Team:Tianjin/Safety

Alarm bells

According to the Ministry of Education “2008-2009 General Undergraduate Colleges Laboratory Information Statistics”, there are 26479 laboratories in 1129 total regular undergraduate colleges in China, laboratory area 2 6.015 million m2. With so many laboratories, safety accidents have occured from time to time. In 2009, a university teacher of the department of chemistry mistakenly accessed CO gas into 307 lab, which should have been accessed to 211 lab. A woman doctor died because of this fault; In 2010, students and teachers of a university in northeast of China used goats without being checked in their experiments, which lead 27 students and 1 teacher were diagnosed as infected with brucellosis; In 2013,  a postgraduate student named Huang Yang from Fudan University died of poisoning in Shanghai Zhongshan Hospital. According to the report of the police's investigation, a toxic chemical compound was found in the drinking water dispenser in Huang's dormitory room, and this toxic chemical compoud is taken out of a laboratory.

Ponder why

——Why do such tragedies repeat again and again?

These terrible incidents are not mere coincidences and it reminds us college students of the importance of lab-safety. Thus we studied a large number of reports and literature to analyze the causes of? laboratory accidents. First of all, leaders and managers pay insufficient attention is the main reason. Second, management system and mechanism are not sound. Lacking of safety consciousness also cannot be neglected in causing safety problems. Last but not least, non-standard hardware construction is also a key reason.

reflect on our own

——What is happening to our lab?

Laboratory safety awareness is the "Achilles heel" to our lab. Too much facts tell us that most accidents are caused by negligence of researchers. Do experiments without wearing gloves or lab coats, pile up clutter at random in the laboratory, or eat pineapples in the laboratory during experimental clearances. Now ask yourself, have these phenomenon happened to you or around you on earth before?

preventive measures 

——How to avoid the occurrence of laboratory accidents?

Laboratory safety issues can not be ignored. Tianjin University started the “Lab-Safety Month of Tianjin University”under the advocation of our IGEM team since 2013. A number of activities were held to enhance students’ safety awareness. Here, we launched the initiative that everyone pay more attention to laboratory safety, starting from things around us and from ourselves.

Safety Tips:

1. Always wear appropriate personal protective equipment. Feet and legs should be covered; sandals and open-toed shoes should not be worn in laboratories. Wear appropriate gloves while handling infectious or toxic materials and animals. Do not wear lab coats, gloves or other personal protective equipment outside the laboratory. Change gloves when contaminated, and dispose of used gloves with other contaminated laboratory waste.

2. Do not eat, drink, smoke, handle contact lenses, apply cosmetics, or store food for human consumption in the laboratory.

3. Wash your hands after working with potentially hazardous materials and before leaving the laboratory.

4. Follow the institutional policies regarding safe handling of sharps (i.e., needles, scalpels, pipettes, and broken glassware). Be careful with needles and syringes. Use only when alternative methods are not feasible. Syringes, needles, Pasteur pipettes, etc, should be placed in rigid, leak-proof containers (Sharps Safe) and discarded following the waste rules.

5. Take care to minimize the creation of aerosols and/or splashes.

6.Decontaminate all work surfaces before and after your experiments, and immediately after any spill or splash of potentially infectious material with an appropriate disinfectant. Clean laboratory equipment routinely, even if it is not contaminated.

7. Decontaminate all potentially infectious materials before disposal.

8. Report any incidents that may result in exposure to infectious materials to appropriate personnel (e.g., laboratory supervisor, safety officer).

9. Know where the nearest eyewash, safety shower, and fire extinguisher are located. Know how to use them.

10. Insist upon good housekeeping in your laboratory.

11. Check for insects and rodents. Keep all areas clean.

12. Secure all gas cylinders.

13. Several species of toxic substances of biological laboratory we could often see in laboratory:  Tris,glycine, X-gal, β-galactosidase.

Not only we should pay more attention to laboratory safety, but also should our governments enhance management.Welcome to visit https://2012.igem.org/Team:Tianjin/Safety for more details.