available? (Note: This is meant to be a somewhat open-ended discussion question.)

  1. Risks to security through malicious misuse by individuals, groups, or countries?
    From the perspective of our experimental design, our design project moved from a small-scale lab study to become widely used as a commercial/industrial product. Looking from our current situation, no new risks will arise. In our current experiment, we used the siRNA principle and designed a system that can silence the expression of antibiotic resistance. In other words enhancing its original biological mechanism. According to our understanding, since the bacteria we have chosen does not contain any virulence gene so when transferring our plasmid into the bacteria, there is no known major effects to humans or the environment so far. Overall speaking, estimating our experiment from this stage, the possible risks are relatively low.