From 2014.igem.org

Revision as of 12:01, 11 October 2014

Introduction

iGEM teams all around the world are trying to find solutions for issues that might influence not only laboratory work routine but also daily life in the near future. Due to this fact it is very important to think about possible dangers arising from synthetic biology.  During our human practice we experienced a strong desire of the public for solutions that not only have biggest possible efficiency but in first line are safe. First we encountered this attitude in the broad public while we tried to explain them synthetic biology in general (balloon action and mindmap). They were mostly concerned about possible safety leaks.  After this experience we decided to take a look at what the experts of ethics and law are thinking about synthetic biology and therefore we attended the symposium: „Das Missbrauchsrisiko in den Biowissenschaften-Biosicherheitsrelevante Forschung zwischen Freiheit, Fortschritt und Verantwortung“ (Risk of misuse in biology- biosafety relevant research between freedom, progress and responsibility /Freiburg 2014/06/03). Here too most of the speakers were concerned about safety and security issues regarding this relatively new field of research.

For this reason we wanted to start LinkIT – gaining acceptances by overcoming fears. It is our strong believe that better education of the public alongside with identifying, occupying and minimizing the possible risks of our own project would benefit the general attitude towards synthetic biology.

The linking of safety and security is, in our opinion not only possible but mandatory. With people thinking that synthetic biologist around the world are creating Frankenstein it is almost impossible to build a trusted platform of sound debate. The spirit of iGEM is to perform projects that may be applicable in daily life. It is utopic to think that this will become real if we are not starting now to involve and educate the public. The shortcoming of such practices can be seen in modern gene technologies were a lot of applications might be possible and beneficial but the backing of the public is, especially in Europe not existent. This will also be limitations for research and application. You can have best ideas and lab-safety but won’t be able to bring them to the market because of lacking support and fear from the public.

For a general overview we identified possible risks in our lab and in synthetic biology in general. Firstly we concentrated on general lab safety.

General wet laboratory safety:

We worked in a BSL-1 laboratory, so the general safety measurements for such a facility were kept upright at any given time point. It was absolutely mandatory to wear protective clothing (labcoat, gloves, closed shoes). Furthermore we divided the lab-area in distinct working places, with spaces for cloning, gel-electrophoresis and western-blot.

Coordinated and thoroughly work in the laboratory is essential for establishing and maintaining safety standards in our wet lab with minimized risks for everybody working there. Besides receiving the mandatory safety training (q.v. safety form) we distributed the laboratory in work areas for different parts of our project/ steps in the laboratory work. Besides the distribution in the main laboratory where cloning and gel electrophoresis took place a large part of our wet lab was located in the cell culture. Working sterile under extractor hoods benefitted the safe handling of our system and demagnified the risk of parts escaping the laboratory. To further prevent contamination of the environment we autoclaved all our S-1 contaminated waste after separating it from the general waste.

Safety-Sheet regarding the work with viral vectors

To expand the usual safety- and check-in-forms we developed an additional safety-sheet which not only increases safety for scientists working directly with viral vectors but also aims to provide an easy to understand tool for people not involved in laboratory work. This is also part of our goals we want to achieve with LINK-it, to increase the acceptance of the public by giving them greater insights.

We are providing the pMIG (viral vector) as a tool for easy gene delivery and generating cell lines under BSL1 conditions to the iGEM community. This spreadsheet, as a checklist for safety standards supplies future teams with the possibility to fast and on the point inspection of their projects safety (LINK registry).