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

Components of OpenScope, such as motors and lighting, are electrically powered. The electricity supply used to power the microscope is no higher than 12V DC. However, a high current of 1A in present within the hardware. When building the microscope from scratch extreme safety must be taken to prevent electrocution. Wiring instructions provided on the wiki are simple, clear and designed to minimise these risks.

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

Biosafety

TThe biological side of our project involves standard, routine transformations with fluorescent proteins. For testing of parts of our equipment pre-transformed, GFP-expressing Marchantia were provided to us. However for collaboration with the William and Mary iGEM team transformations of E.coli were carried out. This was done following their same protocol and using standard safety procedures. For more information see our Collaborations Page.

Glass Cutting

Glass cutting was carried out to adapt the shape of dichroic mirrors to fit within the microscope’s epi-cube. It was necessary to take care to ensure that small fragments of glass did not come into contact with eyes or skin. To minimise these risks glass cutting was carried out on a large tray, preventing stray glass fragments being left around the lab. Safety glasses, two pairs of gloves and a lab coat were worn at all times when cutting glass. Risk assessments were completed for the activity and students were supervised by the first-aider on hand. These can be found below (note: signatures were removed from the forms for privacy reasons).

How secure is our lab?

Our work took place in the Teaching Lab, Department of Plant Sciences, University of Cambridge. The lab is GM certified and so is designed with safety precautions in place for working with genetically modified organisms. It is not possible to open the windows in the lab, ensuring that no organism can escape. The lab is also biosafety level 1 certified. It is only possible to handle biological agents which are harmless to humans within it.

What safety practices have we adopted?

Safety was a high priority when selecting a project to work on. Due to safety concerns several project ideas were discarded during brainstorming. Before carrying out any lab work we were given an extensive safety briefing and lab induction by the departmental safety officer.

Standard laboratory procedures were followed at all times. Correct equipment was worn when doing any wet lab work. Cleaning and disposal of equipment was carried out appropriately by considering the hazard level associated. All relevant laws and regulations regarding biosafety were followed.

Outreach day

The team hosted an Outreach day on the 11th of September for sixth students from Cambridge and the surrounding area. A total of 18 students, supervised by their teachers, were invited to participate in two workshops organised by the team. For more information on the Outreach day, visit our Outreach Page. Risk assessments were completed and 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.