Team:HUST-China/Safety

Safety

Safety has always been significant to a practical project especially in synthetic biology. This year we generate a auto-consolidating kit mainly applied to marine environment. It means a huge challenge whether to the strain or the specific environment. However we have shouldered our responsibility to assure the safety of our project and other process in the competition.

Safe Project Design

We deal with the problem by introducing safe strain and safe gene product. All the products expressed in the kit having no toxcity to marine organisms and will cause no diseases of human,plants or animals. The strain Yarrowia Lipolytica JMY1212 we adopt is generally regarded as safe microorganism in safety group 1. It naturally exists in the ocean and healthy marine fishes’ intestine. So the compatibility of the strain and marine environment can be reasonably high. The Y.L is also widely used as an host inIndustries of Foods and Pharmaceuticals. Based on the previous practice,the genetic engineering of the strain performs a stable function for the plasmid employed also traced back to the Y.L strain. In flocculating system,our main working agent Mcfp-3 protein is natrual product of Mytilus californianus as component of byssus. It enhance the byssus’s ability to tether strongly to the surface of solid surface of rocks or ship-body. This coherent substance shows the excellent adhesion performance with no substitute under water for sustaining the repeating wash of waves. The property is a double-edged sword, on the one hand it is a strong adhesive, on the other hand, it may lead to biological contamination for the mytilus are considered to be fouling organisms. We had thought about this before, and just to emphasize,the product of a fouling organisms if designed well can be safe and efficient. So we take the advantage of it. We simulate a diffusion model and put forward a resonable implementation menthod: to send yeast deep in sand with a biodegradable container where is far beneath shipbody or other normal artificial facilities . And the Si-tag displayed on cell surface can further limit the diffusion bond. So we can put the flocuclation under control. Then as the cementation forms,respiration of yeast goes on and CaCO3 (CO2 produced by the respiration of yeast react with Ca2+ in alkaline marine environment) accelerates, the yeast will gradually “suicide” owing to limited respiration and lack of nutrition. Therefore our kit can reasonably bear the responsibility to preserve the ecological environment fixing the broken basement of the seabed. And with aggregation and growth of marine organisms the ecological environment is bound to be more live and vigorous.

Safe Lab Work

Safe issues in Lab work is also of significance. And our team has an effective security guarantee. Before new members entering the lab, we organize a safety training courses taught by previous team members or masters and doctors in our collaborating lab. Members will be admitted in the lab only if they have passed the safety examine. And undergraduate are not allowed to some Level 2 equipment unless they are accompanied with masters or doctors. We have trained them about the experiment operating standard, equipment safety regulations and the rules in the polluted area. And fortunately the strain we employed are all safety Level 1 organism, so most experiments are at Biosafety Level 1. These are several points we emphasize on in our lab safety courses based on the previous experience: 1.Polluted area must be isolated from the normal operating platform. Experimenter are required to wear lab coat and polyvinyl chloride plastic cement gloves when enter it. 2. Toxic reagent must be recycled specially. 3.Volatile chemicals involving experiment must be operated in the fuming cupboard. 4. Laboratory appliance must be sterilized before and after use. 5.Safety and maintaining of complex equipments must be taken charged by certain staff.

Safe Shipment

We value the safety in sending parts to registry a very important aspect in competition project. We will never send liquid sample but wrap the sample container with enough bubble paper to make sure it will not be broken. And sometimes the DNA delivery will be checked by customs and needs certain safety certification to make sure the containing material is not harmful to destination. We obey these rules and prepare materials, such as certain safety certification, and package according to their requirement. In most delivery, the customs will finally discharge it after checking. This procedure may take additional days and we will take the delay into consideration before sending out our delivery.

In general, we have only few months to verify the safety of our project while a real-world issue demands long-term and more comprehensive testings. So we can say that according to all data and modeling analysis results the kit can be safe. And there is still a long way to go, we are planning to make further efforts to promote the kit’s properties,make it adapt better to complex environment and improve its implementation strategy.

BBa_K1592018

BBa_K1592018

BBa_K1592018