Team:Leeds/Safety

Safety

iGEM Safety Questions

1. Would our project raise any safety issues in terms of:
Researcher safety- Certain chemicals used in our research may be harmful ie. ethidium bromide when running agar gels. The safety issues are covered in COSHH assessments and safety protocols will be followed. Bunsen burners are used when making agar plates for sterility need to follow safe working practices for bunsens. Need to use aseptic techniques to avoid contamination with bacteria from us and to us. Also we will be handling hot agar so care should be taken not to burn ourselves by using oven gloves. Throughout our research we will follow health and safety regulations required by law. To add to this university health and safety policies will be enforced to ensure researcher safety.
Public safety- If our biobricks were to be used as a commercial device, the effects that it would be have on the environment and wildlife would have to be considered; as well as possibly contamination it could cause. This is a concern as the plasmid we are using to carry our genes contains an antibiotic resistance gene which could be transferred to other virulent bacteria. Therefore a kill switch will be inserted into our plasmid with will allow us to kill bacteria easily if a containment issue occurred. Therefore this would will stop the creation of any dangerous, resistant bacterial strains hence keeping the public safe from our product.
Environment- Once again we need to make sure our genes will not be transferred to wild virulent strains of bacteria so not to cause antibiotic resistance. Hence the insertion of a kill switch into the bacterial plasmid should make killing a harmful or contaminated strain easy and safe to do. To add to this, any bacteria we use and have used and no longer any use of, as well as those that may have become contaminated, will have to be disposed of appropriately using an autoclave. This will make sure all the cells are killed and are of no harm to the environment, lab researchers or the public.
2. Do any of the new biobricks raise any safety issues?
We believe that our new biobricks will be safe as they do not produce any harmful chemicals. However there is the consideration that they could be harmful if a person became infected with the bacteria we are working with. But this will be because of the adverse effects of the bacteria itself, not from the biobricks we have inserted into the bacteria. To avoid this situation, health and safety measures will be put in place and keep to by the researchers working in the labs at all times. To avoid the public being affected by the bacteria we are working with, they will be disposed of in the proper way, for example autoclave (as previously mentioned), so that all bacteria is killed and disposed of correctly and safely.
3. Is there a local biosafety group at your institution?
There is specialised health and safety department at the university and it has a specific biosafety section. The people that work in this area are fully aware of our research and have seen no additional safety issues than those addressed so far. All the members of the team have undergone health and safety training before working in the labs and this was given by a member of the faculty of biological science health and safety team.
4. Any other ideas on safety issues for future iGEM competitions? How can any parts be made safer through biosafety engineering?
The parts we are engineering have been made safer by introducing the kill switch, mentioned earlier, so that if the bacteria became virulent ect. they can quickly be disposed of safely. We hope that our biobricks are safe and don’t impose any risk to the environment or the public but as we go along with our work we will be sure to keep assessing the risks involved with our biobricks and synthetic biology in general to make sure that our work is as safe as possible!

Biosafety

The chassiss we are using are E.coli BL21 gold strain which are in risk group 1, Our lab has a bio-safety rating of 2. Therefore it is ok to work with this strain in our lab. When handling bacteria sterile techniques were used and anything that comes into contact with the bacteria is autoclave sterilized.

Lab Safety

For safety in the Labs we have undergone compulsory health and safety training run by the Faulty of Biological Sciences. We will also be following UK Health and safety legislation in our work. For every new Chemical or reagent used we will follow the risk assessments put in place, and the COSHH assessments. When handeling bacterial cultures we will use sterile techniques and employ the use of PPE to prevent contamination.

Ethics

Ethics is a big consideration when doing biology, especially synthetic biology as we are making new systems and engineering bacteria to have new and desired properties. A primary concern is the accidental release of these redesigned organisms. Current policies are alreadt prepared to deal with this situation if it were to occur. An even more daunting possibility is the fact that terrorist organizations could use engineered microorganisms to harm others. This is a new concern called Bioterrorism and it is fast becoming a growing concern. Bioterrorism is defined as terrorism involving the international release or dissemination of biological agents. Questions are also raised over the unpredictable nature of these pathogens. Biosecurity measures within the field of synthetic biology must be finalized to reduce the sense of fear that accompanies its advances. Even if no immediate danger exists, ethical issues remain as synthetic biology can be deemed as "playing God". Redesigning organisms opens the possibility for redesigning humans To gain an insite into what the public think of synthetic biology we sent out an initial survey about what synthetic biology is. One of the questions on this survey included "do you think synthetic biology is unethical?" Surprisingly all but one answered this question "no". We then asked them to expand further; here are some of the responses:

"[...]if the end justifies the means. But it would be unethical if there was animal testing involved."

"Knowledge is basically neutral, but I can see situations where it can be misused, so ethics should never be ignored."

To further address ethics we have also included an ethics video in our series of synthetic biology videos for young people at school/in sixth form. To do this we undertook some research and discovered that Synthetic biologists have already taken a proactive attitude by collaborating with social scientists and engaging with the public from the outset to help further the publics understanding and help diminish controversy. For example, the four Research Councils in the UK (BBSRC, EPSRC, ESRC and AHRC) have created and jointly funded seven research networks that include researchers interested in the ‘ethical, legal and social implications' (ELSI) of synthetic biology. These networks encourage regular meetings of synthetic biologists and ELSI researchers, informing both sides about technological and ELSI progress. Moreover, public engagement meetings that should ensure the correct interpretation of the biotechnological achievements, and future public acceptance, are strongly encouraged. The European Commission initiated the SYNBIOSAFE consortium (http://www.synbiosafe.eu/) focusing on the discussion of biosafety and ethical concerns, and facilitating a socially acceptable development in all related fields. As part of our outreach activities we will also be doing a synthetic biology presentation in a sixth form class at the beginning of September. During this presentation we will be undertaking an exercise in order to make the pupils understand the importance of considering ethics in the world of science and it will hopefully give us more of an idea of what the public think about synthetic biology and what ethical conserns they have around the subject area. We are currently working on a survey based purely on the ethics of synthetic biology and will be posting the comments and feedback we received as we get it so be on the look out!