Team:UChicago/Safety

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Latest revision as of 02:25, 28 September 2013

Our Safety Practices

Our team members conducted all their benchwork at the UChicago campus under biosafety level (BSL) 1 regulations. Before being allowed to work in our designated lab space, our iGEM team had to apply for approval of our IBC protocol and all team members were required to undergo a biosafety training conducted by the UChicago Biosafety officers.

Under BSL 1 regulations, we

(1) Washed our hands after handling microbes, removing gloves, and before exiting the lab.

(2) Were not allowed to eat, drink, smoke, handle contact lenses, apply cosmetics, or store food in the lab.

(3) Handled sharps safely and discarded broken glassware in appropriate sharps containers.

(4) Tried to minimize any creation of splashes or aerosols.

(5) Decontaminated surfaces once a day and after spillage of viable material.

(6) Decontaminated by bleaching or autoclaving all viable material, such as cultures and stocks, before disposal.

Do the biological materials used in your lab work pose any

(1) Risks to the safety and health of the team members of others working in the lab?

The organisms we used (E. coli Dh5-alpha, BL21-DE3, B. subtilis WB700, and BD366) fall under risk group 1 because they are well characterized microbes that don't pose serious health concerns for healthy individuals. Thus, the main health and safety risks our team members faced were not attributed to microorganisms, but rather to exposure to ethidium bromide (EtBr) and UV light. Therefore, serious precautions were taken when our team members worked with EtBr and UV. Everything that came in contact with EtBr was labeled, and team members were required to wear gloves and lab coats when handling anything that contained EtBr. Furthermore, team members wore protective glasses when using the UV light box, which additionally contained a shield.

(2) Risks to the safety and health of the general public, if released by design or by accident?

No, our potential transformants are unlikely to have increased pathogenicity.

(3) Risks to the environment, if released by design of by accident?

No, keratinase expression in bacteria should not pose a risk to the environment.

(4) Risks to security through malicious misuse by individuals, groups, or countries?

No, keratinase expression could not pose any serious risk to security.

Safety forms were approved on 9/18/13 by Julie McNamara and David Lloyd.

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+Our team members conducted all their benchwork at the UChicago campus under biosafety level (BSL) 1 regulations. Before being allowed to work in our designated lab space, our iGEM team had to apply for approval of our IBC protocol and all team members were required to undergo a biosafety training conducted by the UChicago Biosafety officers.
+Under BSL 1 regulations, we
+(1) Washed our hands after handling microbes, removing gloves, and before exiting the lab.
+(2) Were not allowed to eat, drink, smoke, handle contact lenses, apply cosmetics, or store food in the lab.
-===1. Please describe the chassis organism(s) you will be using for this project. If you will be using more than one chassis organism, provide information on each of them:===
-Species: E. coli
-Strain: DH5a
-Risk group: 1
-Risk group source link: www.musc.edu/vpfa/operations/Risk%20Management/biosafety/Recombinant%20DNA%20Classification
-Disease Risk to Human: Minor irritation. Should not affect healthy adults.
-Species: E. coli
+(3) Handled sharps safely and discarded broken glassware in appropriate sharps containers.
-Strain: BL21-DE3
-Risk group: 1
-Risk group source link: www.musc.edu/vpfa/operations/Risk%20Management/biosafety/Recombinant%20DNA%20Classification
-Disease Risk to Human: Minor irritation. Should not affect healthy adults.
-Species: B. subtilis
-Strain: WB700
-Risk group: 1
-Risk group source link: ehs.columbia.edu/Policy2.2.html
-Disease Risk to Human: Minor irritation. Should not affect healthy adults.
-Species: B. subtilis
+(4) Tried to minimize any creation of splashes or aerosols.
-Strain: BD366
-Risk group: 1
-Risk group source link: ehs.columbia.edu/Policy2.2.html
-Disease Risk to Human: Minor irritation. Should not affect healthy adults.
-===2. What is the highest risk group listed:===
-===3. List and describe all new or modified coding regions you will be using in your project. (If you use parts from the 2013 iGEM Distribution without modifying them, you do not need to list those parts.)===
+(5) Decontaminated surfaces once a day and after spillage of viable material.
-BBa_K1193000 // Source: IDT gBlocks // Origin: B. licheniformis // Risk Group: 1 // Function: Keratin Degradation
-BBa_K1193001 // Source: pUB110, isolated plasmid // Origin: B. subtilis // Risk Group: 1 // Function: High Copy Number Backbone
+(6) Decontaminated by bleaching or autoclaving all viable material, such as cultures and stocks, before disposal.
-===4. Do the biological materials used in your lab work pose any of the following risks? Please describe.===
-a. Risks to the safety and health of team members or others working in the lab?
-No, if the E. coli and B. subtilis bacterial strains used by UChicago iGEM are not pathogenic. They are in risk group 1, so they may cause infections if handled poorly, but if healthy lab members wear gloves and do not expose the bacteria to open cuts, then they should not develop infections.
-b. Risks to the safety and health of the general public, if released by design or by accident?
-No. The bacterial strains used are not pathogenic.
-c. Risks to the environment, if released by design or by accident?
-No.
-d. Risks to security through malicious misuse by individuals, groups, or countries?
+'''Do the biological materials used in your lab work pose any'''
-No.
-===5.If your project moved from a small-scale lab study to become widely used as a commercial/industrial product, what new risks might arise? Also, what risks might arise if the knowledge you generate or the methods you develop became widely available?===
-A similar process of producing keratinase has already been implemented in industry. Killing the bacterial strains with bleach should be enough to prevent harm to the general public and the environment.
-===6. Does your project include any design features to address safety risks? Note that including such features is not mandatory to participate in iGEM, but many groups choose to include them.===
+(1) '''Risks to the safety and health of the team members of others working in the lab?'''
-No, our project does not include this sort of safety feature.
-===7. What safety training have you received (or plan to receive in the future)? Provide a brief description, and a link to your institution’s safety training requirements, if available.===
-All of our iGEM team members received biosafety training from the UChicago Office of Biological Safety. The Biosafety officers gave a power point presentation that covered all the BSL and risk group descriptions and guidelines we must follow in the lab. At the end we were given a test to determine if we completed training.
-===8. Under what biosafety provisions will / do you work?===
+The organisms we used (E. coli Dh5-alpha, BL21-DE3, B. subtilis WB700, and BD366) fall under risk group 1 because they are well characterized microbes that don't pose serious health concerns for healthy individuals. Thus, the main health and safety risks our team members faced were not attributed to microorganisms, but rather to exposure to ethidium bromide (EtBr) and UV light. Therefore, serious precautions were taken when our team members worked with EtBr and UV. Everything that came in contact with EtBr was labeled, and team members were required to wear gloves and lab coats when handling anything that contained EtBr. Furthermore, team members wore protective glasses when using the UV light box, which additionally contained a shield.
-a. Please provide a link to your institution biosafety guidelines.
-http://safety.uchicago.edu/pp/labsafety biosafety/manual.shtml
-b. Does your institution have an Institutional Biosafety Committee, or an equivalent group? If yes, have you discussed your project with them? Describe any concerns they raised with your project, and any changes you made to your project plan based on their review.
-Yes. We had to apply for an IBC protocol before we started working on our iGEM project.
-c. Does your country have national biosafety regulations or guidelines? If so, please provide a link to these regulations or guidelines if possible.
+(2) '''Risks to the safety and health of the general public, if released by design or by accident?'''
-http://www.cdc.gov/biosafety/publications/bmbl5/bmbl.pdf
-d. According to the WHO Biosafety Manual, what is the BioSafety Level rating of your lab? If your lab does not fit neatly into category 1, 2, 3, or 4, please describe its safety features.
-Our project falls under BSL 1.
-e. What is the Risk Group of your chassis organism(s), as you stated in question 1? If it does not match the BSL rating of your laboratory, please explain what additional safety measures you are taking.
+No, our potential transformants are unlikely to have increased pathogenicity.
-All of our bacterial strains are under risk group 1.
+(3) '''Risks to the environment, if released by design of by accident?'''
+No, keratinase expression in bacteria should not pose a risk to the environment.
+(4) '''Risks to security through malicious misuse by individuals, groups, or countries?'''
+No, keratinase expression could not pose any serious risk to security.
+''Safety forms were approved on 9/18/13 by Julie McNamara and David Lloyd.''
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-Safety forms were approved on 9/18/13 by Julie McNamara and David Lloyd
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