SAFETY

1. Your Training

1. Have your team members received any safety training yet?

Yes, we have already received safety training.



2. Please briefly describe the topics that you learned about (or will learn about) in your safety training.

- Safety Equipment

- Waste Management

- Recombinant DNA Technology and Biological Safety



3. Please give a link to the laboratory safety training requirements of your institution (college, university, community lab, etc). Or, if you cannot give a link, briefly describe the requirements.

Laboratory Assistant, College students and Technician

2. Your Local Rules and Regulations

1. Who is responsible for biological safety at your institution? (You might have an Institutional Biosafety Committee, an Office of Environmental Health and Safety, a single Biosafety Officer, or some other arrangement.) Have you discussed your project with them? Describe any concerns they raised, and any changes you made in your project based on your discussion.

Our institution has a committee dealing with environmental security, health, safety, and (K3L). But they did not concerned in biosafety of modified organisms. In addition, our biosafety committe (K3L) deals only in laboratory safety and environment security.



2. What are the biosafety guidelines of your institution? Please give a link to these guidelines, or briefly describe them if you cannot give a link.

http://www.che.itb.ac.id/safety

http://www.tf.itb.ac.id/files/2011/11/SOP-K3-Laboratorium-Teknik-Fisika.pdf

http://www.tf.itb.ac.id/files/2011/11/KEPUTUSAN-sop-kedaruratan.pdf



3. In your country, what are the regulations that govern biosafety in research laboratories? Please give a link to these regulations, or briefly describe them if you cannot give a link.

Yes, our country does. It can be accessed in http://indonesiabch.or.id/tentang-bkkhi/

3. The Organisms and Parts that You Use

1. Species name (including strain)

Escherichia coli DH5alpha and BL21 (DE3)



2. Risk Group

Risk Group 1



3. Risk Group Source

NIH http://osp.od.nih.gov/sites/default/files/NIH_Guidelines.html#_Toc351276313


4. Disease risk to humans?

E. coli may irritate the skin, eyes, respiratory tract, blood circulation, and kidney. And also may cause nausea or vomiting nausea or vomiting.



5. Part number/name

BBa_K936024 ; BBa_K936000



6. Natural function of part

BBa_K936024 = to convert ethylene glycol into glycolate ; BBa_K936000 = hydrolyses cutin



7. How did you acquire it?

BBa_K936024 = requesting from HQ ; BBa_K936000 = from distribution kit



8. How will you use it?

BBa_K936000 = to degrade PET into terephthalic acid and ethylene glycol ; BBa_K936024 = to convert the product of PET degradation

Risks of Your Project Now

Please describe risks of working with the biological materials (cells, organisms, DNA, etc.) that you are using in your project. If you are taking any safety precautions (even basic ones, like rubber gloves), that is because your work has some risks, however small. Therefore, please discuss possible risks and what you have done (or might do) to minimize them, instead of simply saying that there are no risks at all.



1. Risks to the safety and health of team members, or other people working in the lab:

Our topic is about whole cell biocatalyst that can degrade one kind of plastic, that is Polyethylene Terepthalate (PET). The whole process we strictly dispose the chemicals and toxic substances, such as Ethylene glycol. Ethylene glycol can be a mild irritant if it contact with the skin or if it is inhaled, so we have to protect ourself by wears gloves, lab coats and always work with ethylene glycol in the confine of a fume hood. Additionally, we designing a circuit in which produce enzymes that will degrade ethylene glycol into glycoaldehyde and then glycolate. The glycolate has the potential to be turned in to oxaloacetate, a metabolic intermediate in our device.

The device that we use in this project are Escherichia coli DH5 Alpha and BL21(DE3). According to Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS), the wild-type strain of E. coli may irritate the skin, eyes, respiratory tract, blood circulation, and kidney. To minimize the risk, same as the protect needs from ethylene glycol our team and the researchers in our lab always working safely by using gloves, lab coats, mask, and goggles (if necessary).



2. Risks to the safety and health of the general public (if any biological materials escaped from your lab):

Our project would not impact the environment in a harmful way. To guarantee the safety and health of general public, we deal with experimental waste and DNA. We also dispose the experimental bacteria, medium, and disposable goods through destruction stages by autoclaving to avoid potential safety hazard.



3. Risks to the environment (from waste disposal, or from materials escaping from your lab):

Ethylene glycol is a clear, colourless, syrupy liquid with a sweet taste but no odour. It has low volatility and miscible with water and some other solvents, slightly soluble in ether, but practically insoluble in benzene, chlorinated hydrocarbons, petroleum ethers, and oils. Ethylene glycol released to the atmosphere will be degraded by reaction with hydroxyl radicals. Ethylene glycol is readily biodegradable in standard tests using sewage sludge. However, ethylene glycol can potentially be toxic within waterways so to ensure environmental safety the team has taken extra precautions to dispose of ethylene glycol safely. In addition all of the hazard waste from our lab is not released directly to the environment.



4. Risks to security through malicious mis-use by individuals, groups, or countries:

The hazard posed not only by lab workers as well as the design in our devices but also determined by abuse committed by malicious people. The bacteria we use have special requirements for life. Therefore, these bacteria can not be used freely, especially if somebody want to activate the system that we have designed.



5. e) What measures are you taking to reduce these risks? (For example: safe lab practices, choices of which organisms to use.)

As detailed above to reduce this risks we have to wears laboratory protector such as gloves, mask, goggles and lab coats. For device that we used is Escherichia coli that very common bacteria for use in the biological experiment, so we have been trained to handle it.