Team:SSTi-SZGD/Safety
SSTi-SZGD
There are two safety aspects related to our project, the general laboratory safety and the application safety related to GMOs.
Laboratory Safety and Management
(1) Safety Training
To guarantee the safety of our team members, students and lab personnel, we emphasized on precautions practices when doing experiments involved bacteria, toxic reagents, fire and electricity. All personnel were required to maintain a tidy and clean working area to ensure that no harmful chemicals or traces of bacteria agents are left behind after the experiment.
At the beginning of our project, the first session we had was Safety Training, which was provided by the Laboratory Center at our school. Contents covered in the first session included: Safety Level of Laboratories and personal rotective equipment (PPE); Chemical Reagent Classification, GMO experiment regulation. We also learned about biological hazard, including levels of biohazard and instructions on dealing with biological trash. Furthermore, basic laboratory practice codes are posted on the wall of our laboratory. All members were properly trained before started working in the lab, and every six months we had instructors from Laboratory Center to review the safety practice procedures.
(2) Safety of the project
Our project works on E.coli DH5a strain. We conducted microbial experiments in biological clean-room with UV lights, which provide an isolated and clean environment to avoid cross-contamination with other organisms. Once experiment completed, GMOs and residues were autoclaved before disposal to bio-hazard waste.
Chemical reagents used in this project include pesticide standards, such as parathion, paraxon, arbendazim, etc. These pesticides are of high concentrations and highly toxic. Therefore preparation of the standards are conducted in the fume hood, and PPE is required at all time.
(3) Daily preventive measures in Laboratory
In order to make sure the compliance of lab safety on a daily basis, and the accuracy of the experimental results, our laboratory is under the 4S-management.
Overall, all phases of general laboratory safety are addressed the following:
- Personal protective equipment: lab coats and enclosed leather shoes were to be worn at all times, and long hair had to be tied back. When working with corrosives, acids, bases, and alcohols, gloves and safety glasses were also required. Upon leaving the lab, a disinfectant hand-wash had to be used as well.
- Building safety: the location of fire escapes, fire evacuation plans, and First Aid Officers.
- Chemical safety: the location and appropriate storage methods of different classes of chemicals e.g. in the fume hood, flammables cabinet, and general chemical store cabinet.
- Waste disposal: location of biological safety hazard waste containers, sharps disposal containers, autoclaving methods, and spills kits location/contents.
Environment Safety
If our products were to be available in the real world as a result of this project, there would be many biosafety issues we need to consider. We need to guarantee that it will be safe to humans as well as harmless to the environment. urrently we designed an automatic spraying system that sprays live bacteria cells to the objects. This means that GMOs will be exposed to the natural environment. At current stage we included a suicide system that could kill host cells as necessary to minimize the risk of GMO leakage. To completely eliminate the GMO contamination problem, in the future, we plan to change chassis that allows extracellular secretion of the enzyme. In that case, spraying takes place via a 0.45um filter membrane that helps trapping bacteria cells.
