Team:Evry Paris-Saclay/Lab
LAB
Workspace
WetLab
Our team’s lab is located in the Institute of Systems and Synthetic Biology (iSSB) that belongs to the UMR 8030 Genomics Metabolics, which is part of Campus 1 of the Genopole in Evry (France). Mr Faulon kindly allows us to perform our experiments in his lab. We have access to basic laboratory equipments, such as thermocyclers, incubators, biosafety cabinets, centrifuges, electrophoretic cells, but also to the larger, more expensive tools of the abSYNTH platform of Genopole, like a plate reader or an HPLC. We were able to purchase our own equipment and supplies, but we had to share the bigger equipment with the other scientists of the lab.
Office
Besides the lab, we have our own office where we can work on the project, design parts, or write reports. We also have access to the lab’s meeting room, where we do weekly meetings in order to keep everyone up to date and discuss about the progression of the project.
Safety
General Lab Safety
The ISSB is classified as Level 1 of biosafety, which is enough for our experiments that involve very low to no risk. We only used nonpathogenic bacterial strains that do not present any risk for human health, and they were handled in accordance with the lab’s safety rules, that is to say on an open bench and under the BSC. All the members received safety training before starting to use the premises. Some of us also received a training for the plate reader and the HPLC, so we could use them without supervision. All of our experiments were supervised by Ioana POPESCU, our more-than-supervisor, which was also the safety supervisor of the lab from 2010 to 2013.
Safety of Our Project
Throughout our project, we use several strains of E. coli such as BL21-AI, TOP10 or DH5α. They have been genetically modified, so we made sure that we manipulated them with great precaution and that they could not spread out of the culture space. All workspaces, tools and glassware were sterilized before and after use, and our team members wore the adequate protective equipment.
