Team:Pitt/safety

Safety

What are the biosafety guidelines of your institution?

http://www.ibc.pitt.edu/RiskGroups/RiskBiosafetyChart2007.htm

http://osp.od.nih.gov/office-biotechnology-activities/biosafety/nih-guidelines

Risks: Standard risks associated with BSL1 bacteria: low risk of human infection, but potential hazards from chemical spills. Negligible risks to the general public. Negligible environmental risks, besides improper disposal of chemicals. Negligible risk from mis-use.

Risk Reduction: We are maintaining safe lab practices to avoid spills, and using only BSL1 organisms.

Potential New Risks: If successfully engineered, the P. acnes bacterium could pose a risk by taking up residence on the skin of individuals working in the lab. An especially viable strain of P. acnes could replace other skin bacteria and begin expressing harmful genes. If the knowledge to transform P. acnes became widely available, then malicious groups could mis-use P. acnes as an infectious agent, spread through skin-skin contact.

Potential Risk Reduction: In the future, extra laboratory precautions would be taken to avoid skin exposure when working with engineered P. acnes. A kill switch or genetic fence may also be engineered to contain loose strains of P. acnes.

Labs

Location: 523 Langley Hall, Pittsburgh, PA 15213

Supervisor: Dr. Paula Grabowski

Bio-Safety Level: 1

Cleared Strains: Escherichia coli

Work Environment: Open benches, laminar flow hood

Protective Equipment: Lab coats, gloves, safety goggles

Waste Disposal: Pipette tips and agar plates are disposed of in a designated bio-hazard bin. Agar gels are placed in solid chemical waste containers underneath a chemical hood. Liquid cultures are sterilized with bleach, and drained into a chemical sink.

Location: 335 Crawford Hall, Pittsburgh, PA 15213

Supervisor: Dr. Garaham Hatfull

Bio-Safety Level: 1

Cleared Strains: Propionibacterium acnes

Work Environment: Open benches, laminar flow hood

Protective Equipment: Lab coats, gloves, safety goggles

Waste Disposal: Pipette tips and agar plates are disposed of in a designated bio-hazard bin. Agar gels are placed in solid chemical waste containers underneath a chemical hood. Liquid cultures are sterilized with bleach, and drained into a chemical sink.

Bacteria

Strain: Eschericia coli

Bio-Safety Level: 1

Use: Intermediate chasis

Source: Life Technologies

Strain: Propionibacterium acnes

Bio-Safety Level: 1

Use: Chasis

Source: ATCC

Safety training: Chemical Hygiene, Blood Borne Pathogens (http://www.ehs.pitt.edu/workplace/web_training.html)

Who is responsible for biological safety at your institution?

At the University of Pittsburgh, there exists an Institutional Biosafety Committee (IBC), who is responsible for monitoring and ensuring compliance with NIH Guidelines on all activities that involve recombinant DNA (rDNA) including gene therapy. We have not discussed our project with them.