Team:NCTU Formosa/safety

SAFETY OF OUR PROJECT

Our project is to create a regulation system of gene expression in bacteria, only create new biobrick without producing any biosynthesis product. So it won't have new risks if we used our part in commerce or industry. We had discussed with National Chiao Tung University Environmental Protection and Safety Center.The committee agree us executing our project without any comment.

ORGANISMS WE USED

NEW OR MODIFIED CODING REGION WE USED

SAFETY PROCEDURE IN OUR LABORATORY

This year, we use E.coli DH5α, a bacteria that classified under Risk Group 1, as our classis. It's a non-hazardous and non-infective bacteria that generally used in labs and biological experiments. The safety problem of products in the project is also concerned. In our design, E.coli is engineered to produce various fluorescence proteins and some plant hormones, which are harmless to human and environment. Even so, we follow the standard safety procedure to guarantee a safe experiment environment without dangers. To sum up, we have confidence that our project will not raise any biosafety issue.

Researcher's Safety

In order to protect our researchers from infecting engineered organisms and contaminating the samples, we strictly require all the researchers to follow the rules:

1. Every participant have read Safety Guidelines for Biosafety Level 1 to Level 3 Laboratory , announced by National Chiao Tung University - Environmental Protection and Safety Center.
2. Researchers are fully trained before doing experiments individually. Teaching assistants will guide and supervise the experiments at the first few times.
3. Researchers doing experiment must wear on lab coat and gloves.
4. No experiments is allowed to be done outside the biosafety cabinet, in order to minimize the possibility of releasing Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) .
5. Before and after conducting experiments, 70% alcohol is applied to sterilize hands, equiptments, platform, or anything direct contact E.coli.
6. Well designed hazard dealing protocol is applied in all labs in NCTU

This year, we aimed to produce isobutanol with modified E.coli by synthetic biology approach. Our chassis, E.coli, has been generally used in many biological experiments and is classified under biosafety level 1 and most acceptable bacteria strain. Therefore, if we follow the standard procedure during experiment, we will be very safe. As to our final product, isobutanol has already been used in lots of purposes. For example, the ingredient of organic solvent, the reactant of organic mechanism, or antifreeze and so on, are all widely applied to people’s life. So, we may not have to worry about the safety of isobutanol we produced. Moreover, according to many researches, we found that the E.coli used to produce isobutanol always died because of the rising concentration of isobutanol. That is one of the advantages of our modified E.coli that causing Biosafety issue of environment will be prevented. What’s more, if we want to apply our project to industry, we can make use of fermentation tanks to produce large number of isobutanol in a safe and widely used way. Last but not least, everything which has something to do with bacteria after we used will be sterilized and decontaminated before we reuse or dispose them. In conclusion, we have confidence that our project will not raise any Biosafety issue indeed.

Pubilc Safety

To ensure that the engineered organisms will not leak out and contaminate the environment, all stocks, wastes and cultures which contacted these bacteria should be sterilized, packaged and executed base on standard decontamination procedures. We also set up a strict door access system, preventing miscellaneous people acquiring E.coli. In fact, E.coli we used in lab is less competitive to wild type, because of the lost of the ability to form biofilms and to thrive in the intestine. So, our project does not raise public safety issues according to above reasons.

Institutional Biosafety Committee

In our university, National Chiao Tung University (NCTU), Environmental Protection and Safety Center (ESC), is strictly responsible for Safety of all labs in the school. What we can do in our project should follow the rules they permit, and they manage all instruments and chemicals, especially for dangerous and toxic ones, in all labs. The ESC is to be informed on the basis of our project and on what we are doing and plan to do. We started the project only if we got ECS’s permission. In fact, they support our project and think it will not raise any safety issues in terms of researcher, public, even environment. [http://esc.nctu.edu.tw/web_e/index.php National Chiao Tung University - Environmental Protection and Safety Center (NCTU ESC)]

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