Risk assessment of the E. coli bacteria modified with genes of fluorescence

• Introduction
• Methodology
• Biosafety
• Achievements
• Bibliography

Introduction

The implementation of new technologies requires studies and regulations that guarantee it to be safe, for both the environment and everyone exposed. It is important to remember that there is no activity that has zero risk, and synthetic organisms are not the exception.

There exists tools and methods to evaluate the hazards an organism represent. Specifically, a risk assessment guide details how the risk assessment should be made in order to properly the threat of an organism. A risk assessment is a scientific measure that allows the identification of new hazards. The iGEM Zamorano team made intensive studies to demonstrate that the E. zamofordi is capable of detecting copper residues in water, is safe and it complies with all the international standards of biosafety. To prove its safety, we evaluated two approaches; The environmental risk assessment (ERA) guide proposed by the Cartagena Protocol and a Latin America ERA Guide proposed by 14 expert scientists.

“The importance of this study lays in the proposition of a tool that provides researchers an alternative method to mitigate the possible new hazards in an organism”.