Safety Plan

The safety plan for the Team will ensure that all laboratory safety procedures are met. This means that there will be a mandatory WHIMIS training session for all members and potential members, followed by a WHIMIS quiz. If a student fails the mandatory quiz, re-training will be required for the student to become a member of the Team.

The project will not involve any work with radioactive materials, but regardless, mandatory Radiation Safety training will be completed by all team members before work in any laboratory that handles radioactive isotopes.

There will be no hazardous materials used, aside from standard laboratory reagents (acetone, ethanol, etc.) Laboratory practices will resemble those taught in any in introductory microbiology or engineering laboratory course. All laboratory practices will be safe and in the best interest for the safety and well-being of the students.

Only Class I organisms will be used. The definition for Class I organism used in this case is that of the United States National Institutes of Health (NIH):

“Risk Group 1 (RG1): Agents that are not associated with disease in healthy adult humans. Examples of RG1 agents include asporogenic Bacillus subtilis or Bacillus licheniformis, Escherichia coli-K12, and adeno-associated virus (AAV) types 1 through 4.”

- National Institutes of Health (NIH) - Classification of human etiologic agents on the basis of hazard (2002)