Team:Cambridge-JIC/Safety

We recognized from the start that any science project can lead to harm if there is lack of awareness of the risks or if necessary precautions are not taken. This harm can affect the researchers themselves, the public, the environment and also how communities perceive Science. None of these being desirable, we discussed, planned and applied before, during and after precautionary measures to minimize risk of harm.

Additional information about safety can be found in the official iGEM Cambridge-JIC Safety Form and About Our Lab form.

Awareness

Our first step to minimizing risks in our project was a group discussion about the meaning of the word ‘safety’, what it meant to us, what it meant to the community and how we evaluate risk.

What is safety?

We started by looking at the definition; always a safe place to start.

Safety, noun, from Latin 'Salvus': The condition of being protected from or unlikely to cause danger, risk, or injury.
Or in our own words, being safe is being aware and minimizing the probability of causing harm to ourselves and others.
We based our discussions on the IAP Principles for a code of conduct:


Awareness
Scientists have an obligation to do no harm.

Safety and Security
Scientists have a responsibility to use good, safe and secure laboratory procedures.

Education and Information
Scientists should be aware of, disseminate information aimed at preventing the misuse of biological research.

Accountability
Scientists who become aware of activities that violate the BTWC should raise concerns with the appropriate people, authorities and agencies

Oversight
Scientists with responsibility for oversight of research should promote adherence to these principles and act as role models in this regard

Technology and Biological Risks

Biological exists because natural and human biological manipulation far outstrip our ability to detect, analyse or respond to danger.

The way we can minimize risk is to build and enhance detection, analysis methods for of biological threats and establish rapid and predictable responses to them.

Conclusion

1) We cannot control distribution of technology and information
2) Regulating access would be unreasonably costly and unenforceable
3) Source of threats are many and varied: natural, state-sponsored or individuals
Our answer

Long term: Increase society’s capacity to detect, analyse and respond to biological risks.

Right now: Raise awareness, establish safety guidelines, be considerate and continuously assess the situation to minimize harm.

Safety and Security

Safety is of utmost importance during projects involving synthetic biology. Not only must the welfare of scientific and non-scientific staff within the department be considered, but also that of the wider community. Safety procedures have been prioritised from the beginning of our project and we have taken care to pick a project that poses minimal biosafety risks even in the event of accidental release from a laboratory.

Researcher Safety

As with any scientific project, ours will require precautions to ensure the safety of researchers. These include the use of gloves and labcoats to protect from chemicals which are irritant and the use of masks when using powdered media. Materials safety datasheets and COSSH forms will be used to assess risk.

Waste Disposal

The proper waste disposal routes were followed stringently in order to prevent the reagents and biological material that we worked with from causing any harm to the environment or the general public. Disposing of equipment used for experimental purposes is a significant challenge, and detailed procedures are in place within the department in order to ensure the safe disposal of all materials, or their recycling where possible. The chart below outlines our departmental waste disposal policy - it is currently up on our wall in the lab.

Minimising risks inside the lab

Within the lab, MSDS sheets were consulted whenever we planned to use new chemicals/reagents to ensure that all possible safety hazards had been taken into consideration before any accidents could happen. For each protocol followed we prepared a COSHH form for departmental records and recorded any safety issues in the relevant section of the protocol, as a reference for ourselves and future teams.

Public and Environmental Safety: Cambridge and beyond

There is very little risk to public safety from our project. We are using non-pathogenic lab strains of E. coli which have lost their ability to compete in the intestine. The recombinant DNA we are creating are constructs from pre-existing parts; it is difficult to see how this could ever engender pathogenicity even after horizontal transfer to other organisms. Nevertheless our project must be properly contained. Control measures to ensure this include keeping the windows of the laboratory closed and autoclaving all waste.

The question we asked ourselves was: will what I make hurt me, my colleagues in the lab (Contained Use) or the environment (including innocent bystanders) if accidentally released? Marchantia polymorpha is found throughout the world. The constructs we made are harmless and give selective disadvantage to the plants making them non-competitive to the outside world.

The reagents we use could cause long term harm to the environment so we were careful to dispose of them in the appropriate manner (see waste disposal guidelines above).

We also looked at safety issues that could be raised if mösbi were to become available to the wider public. The discussions, thoughts and issues raised as well as proposed solutions can be found in our mösbi section of our Wiki.

Biobrick safety and recommendations for future teams

The low-risk nature of our project is no accident; these considerations featured in our brainstorming sessions, and we discarded potential project ideas because of their potential biosafety implications. This is the kind of practice we would like to encourage more iGEM teams to take seriously when choosing a project.

We recommend that future teams consider following this planning procedure, as the real world applications proposed by many past teams appear to fail to take into consideration the risks posed by the uncontrolled release of their GMOs into the wider environment.

We also recommend that future teams try to consider fail safes in the bio containment aspects of their projects to reduce the risks of GMOs evolving resistance to biocontainment efforts.

Biosafety

One of our advisors, Dr. Ajioka, is the biosafety officer for the Department of Pathology. We were able to discuss the safety of our work with him and drew from his wealth of experience. We also ensured we complied with the UK's biosafety regulations, taking advice from Dr. Ajioka.

Departmental Codes of Practice for GM organisms were also consulted whilst planning our project. We have thus been cleared to work with plants and bacteria that have been classified as being "unlikely to cause human disease". However, before starting work with GM bacteria, the relevant risk assessment forms must be submitted to the Head of Group within the Department for approval.

Working in the UK, there are also national biosafety regulations that we were made aware of before beginning our project. We have complied with all of these guidelines, and hence have worked well within the law.