Team:Hong Kong UCCKE/Safety
Safety Checklist
- Be familiar with Safe Project Design, Safe Lab Work and Safe shipment
- Know our local guidelines: Ask help from our team instructors and our institution's Biosafety officers
- Ask for help: email safety AT igem DOT org, or join the iGEM team for Virtual Open Office Hours
- Notice the few hard-and-fast rules: don't use organisms from Risk Group 3 or 4, and don’t release our project into the wild
Safe organisms
We use only one kind of organism, which is Escherichia coli in our experiments, and it is categorized as a Risk Group 1 organism.[1]Based on the official iGEM description, "Risk Group 1 organisms do not cause disease in healthy adult humans. To make sure that we can use everything safely, we always contact with our lab technician about the proper usage, storage and disposal of chemicals.
Safe project design
Safety is what we care most throughout the whole program. Although the specie we have only used is E. coli, which is unlikely causing harm to human when used properly, we believe that there is still a danger when our bacteria is released into the public environment, especially to children and elderlies.****** Therefore, we make sure that no bacteria or organisms that we used will be released out of the laboratory. While doing any experiment with e. coli, we ensure that the bacteria do not expose to the environment by setting up a sterile space using a Bunsen burner and working in the heated area.
Safe lab work
We are also paying great attention about our Biosafety and general safety in our lab work. We are using a laboratory with a Biosafety level 1. We also believe that safe lab practices are important, so we emphasise safety through maintaining a high level of personal hygiene and applying good microbiology skills, including wearing lab coats and wearing gloves when doing any experiment and wash our hand with soap before leaving the laboratory. We received safety training when joining the team, topics including risk assessment, general precautions, fire precautions, handling chemical spills, disposal of chemical wastes and experiments on biotechnology.
Reference
[1]:https://2017.igem.org/Safety/Risk_Groups
