Team:Peking/Safety

Question 1: Experimental Safety

Would any of your project ideas raise safety issues in terms of:

researcher safety, public safety, or environmental safety?

Answer:

Researcher safety: The biological materials involved in our project are mainly E. coli, cyanobacteria, purified proteins and modified plasmids.

The strains of E. coli that we use are all common and not pathogenic. Cyanobacteria used in the project can produce biotoxin Microcystin, but we handle the cyanobacteria with careful precaution, so they are being used safely. When we are using microcystin, we follow even stricter safety provision (e.g. wearing gas masks, safety goggles, lab coats, rubber gloves and only using it on the clean bench), so the risk is minimized. We have submitted 2 Check-Ins for the usage of Microcystis aerginosa and microcystin and both were approved. The purified proteins are safe and pose no threat to human. The plasmids are risk-free to human too.

Public safety: We are engineering the E. coli to fight against water bloom and the proteins produced by the genetically engineered E. coli don't cause harm to human. Besides, we are only using laboratory strains that are not competitive outside the lab, so the E. coli should not be a threat to the general public if escaped.

Microcystin is toxic, so we are always following strict safety provisions in order to make sure that the cyanobacteria we use won't escape. Besides, cyanobacteria we use are sensitive to growing conditions, and the amount cultivated in our lab is negligible if escaped to the public. Microcystin is used with great care and is disposed of directly after use.

So the risk to the safety and health of the general public is minimal.

Environmental safety: Our E. coli is designed to kill the cyanobacteria, but the proteins produced can harm other prokaryotes at the same time. However, we are still just working in the lab and the testing chassis used are only laboratory strains, so they are not supposed to survive in the wild. Besides, we have designed a suicide switch to make the risk even smaller.

Cyanobacteria grow in natural conditions and the amount of cyanobacteria we are incubating is negligible when escaped to the wild, so they have little risk to the natural environment even if they escape.

Question 2: Biobrick Safety

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

Answer:

None of the BioBrick parts that we made or the bacteria containing the parts raise safety issues according to current knowledge.

Question 3: Safety Committee

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

If yes, what does your local biosafety group think about your project?

Answer:

We have The Office of Laboratory and Equipment of Peking University that sets rules for all laboratories in our university. We don't specifically have an office of biological safety, but we have Biological Experiment Education Center that arranges for all the experimental courses and safety training for students majoring in life sciences. Professor Xu Chongren is the chief director of the center, and he is also in charge of our lab safety. We have discussed the project with him, and no safety concerns were raised. We also communicated with our instructors and advisors frequently, and they deem our project to be safe.

Question 4: Suggestions

Do you have any other ideas how to deal with safety issues that could be useful for future iGEM competitions?

How could parts, devices and systems be made even safer through biosafety engineering?

Answer:

An instructional video that includes basic information of biosafety, concepts like Risk Groups, Lab Safety Levels and iGEM safety provisions may help make the future iGEM competitions safer. More detailed safety information about each BioBrick part can be useful for people to refer to before usage, and this could reduce the safety risks too.