Difference between revisions of "Team:Toulouse/Safety"

During the summer, our lab was in the engineering school INSA wich possesses a safety department with one prevention advisor and several prevention assistants assigned to the laboratories. Their goal is to ensure the well being of the employees regarding safety rules and risk prevention. In our laboratory, the LISBP, safety is supervised by Nathalie Doubrovine who was the one instructing us regarding safety procedures.
As new interns we had to take part in a general training session to learn how to identify the risks and prevent ourselves and our colleagues from harm. We also followed several other trainings that allowed us to use technical apparatus such as autoclave or MNR.
The laboratory safety training requirements of the LISBP are detailed in the Rules and Procedures of the LISBP.

Every new LISBP employee has to attend this training session regardless of its status (researcher, PhD student, intern...). The training is divided into two parts. The first one is a training concerning general prevention in research laboratories. This one is taken individually with the NEO software and the explanations of the prevention assistant. It also informs the employee about the emergency numbers.
The second one is a training about the techniques used during our stay concerning microbiological, chemical and incendiary risks.
We then took a test to make sure that we were attentive and understood the previous presentations.

We used the MNR machine kindly made available to us by the Genotoul platform to analyse our culture extracts. This is a powerful but very expensive equipment, based on the magnetic resonance of the atoms. Due to this, specific rules have to be respected when working with it.
In order to protect the user, access to the MNR is restricted to people wearing pacemakers, drug pump systems, staples on soft or hard tissue, and pregnant women.
Secondly, in order to protect the technological material, when entering the room the user should not wear a lab coat, nor have anything in his pockets, especially anything made of metal.

INSA Toulouse is a public school for engineers thus the biosafety guidelines are not specific to our institution; the French national regulations about working conditions and the manipulation of genetically modified organisms are applied.
The regulation on workers' protection against risks resulting from their exposure to pathogenic biological agents (Decree No. 94-352 of 4 May 1994) includes microorganisms, cell cultures and human endoparasites which may cause infections, allergies or toxicity.
This Decree is the French transposition of the Directive 90/679 / EEC and is also transcribed in the Labour Code (Articles L4421-1 R4421-1 to R4427-5.)
The Decree of the 16th July 2007 describes the technical preventive measures that are to be set up in research laboratories (including containment), education, analysis, anatomy and surgical pathology, autopsy rooms, and industrial and agricultural facilities where workers are likely to be exposed to biological pathogens.
The rules of health, safety, and preventive medicine applied in public services in France (and thus in all public facilities working in scientific and technological domains) are set out in the Decree No. 82-453. This decree refers to the Labour Code, Public Health Code and Environmental Code.
The Decree No. 2011-1177 is related to the use of genetically modified organisms.

• A conventional lab coat, closed with long sleeves
• Closed shoes
• Gloves
• Glasses if needed (UV exposure, hot water or chemical handling)

We used the chemical hood when we had to manipulate dangerous and volatile chemicals. For example, all manipulations dealing with formic and butyric acid were done under such a hood.

The water-bathes were used extensively (transformation, digestion, etc.). However, they can be dangerous because of the exposition to hot or even boiling water. To prevent the burning risk associated with heat, steam and projections, we used special gloves. We made sure to always check that the water-bathes were turned off at the end of the day.

To manipulate into a sterile area and thus avoid external contamination by unwanted microorganisms we used a Biological safety cabinet (FASTER – Ultrasafe). The bench of the BSC was cleaned with ethanol before and after each manipulation. We also cleaned the BSC completely every two weeks.