Difference between revisions of "Team:UCSC/Safety"

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<h1> Safety</h2>
 
<h1> Safety</h2>
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<h2><b>Development</b></h2>
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<h2><b>Environmental Healthy and Safety Standards</b></h2>
 
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We considered the autonomy of organisms such as H. Volcanii, intellectual property and patent agreements, GMO ownership, reasons for and against biofuel development, the ethics of biofuel use, and our role in the development of the next generation of biofuels.
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All safety regulations for research at UCSC is regulated by the Environmental Health and Safety Depart (EH&S). EH&S advises the campus community of responsibilities with respect to health, safety and environmental issues; recommends appropriate corrective actions; and helps implement new health and safety programs. EH&S also acts as liaison between UCSC and various external agencies and regulatory bodies. Our actions and decisions have the potential for high visibility and serious consequences to the campus and the community.EH&S programs include a broad and complex range of disciplines including areas such as laboratory and research safety, industrial hygiene, environmental management, radiation, hazardous materials, information technology, ergonomics, biosafety and emergency management.  
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For interactions with any life form, there is the question of autonomy. In our project, we will be using H. Volcanii for a purpose other than what it performs in nature. We determined that it is not a violation of autonomy because cells are incapable of sentience and autonomy.
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Another aspect of development we looked into is GMO ownership. Current US patent laws dictate that no species or product naturally occurring can be legally owned. While this allows for the patenting of GMOs, it is not always best to do so. We determined that the potential usefulness and inevitable release of a fuel-producing archaea makes ownership of it unethical and ultimately impossible.
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And always, safety first. H. Volcanii was chosen because it requires a high salt environment to survive, it only survives in a solution up to 2% butanol, and, as an archaea, it is fundamentally different from bacteria and other natural microbes, so dangerous gene transfer is not a concern.  
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<h2><b>Project</b></h2>
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<h2><b>UCSC iGEM Safety Specifications</b></h2>
 
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When we focused on the product itself, we must consider carbon source, geopolitics, safety, and distribution.  
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The general team overseer also held the responsibility of safety manager, ensuring that all student researchers upheld safety requirements of the EH&S and personal protection equipment. All students were required to take several safety classes on both general laboratory setting and specific laboratory training for other practices, such as biosafety.
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The proposed plants we will use are Arundo Donax and switchgrass, both of which grow quickly and in a variety of terrains. Growing large amounts of these plants as biomass for biofuel would enable a cycle of rapidly capturing and releasing recent carbon - in effect, carbon neutrality.  
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Our archeal organism Haloferax volcanii can easily be contained in a controlled environment. It requires a high saline environment of 18% salt water in order to grow. So is unable to thrive in surrounding environmental conditions which are freshwater and possible low saline aqueous environments. All DNA modifications to our organism would not alter its growth conditions or its ability to replicate. Due to our organism being in the archaeal domain its is unable to readily transfer DNA to a more rapidly growing organism such as Escherichia coli.
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Geopolitical concerns arise when it is brought up that in order to support the world’s energy usage on biobutanol alone, the area required to grow the plants would be the size of South America.  
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Distribution of responsibility would also have to be talked about as countries may be specialized toward certain aspects of the process, such as possessing ideal land for growing the plants, having plentiful factories to process the biomass into butanol, and various other tasks.  
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Revision as of 20:29, 16 September 2015

Safety

Environmental Healthy and Safety Standards

All safety regulations for research at UCSC is regulated by the Environmental Health and Safety Depart (EH&S). EH&S advises the campus community of responsibilities with respect to health, safety and environmental issues; recommends appropriate corrective actions; and helps implement new health and safety programs. EH&S also acts as liaison between UCSC and various external agencies and regulatory bodies. Our actions and decisions have the potential for high visibility and serious consequences to the campus and the community.EH&S programs include a broad and complex range of disciplines including areas such as laboratory and research safety, industrial hygiene, environmental management, radiation, hazardous materials, information technology, ergonomics, biosafety and emergency management.

UCSC iGEM Safety Specifications

The general team overseer also held the responsibility of safety manager, ensuring that all student researchers upheld safety requirements of the EH&S and personal protection equipment. All students were required to take several safety classes on both general laboratory setting and specific laboratory training for other practices, such as biosafety. Our archeal organism Haloferax volcanii can easily be contained in a controlled environment. It requires a high saline environment of 18% salt water in order to grow. So is unable to thrive in surrounding environmental conditions which are freshwater and possible low saline aqueous environments. All DNA modifications to our organism would not alter its growth conditions or its ability to replicate. Due to our organism being in the archaeal domain its is unable to readily transfer DNA to a more rapidly growing organism such as Escherichia coli.