Safety

Note: Do not do this at the lab or home

In any synthetic biology project, safety will always be an important consideration. In most countries there are strict laws and regulations in regards to development and handling of genetically engineered organisms. These are in place to prevent the cause of harm to people or the environment. It is vital that any iGEM team not put itself or others at any risk through its work.

The Hardware track has fewer associated safety risks than would be found in a purely biological project. DNA manipulation in living organisms is kept to a minimal in our project. The small amount that is carried out is routine and safety measures easily monitored. We have considered any possible risks that our project could pose and adopted a number of practices in order to minimise these.

Safety concerns in our project

Microscopy is a now well-established field, dating back hundreds of years. Techniques used are common practice and as a result safety concerns associated with these techniques have now been significantly reduced. The two main potential safety hazards are illumination damage to eyes or skin, and possible electric shock.

Lighting safety

Some fluorescent compounds require UV light in order to excite them. UV light can be potentially harmful to the eyes and skin if not used with caution. In the project low power (1 watt) UV LEDs are used. These emit light at 395nm. This is much higher than the range of 260-270nm [1], which is considered most harmful to humans. All LEDs in the final design of OpenScope are contained within the epi-cube casing and so the user will not come into contact with any direct light. However, care must be taken putting together the epi-cube when building the microscope, protective eye wear should be worn as a precaution.

Electrical safety

OpenScope uses electric light and it is computer-controlled, which involves the use of electricity in our microscope. All electricity used to run OpenScope was 12V DC or lower, which is a safe voltage. Anyone who builds one will need to do some wiring, but all instructions are clear and designed to minimise risk.

The nature of our project makes it inherently impossible for anyone, even with malicious intentions, to use it to harm others or the environment.

Biosafety

The biological side of the project involved standard, routine transformations with fluorescent proteins in order to test our equipment. Marchantia, the transformed plant we imaged, is a common weed which poses no threat to humans. However, we were kindly supplied with pre-transformed GFP-expressing Marchantia, and were not required to carry out any of our own transformations using Agrobacterium tumefaciens. As part of our collaborations, we performed transformations of E. coli provided by the William and Mary iGEM team. This was done following the same protocol they used and with standard safety procedures. For more information see our Collaborations Page.

Glass Cutting

In order to tailor dichroic mirrors to our Epi-cube design, glass cutting was necessary. Small fragments of cut glass therefore posed a risk to the eyes and skin of those involved in cutting the glass, and if not removed to the environment potentially to other lab users. To address there risks, glass cutting as carried out in a large tray to prevent stray glass fragments reaching the lab bench. Persons involved in glass cutting wore lab safety glasses at all times, and were equipped with two layers of gloves and lab coats to prevent damage to skin. Glass cutting was supervised at all times by trained first-aiders, and the area cleaned after use. Risk assessments were completed and all the students were supervised at all times. These can be found below (note: signatures were removed from the forms for privacy reasons).

How secure is our lab?

All of our work took place in the Teaching Lab at the Department of Plant Sciences, University of Cambridge. This lab is GM-certified, meaning that it was designed with work on genetically modified organisms in place. For example, its windows cannot be opened so that any organisms developed within it cannot escape through that route. The lab is certified for biosafety level 1, meaning that it can only be used to handle biological agents which are harmless to individuals and to the public.

What safety practices have we adopted?

Safety was high in our minds while we were selecting our project. Several ideas were discarded during our brainstorming sessions at the start of the project because they wouldn’t be safe enough. We were all given a lab induction and a safety briefing before we were allowed to handle any potentially dangerous materials. All of the department’s safety policies were explained to us and we were introduced to the departmental safety officer.

All standard laboratory procedures were followed at all times. Lab coats were worn at all times while doing any wet work and all equipment was cleaned before leaving the lab. The hazard level of any waste was evaluated before disposing of it appropriately. Of course, all relevant laws and regulations regarding biosafety were followed and were generally part of our normal lab procedures.

Outreach day

We hosted an outreach day on the 11th of September for visiting secondary students from a range of schools throughout the UK. A total of 18 students, supervised by their teachers, were invited to participate in two workshops organised by the Cambridge-JIC iGEM team. For more information on the Outreach day, visit our Outreach Page. Risk assessments were completed and all the students were supervised at all times. These can be found below (note: signatures were removed from the forms for privacy reasons).

References

[1] International program on chemical safety, “Environmental health criteria 160 - Ultraviolet radiation,” World Health Organization 1994, http://www.inchem.org/documents/ehc/ehc/ehc160.htm.