Introduction

Safety is of course an important concern in any synthetic biology project. There already exist strict laws and regulations in most countries regarding development and handling of genetically engineered organisms in order to prevent them from causing harm to people or the environment, and it is vital that any iGEM team not put itself or others at risk through its work. Choosing a project in the Hardware track allows our team to largely sidestep any safety issues associated with genetic engineering: our project involves little actual DNA manipulation in living organisms, and the small amount that we have done is more or less quite minor and routine. Still, we have adopted a number of practices to ensure that our project poses minimal risk to any person or property.

What security issues does our project have?

A microscope such as the one we have developed has very few safety concerns. Microscopy is a well-established field, dating back hundreds of years, and techniques for it are common practice and ensure safety. Fluorescence microscopy is little different. Some fluorescent compounds require UV light in order to excite them to emit radiation. UV light is potentially harmful to the eyes and skin if not used with caution, and should be handled carefully. However, the wavelength of UV light used (395 nm) is well above the wavelength considered most harmful to humans, around 260-270nm [1], and the power of the LEDs used is fairly low. Any UV radiation a user would normally be exposed to while using our microscope would be significantly less intense than that of sunlight, so this was not considered a serious safety issue. The biological side of the project involved fairly 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. Its transformation merely led it to express RFP, which does not make the plant harmful to humans or the ecosystem. The vector used to transform the plant, Agrobacterium, is an agricultural pest which inserts plasmids into plant cells and usually does not cause any harm in humans. Transforming it to insert RFP plasmids did not make it any more dangerous or competitive in the environment.

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

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 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.

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.