Team:BroadRun-NorthernVA/Education and Public Outreach

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Safety in iGEM

To insure the safety of our team and the world outside of our operations, we took many steps to negate the possibility of the biological destruction of humanity. Here are the steps we used:

Planning: Our journey began within the walls of our cozy laboratory, our team spent hours planning the safest approach to our experiment. We decided to use a harmless strain of yeast to conduct our experiments on amylase.

Lab Safety: To negate the possibility of any physical injuries, proper lab conduct was followed at all times. These procedures included:

• Wearing gloves and goggles
• Disinfecting the workspace
• Following chemical safety procedures
• Maintaining a neat and well organized work environment
• Using bleach to sterilize unused cultures
• Keeping food and drink out of the lab
  
  
  
  

  Product Safety

  Before we allowed our product to leave the lab we carefully tested for any adverse effects it could have on the environment.

  There are several options to minimize risks to the environment:

  • Incorporate a kill switch after a certain number of generations, or activated by a certain compound, so that the genetically modified yeast cells will not have a chance adversely affect the environment in the event the cells escape the water system/lab
  • Minimize the risk that our genetically engineered yeast will escape into the environment by isolating the secreted amylase from the microbial culture, and only using the enzyme to treat the water. The yeast itself, will never leave the lab.