Safety

Overview

Our laboratory is located in Chengdu, Sichuan. Biosafety is the most important thing for our laboratory, and also for every laboratory. Biosafety to us means minimizing the risks concerning the team working in the lab, the general public and the environment.

Researcher safety

In our school, every freshman student must take a safety course before starting their experiments. After the course there will be an exam. Students who pass the exam will accept a diploma, with which one may enter the laboratory. In addition, every member has to read experimental protocol carefully before the experiment. When doing experiments, everyone is demanded to wear gloves to avoid contacting with poisonous chemicals and bacteria.

Labortory safety

The material we used in our laboratory is tobacco leaves, which is nontoxic to our bodies. And there is an inoculation room, where we handle the tobacco leaves. There are four super clean benches, which are sterilized by UV before we use.
The bacteria we used in our laboratory are E.coli (DH5a) and A.tume (EHA105), which are both the basic biosafety level 1.
In our experiments we have only one harmful reagent, it is Ethidium bromide, which is used for coloring agent. We must wear gloves and face mask before we use it.

Public safety

Any untrained person couldn't have access to our iGEM laboratory. If necessary, for example, we invited other college students to visit our laboratory, these visitors have to wear lab coats and gloves.
All lab coats and gloves should be put off before members leaving the laboratory. All waste culture medium and bacterium solution have been sterilized before put into disposal bottle to ensure public safety.

Environmental safety

The bacteria we used in our laboratory are E.coli (DH5a) and A.tume (EHA105), which are both the basic biosafety level 1. All bacteria are biological engineering strain, and they can not survive without culture medium. All waste culture medium and bacteria solution have been sterilized before put into disposal bottle.

Safety form

Click here to see our safety form.

In a word, we have taken safety, including researchers safety, lab safety and public safety into accounts. We've taken steps to ensure safety of all people.