Team:BNU-China/safety-overview

Overview

Safety, including lab and environment safety, is always our top concern.

In lab, all members have received safety trainings before working on our project; experiment regulations are rigidly observed.
In regard of environment, we have evaluated the project feasibility and its relating security issues. We designed a kill switch to guarantee our “Prometheus” is under control while capturing Molybdenum and delivering it to roots of grass family.

The safety questions:

1.Would any of your project ideas raise safety issues?

We use Escherichia coli, strain DH5α and TOP10 in our lab work. These strains are commonly used and proved safe when handled properly. All living materials and their extract are treated as potentially infectious, and we never release them into the environment without sterilization. Work in the lab is only permitted for students wearing a lab coat, long trousers and closed shoes. For certain kinds of work with increased safety, danger safety glasses and appropriate protection gloves have to be used. Of course eating and drinking is strictly forbidden.

2.Do any of the new BioBrick parts (or devices) that you made this year raise safety issues?

All our biobricks are safe and none of them expresses toxic products. There is no expectable safety problem with these gene materials.

3. Is there a local biosafety group, committee, or review board at your institution?

Professor Wang Yue, a famous health law expert in China from Peking University Health Science Center, is our team advisor. We consulted him about the related law issues to ensure that all the experiments are conducted under the law in China. Besides, the teacher, who takes charge of lab safety in Beijing Normal University, taught us how to deal with the laboratory waste and gave us a lot of valuable advice.

The Story of E.coli Prometheus

BNU-China