Team:Sheffield/Safety
Safety
Introduction
Probably the most important responsibility of a research scientist is to ensure that the work he/she performs does not affect anyone’s health or safety. We, the iGEM Sheffield 2017 Team followed the UK Health and Safety regulations and did our best in order to make sure that we display high ethical standards in our work. In the following paragraphs, we mention one of the most important rules we followed in order to ensure that we stay in good health and that our work does not put others at risk.
Making sure we stay in good health
1) Preventing any incidents
- All students were introduced to the rules of good laboratory practice
- Students read and signed the COSHH Risk Assessment forms as well as the information enclosed in all kits we were using and handle all reagents accordingly
- Avoiding contact with any potential harmful reagents or bacteria by wearing appropriate lab equipment, including lab coat, gloves, close-toe shoes and occasionally-goggles
- Supervisors were present in the lab at any time for making sure that students carry out their work according to all health and safety rules
2) Making sure that in case of incidents-action could be taken quickly
- In case of incidents, there were university employees in charge of taking measures in case of health and safety problems
Making sure that our work does not put others at risk
In order to make sure that our genetically engineered bacteria cannot spread outside the lab we followed a couple of rules:
- Biological and liquid waste was discarded appropriately
- Lab coats or other lab materials were not removed from the lab
