Safe project design

Being responsible for our earth and ourselves is our attitude towards every experiment. In our project, all the parts we have utilized are selected from Risk Group 1, none of which are with a Red Flag. What’s more, nonpathogenic bacteria, E.coli. K12 is employed as the main chassis for our prior design on the DNA sequence. As a matter of fact, when using S. Cerevisiae to express hydrolases of cellobiose and xylopyranose to produce alcohol. Based on this, we will express the resveratrol, enrich the nutritional value of alcohol. Second, the innovation part we also try to mold avidin biotin and chain link Escherichia coli KO11 and yeast, and then co-culture to test whether it can increase the alcohol yield. it is harmless for the growth of bacteria and relatively safe for industrialized applications. For the sake of environments, all the chassis organisms will be sterilized before being abandoned to prevent the genes from leaking.

Safe lab work

Figure 1.Our personal safety precautions

We works at a neat lab named “Lab for Microinnovation and Enterprise”, which is a BSL-2 laboratory. Before working in the lab, we are supposed to be trained by the skillful hands, not only for the general lab safety rules, but also for the standard experimental operation avoiding unnecessary damage.
No experiment carries no risk to the experimenters, hence we are properly equipped with facilities, such as latex gloves, nitrile gloves, goggles, lab coats to protect us from biotic and abiotic hazards.

Figure 2.Table for routine inspection

Then for lab safety, a routine inspection is performed twice a day by everyone, not only for ensuring normal operation of our lab like supplying experimental consumables, reagents and inspecting the running of instruments, but also keeps it away from non-biological hazards, especially the water and electricity. For high efficiency, responsibility implements to every team member.

Figure 3.Exanple of different zone

Furthermore, several operational zones are divided scientifically for special experiments like A zone where is weighing the drugs, preparing the medium and sterilizing, B zone where is the recording experimental note and organizing experimental data area, C zone where is a molecular operation area, D zone where is RNA electrophoresis and a polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis area, EB zone is an ethidium bromide area.

For us, lab safety is a hot topic and we have come up with a practical lab safety manual which normalizes our lovely lab.

Practical lab safety manual

1. Routine inspections must perform between 6:30-8:00pm and 9:30-11:00pm.
2. Lab cleaning must be done twice a week with disinfectant moping the floor for at least 3times.
3. Well prepared experiment plans should be written before you start.
4. Lab coats and gloves must be worn when conducting experiments.
5. Short skirts, shorts, and open shoes must not be worn.
6. If you see a colleague doing something dangerous, point it out to him or her.
7. Lab coats must not be worn outside laboratories and in public areas.
8. Know where safety equipment (eyewash, shower and extinguisher) is located.
9. Food/drink is not allowed in laboratories where chemicals are used stored.
10. Know how to clean up spills of common chemicals and specific chemicals you see, for spilling ethidium bromide dealt with sodium hydroxide.
11. Always read the directions before using instruments and read MSDS before handling new chemicals carefully.
12. When post-stain gel electrophoresis, we must wear the gloves that are on the left two and right three.

Safe shipment

For submitting our parts to igem HQ, we first took the initiative to consult Chinese entry-exit inspection and quarantine laws and regulations about shipping DNA from China to the USA, which is forbidden without tedious red tape. Fortunately, GenScript cooperated with igem HQ forward our part sample to the USA. Ergo, we sealed dried DNA and sent it in the submission kit to GenScript, which clearly labelled as DNA without disguise. Our kit poses no risks and is perfectly safe for shipment.