All of our team members were given a thorough safety training prior to the start of the iGEM program. A list of training programs that we attended can be found here. Our project was first approved by this office before its commencement.

Our Lab forms were submitted on June 23 2014 by Shisheng Zhang.

Safety forms (Preliminary Version) were submitted on July 21 2014 by Shisheng Zhang.

Q1: How can you ensure the organisms you use in lab will not do harm to the environment and your team members?

A1: In our wet-lab project, we used E. coli DH5α or BL21(DE3) as chassis-organisms and Clostridium stercorarium (DSM 8532) as donor-organism. All of them are ranked S1. Additionally Clostridium stercorarium (DSM 8532) is an anaerobic bacteria, which is generally considered safe to both environment and reserchers (Information here). Preventive measures such as sterilization of materials prior to disposal are in place to avoid any unforeseen risks.

Q2: In your wet-lab experiment, are there any toxic chemicals in use? What safeguard procedures do you take?

A2: Generally, for molecular experiment, most labs can’t avoid using EB to stain DNA as well as acrylamide for protein electrophoresis. To deduce the harm to minimum, we follow close to the line of lab operation specification. As for paper-making assays, we use 84 sanitizer, which contains sodium hypochlorite, as decolorizer. It is in daily use and can apply to dishes and vegetables, proving it safe, let alone we are in gloves.

Q3：The enzymes used for bio-bleaching are obtained from organisms, how can you ensure your paper product is safe?

A3：The enzymes are synthesized in cytoplasm and then transported into periplasmic space, so we decide to extract the enzymes by osmostic-pressure method. In this way, the thallus are separated from the supernate where protein remains. Thus, while bio-bleaching, no thallus will be found in the pulp.