Safety
Safety is a principal concern of both UC San Diego and our iGEM team, and we are happy to report that there are no serious risks associated with our project.
Parts/Chassis Risk
Our chassis organism, saccharomyces cerevisiae, is non-pathogenic, and the lux genes that we are introducing to it do not pose a risk to either our team or the surrounding ecosystem.
Safety Training
Before beginning experiments, every member of our team to perform lab work completed the necessary online certifications and has been given an orientation of our lab, its hazards, and how to address them to allow for safe and productive research. This training educated all of our members on the principles of biosafety and proper lab conduct, allowing us to responsibly carry out all of our experiments.
Researcher/Public/Environmental Safety
To further mitigate the potential risks of lab work, our researchers follow standard safety precautions in the laboratory, such as wearing proper gear. Saccharomyces cerevisiae is Risk Group 1 and our plasmid produces light. Thus, they should not endanger the environment or public if they were accidentally released.
Biosafety Regulations of Institution and Country
The United States’ biosafety regulations are listed here: http://www.cdc.gov/biosafety/publications/bmbl5/BMBL.pdf .
UCSD has their own set of biosafety regulations that can be found at this link: http://blink.ucsd.edu/safety/research-lab/biosafety/ .
Biobrick Safety Issues
Our four biobricks do not pose a notable threat to the safety of the researchers, environment or the public.