Team:Sherbrooke/Safety

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Safety in iGEM

For our project, we design a lot of new electrical and mechanical systems. Electrical ones sometimes use high voltage and high current. Mechanical ones are sometimes moving, at low or even high speed. So, when testing new design for the first time, or trying new things with them, safety was a concern we needed to deal with. Here are some examples of the biggest safety concerns we had during our project.

Mechanical tests

A standard procedure we followed when testing new mechanical assembly, for examples the platform motion system or the centrifuge plate spinning, we would always wear safety glasses. Also, to help detect problems and prevent it, we would start with a low speed test and doing faster tests as the previous was concluding. That way, risk to damage the equipment and ourselves were lower than to run a full speed test right away.

Electronic tests and soldering

When soldering our BananaBoard PCBs, to ensure our safety and proper assembly method, we always used suitable equipment located in a controlled environment. Of course, like for mechanical tests, we had our glasses on, and, if required, when we were using a reflow-oven, using gloves to manipulate the PCB afterwards.

Biological hazard

All manipulations implying a living organism have been executed in a certified level 1 biosecurity laboratory. All organism used are from risk group 1 according to the Canadian’s PSDS. These include Escherichia coli K-12 substr. EC100Dpir+ and Escherichia coli K-12 substr. BW25113. The manipulation of pVCR94 was done with a modified version of the plasmid that does not carry multiple antibiotic resistance gene. All material used with these organism including, synthetic biological material (like PCR fragment), consumables, contaminated medium and reagent, used cultures and living organisms were decontaminated either by autoclave sterilisation or by proper bleach treatment. The adequate security equipment was wear the entire process (lab coat, glasses and gloves). Every person working with living organisms recieved the formation accrediting him to do so, following university’s security guidelines.