iGEM Safety Questions (Safety Page)

1. Would any of your project ideas raise safety issues in terms of:
• Researcher Safety? No
• Public Safety? No
• Environmental Safety? No
2. Do any of the new BioBrick parts (or devices) that you made this year raise safety issues? If yes,
• Did you document these issues in the Registry?
• How did you manage to handle the safety issue?
• How could other teams learn from your experience?

Many of the new Biobrick parts that we constructed this summer had no potential in causing issues in safety. We assembled Biobrick parts that would provide a foundational advance for future iGEM teams and could not pose a threat to the environment or to anyone's health. The only major concern with the bacteria that we used would be if bacteria acquired the same form antibiotic resistance as seen in our transformants. To mitigate this, we made sure to use sterile conditions, when growing these bacteria in cultures and also made sure to safely dispose of any unused cultures. We believe that these precautionary measures are standards by which most labs operate and we hope to remain a model of safety.

3. Is there a local biosafety group, committee, or review board at your institution?
• If yes, what does your local biosafety group think about your project?
• If no, which specific biosafety rules or guidelines do you have to consider in your country?

UC Davis has a Safety Services Department on campus that oversees all of the research to maintain a certain standard of safety. We contacted one of the Associate Biosafety Officers to talk about our project.

4. Do you have any other ideas how to deal with safety issues that could be useful for future iGEM competitions? How could parts, devices and systems be made even safer through biosafety engineering?