Biosafety

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DRAFT: The Aachen team is committed to consider all aspects of the entire project, including biosafety. In this way neither the sampled pathogens nor the genetically modified sensor cells can escape our biosensor unit.

For our project two biosafety aspects have to be consider. On the one hand we are using E.coli as genetically modified organism and on the other ahnd we are detecting Pseudomonas aeruginosa a human pathogen. While using Pseudomonas we have the problem of non-proliferation. For E.coli we have to look after the non-release of genetically modified organisms. In general we developed and designed the measurenment device as closed system for a better safety handling. In this way neither the sampled pathogens nor the genetically modified sensor cells can escape out of our biosensor unit. Also the electronic components are inaccessible so that no one could get an electric shock. For the detection we are using one way sampling and sensor chips which can be disposed after autoclaving or irradate them with a strong UV light.

Pseudomonas aeruginosa

• get the pure agar chip on a solid surface to improve contamination with Pseudomonas
• put the sampling chip into the measurement device for detection
• don't get this sampling chip out of teh device until you finished detection

E.coli

• build a sensor chip including E.coli cells which have to be handled in S1 laboratories
• that is the reason why it's only allowed to use the measurement device in S1 labs
• put the sensor chip into the device like the sampling chip before
• don't get the sensor chip out of the device until you finished detection

The living cells inside the measurement device are ensured to be killed after detection at first by using desinfectant like bacillol. For this procedure open teh drawer of the measurement device and pour bacillol on the sampling and also on the sensor chip. After this measures both chips can be autoclaved and later disposed. For the worst case scenario we made a stamp pront of the used sensor chip. In three experiments we got an arithmetic mean of five colonies which could get out of these chip. To conclude the infection risk is really low if you are not using the measurement device as descripted.