Team:Amoy/Safety
SAFETY
Safe Project Design
Does your project include any safety features? Have you made certain decisions about the design to reduce risks? Write about them here! For example:
- Choosing a non-pathogenic chassis
- Choosing parts that will not harm humans / animals / plants
- Substituting safer materials for dangerous materials in a proof-of-concept experiment
- Including an "induced lethality" or "kill-switch" device
Safe Lab Work
What safety procedures do you use every day in the lab? Did you perform any unusual experiments, or face any unusual safety issues? Write about them here!
Safe Shipment
Did you face any safety problems in sending your DNA parts to the Registry? How did you solve those problems?
There is an interesting equation ‘S=C3H3’ when a freshman becomes a member in College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering in Xiamen University. It was advocated by Prof. Jiaxi Lu, a famous Chinese quantum chemist. C3H3 is not a kind of hydrocarbon and ‘S’ is short for scientist. The equation means a scientist needs three qualities: Clear Head, Clever Hand and Clean Habit
Part 1: Safe Project Design
The material we used in our project
This year we use the following strains which are all non-virulent and are commonly used in microbiological experiments. What’s more, none of the new BioBrick parts that we constructed raise any safety issues.
| Species | Risk Group | Description | Typical Work Area |
| E. coli (K 12) | 1 | These Organisms do not cause disease in healthy adult humans. |
Open bench |
| E. coli (B) | 1 | ||
| DH5α | 1 | ||
| BL21 (DE3) | 1 |
The measures we take to avoid the pollution of the environment
To avoid this potential biological pollution to environment, we gathered all culture fluid and culture medium with bacteria and we processed them together to ensure that none of them leaked from our laboratory through sewer and dustbin.
We handled all the biological materials, wastes and equipment strictly following the BSL-1 requirements. All these things that have physically contacted with biological samples were bleached by autoclave before being discarded or reused.
Part 2: Safe Lab Work
The measures school take to guarantee the safety in the lab
First, School has its own biosafety rules that are regulated by the Ministry of Environment Protection, P. R. China and our institution. And eachlaboratory safety standards are implemented strictly.
Second, Every students must study the course called “The Experiment Safety” before they start doing the experiment. In the courses, teachers introduce students the matters needing attention and strategies in dealing with the unexpected incidents through various case. Finally,there will be a serious test to make sure that every student have met the requirements of students before they can enter the lab and experimentize.
Third,all laboratories are equipped with safety experimental equipments and relevant person in charge.
The special measures we take to guarantee the safety of experimenters in view of the experiments related to iGEM?
Every member of the team has to take the experimental test, which iGEM tutors and postgraduate assigned the topic. Only the one who pass the exam will be allowed to enter the laboratory and start experiments. And there will be a graduate student give us a demonstration and help new players to correct the mistakes in the experiment.
Each member shall formulate detailed experimental plan before the experiment, and get familiar with the experimental process, master the characteristics of reagents before the experiment. During the experiment, all the players need take fully protective measures, including wearing experimental suits, goggles, gloves and masks.