General Safety
Before we starting our project, our team took a safety course given by Prof. Ying Tong. She taught us many basic knowledge about laboratory safety such as proper laboratory wear, common chemical reagents usage, how to discard wastes, and how to deal with specific emergencies. In addition, experienced former SCU_iGEM team members gave us some regular courses about common equipment operation. Each of our team member was required to read through Laboratory Safety Regulations of Sichuan University, and we also designed a card game to help our team members to remember the strict lab rules.
Biological components Safety
All of the biological components we used this summer were just E.coli, which belongs to risk group 1. So there is no obvious risk of causing disease in normal human body. However, proper precaution were still taken. For example, all the E.coli we used were strictly constrained in our lab, and all the medium used to grow bacteria were boiled up in boiling water before discarding. All the items in contact with the cells (e.g. Petri dishes, conical flasks, spreader) were sterilized after using.
BioBrick Safety
None of our biobricks submitted to the registry raises obvious safety issue.
1.Carbon Fixation and Nitrogen Fixation
As stated, Wood-Ljungdahl pathway and nitrogen fixation system are both widespread in natural anaerobic environment. The products of biobricks in these two system cannot work in aerobic environment, that is, both ACS/CODH and nitrogenase will be inactivated when being exposed to O2. In addition, all the substrates and products of these two system (e.g. CO2, acetyl-CoA, N2) are common harmless substances in nature.
2.Testing and pRhl/Las
The core element used in testing is Cas9 protein. The function of Cas9 depends on certain sgRNA. Also, the inducement and repression of pRhl/Las depend on certain small molecules. Without the existence of required specific sgRNA and small molecules, both Cas9 protein and pRhl/Las cannot work.
Application Safety
According to our purpose, E. pangu will play the role of pioneer organism in Mars immigration. Thus it raised an issue: what is the safest way of E. pangu application? Because the first thing we should consider is still safety. We think a device for E. pangu is necessary. The basic requirements for this device include temperature control, gas flow control. The temperature have to be strictly controlled or the highly variable Martian temperature will inevitably affect the function of E. pangu . The gas flow control is also necessary in order to ensure the inflow components contain only CO2, N2 and H2, no O2 allowed.
With the device, the application safety is more easily achievable.