Team:Tokyo Tech/Policy and Practices/Our question about biosafety

Through the activities mentioned in Policy and Practices, we found one question about our project : how can we can solve the safety problem (related to the commercialization. )

Our approaches to this problem were interview to a biosafety specialist.

We consulted the biosafety expert, Mr. Tomoya Saito, who is working for National Institute of Public Health. He gave us a lecture on dual-use technology. After that, we asked him some questions about biosafety.

Q1. When we use bacteria that produces harmless substances, does a biosafety or biosecurity problem arise? (Naoto)

A1. In that circumstance, it is necessary to find out whether the problem comes from the bacteria or the substances. In other words, the measurement against the problem differs depending on whether the problem is biohazard or chemical hazard.

Q2. No matter how hard we try to keep biosafety, there remains a probability that researchers themselves might abuse the technology. How can we prevent that? (Riku)

A2. The most important thing is to not provide  funding or facility to those people. For example, the researcher who has dubious funding sources or who ordered dangerous series of reagents might be surveyed. Also, the achievements and status as a researcher will be checked if they ordered synthesis of genes. In the U.S, when they have debts or criminal records, their applications will be rejected.

The lecture of an expert in biosafety taught us many things we have to pay attention to as a scientist. When we thought about the comment for the first question “it is necessary to find out whether the problem comes from the bacteria or the substances”, we came to the answer that the problem came from the bacteria we use. After this lecture, we gave close attention to the waste liquid treatment. When the waste included E. coli, we made sure it was thrown in the Biohazard waste bag. All the experiments were carried out with more than one person, so that we can check each other’s mistakes.
From this approach , we were able to learn about the points scientists need to be aware of. We can say that this feedback gave many good effects for us.