Team:ECUST/Lab/Safety

Biosafety Level

1. What is the Safety Level of your lab?

Level 1 (low risk)

2.Which work areas do you use to handle biological materials?

Open bench & Biosafety cabinet

Biosafety Training

1.Have your team members received any safety training yet?

Yes, we have already received safety training.

2. briefly describe the topics that you learned about (or will learn about) in your safety training.

• Lab access and rules (including appropriate clothing, eating and drinking, etc.)

• Responsible individuals (such as lab or departmental specialist or institutional biosafety officer)

• Differences between biosafety levels

• Biosafety equipment (such as biosafety cabinets)

• Good microbial technique (such as lab practices)

• Disinfection and sterilization

• Emergency procedures

• Transport rules

• Chemicals, fire and electrical safety

3.Who provided your safety training? Did you get training from multiple people?

Yes, we have already received safety training.

• Departmental specialist

• PIs/instructors

Local rules and regulations

1.Who is responsible for the safety of biology labs at your institution? What are the guidelines for laboratory biosafety? Please give a link to these guidelines, or briefly describe them if you cannot give a link.

Division of laboratory & facility management is responsible for the safety of biology labs in our school.
The above link is the page in which some guidelines can be downloaded. (In Chinese)

2.In your country / region, what are the laws and regulations that govern biosafety in research laboratories? Please give a link to these regulations, or briefly describe them if you cannot give a link.

Click here.

Project Overview

1.How will your project work?

Our main idea is to expand the absorption spectrum of Rhodobacter sphaeroides by adding fluorescing (such as sYFP2) to the reaction center (C terminal of H subunit) through fusion proteins. Suicide plasmids will be used to knock in the target protein, and plasmids will be conjugated from E.coli to Rhodobacter spheroids. The second part is to produce hydrogen by culturing Rhodobacter spheroids in specific reactor devices.

Future applications

1.How would your project be used in the real world?

• In a factory

• In a small enclosed device

2.What safety or ethical risks would be involved with such a use?

It is very safe and environmentally friendly.

Chassis

1.What is your chassis organism?

E. coli: DH5a, sm10

Others: Rhodobater Sphaeroides

Commends: Rhodobater Sphaeroides is a kind of purple bacteria. Its risk group is 1(low risk) in DSMZ.

Its products, for expamle, Q10 is good to people.

The purpose of our project is to produce more hydrogen through environmentally benign way, as we paid attention to process of fermentation and the safety of hydrogen including the production, collection and usage.

1、 The area of using hydrogen should be well ventilated. The highest content of hydrogen must be not more than 1% (volum).
2、 There should not any sort of be open fire within 10m from the hydrogen storage tank.

We paid close attention to the lab environment and made sure that all the operations related to the hydrogen have the teachers or senior students to supervise.

At the beginning of the fermentation, argon is required to maintain an anaerobic environment. There are some precautions when we use high pressure argon:

1、 When the tank pressure is close to the lower limit of the equipment requirements, we should start the booster valve pressurization. The operating procedures are:

1.1 slowly open the booster valve.
1.2 when the tank pressure gauge indicates the normal working pressure of the device and below the maximum working pressure, closing the booster valve.

2、Argon storage tank in the process of production, transportation, storage and use should be away from the fire and can’t be dumped.

3、In the hot summer season, storage tanks should be kept in a cool place, not in the hot sun exposure, so as not to boost, explosion. It must be cooled with cold water if the ambient temperature exceeds 50 ℃.