While our project aims to help alleviate environmental pollution, we must take precautions to ensure that no personal or environmental harm comes in the process. Biological lab work comes with an inherent risk, and outlined below are specific risks associated with our project as well as precautions we take to safely complete our project. Our completed safety form can be found here

Specific Safety Concerns

Laboratory Safety: To visualize DNA gels we regularly use ethidium bromide, a DNA intercalating agent known to be carcinogenic. To visualize gels we also use a powerful UV light. We regularly use the antibiotics chloramphenicol and ampicillin which can be harmful to humans in large doses. For our project this year we are using salts of the heavy metals nickel, lead, and mercury. These metals can be acutely toxic at high enough concentrations and carcinogenic over the long term. We also use open flame alcohol burners to maintain a sterile environment.

Environmental Safety: If any biological materials escape from the lab there is a risk of transfer of antibiotic resistance from our engineered strains into other organisms. None of the coding regions we're using in our project should provide competitive advantage in a natural environment (unless in an environment with high metal concentrations), so the biggest risk is from transfer of antibiotic resistance to outside organisms. Additionally, release of the heavy metals we are working with this year (Ni, Hg, Pb) could also pose environmental and personal harm if released into the water supply.

Chassis Organisms: The table below describes all strains worked with for our project this year. The chassis organisms E. coli DH5a and BL21-AI are biosafety level 1 organisms and pose no disease risk to people. None of the coding regions we're using in our project should provide competitive advantage in a natural environment (unless in an environment with high metal concentrations), so the biggest risk is from transfer of antibiotic resistance to outside organisms.

Species name	Risk Group	Risk Group Source	Disease risk to humans?	Part number/name	Natural function of part
Escherichia coli DH5α	1	NIH	No	N/A	N/A
Escherichia coli BL21-AI	1	NIH	No	T7 polymerase	RNA polymerase native to T7 bacteriophage
Escherichia coli BL21-AI	1	NIH	No	BBa_K1460001	GST enzyme transfers reduced form of glutathione to xenobiotic substrates. YMT binds to metals to confer metal tolerance.
Escherichia coli BL21-AI	1	NIH	No	BBa_K1460002	GST enzyme transfers reduced form of glutathione to xenobiotic substrates. YMT binds to metals to confer metal tolerance.
Escherichia coli DH5α	1	NIH	No	BBa_K1460003	NixA transport nickel ions in H. pylori
Escherichia coli DH5α	1	NIH	No	BBa_K1460004	merT/merP transport mercury ions in P. aeruginosa
Escherichia coli DH5α	1	NIH	No	BBa_K1460005	CBP4 is used in in N. tabacumto confer nickel tolerance and transport lead
Escherichia coli BL21-AI	1	NIH	No	BBa_K1460006	Composite Part
Escherichia coli BL21-AI/td>	1	NIH	No	BBa_K1460007	Composite Part
Escherichia coli BL21-AI	1	NIH	No	BBa_K1460008	Composite Part

Far far away, behind the word mountains, far from the countries Vokalia and Consonantia, there live the blind texts. Separated they live in Bookmarksgrove right at the coast of the Semantics, a large language ocean. A small river named Duden flows by their place and supplies it with the necessary regelialia.

Far far away, behind the word mountains, far from the countries Vokalia and Consonantia, there live the blind texts. Separated they live in Bookmarksgrove right at the coast of the Semantics, a large language ocean. A small river named Duden flows by their place and supplies it with the necessary regelialia.

But I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of denouncing pleasure and praising pain was born and I will give you a complete account of the system, and expound the actual teachings of the great explorer of the truth, the master-builder of human happiness.

Header 2

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No one rejects, dislikes, or avoids pleasure itself, because it is pleasure, but because those who do not know how to pursue pleasure rationally encounter consequences that are extremely painful. Nor again is there anyone who loves or pursues or desires to obtain pain of itself, because it is pain, but because occasionally circumstances occur in which toil and pain can procure him some great pleasure. To take a trivial example, which of us ever undertakes laborious physical exercise, except to obtain some advantage from it? But who has any right to find fault with a man who chooses to enjoy a pleasure that has no annoying consequences, or one who avoids a pain that produces no resultant pleasure? On the other hand, we denounce with righteous indignation and dislike men who are so beguiled and demoralized by the charms of pleasure of the moment, so blinded by desire, that they cannot foresee.

Header 3

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References

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