Team:UCLA/Safety

From 2014.igem.org

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          <h1>Safety</h1>
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<h2>Training</h2>
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<p><b>Briefly describe the topics that you learned about in your safety training.</b></p>
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<p>Our safety training covered hazardous material storage and usage, biohazard usage practices, protective personal equipment, engineering and human safety controls, and in-depth properties of select hazards, such as peroxides and flammable compounds. The laboratory safety training requirements at UCLA can be found <a href = "http://policy.ucop.edu/doc/3500598/LabSafetyTraining">here</a> </p>
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<p><b>In your country, what are the regulations that govern biosafety in research laboratories? Please give a link to these regulations, or briefly describe them if you cannot give a link.</b></p>
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<p>In the USA, biosafety regulations are provided by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the American Biological Safety Association (ABSA), and National Institute of Health (NIH)</p>
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<h2>Project Risks</h2>
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<p><b>Risks to the safety and health of team members, or other people working in the lab:</b></p>
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<p><i>E. coli</i> K12 strain does not pose a major safety risk to humans. <i>Nephila clavipes</i> silk, which is the expressed protein product in our project, does not pose a safety risk either. Nevertheless, skin contact and potential ingestion should be eliminated or minimized.</p>
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<p> Visit the <a href="https://2014.igem.org/Safety" >Safety Hub</a> to see this year's safety requirements. The Safety Hub is the central page for everything related to safety in iGEM. You can also go there to learn about general biosafety topics, and how to think about the future implications of your project.</p>
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<p><b>Risks to the safety and health of the general public, particularly if any biological materials escaped from your lab:</b></p>
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<p>Spider silk does not pose any safety or health risk to the environment if released. <i>E. coli</i> may have unpredictable impacts on the local ecosystem if released, but this is unlikely.</p>
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<p><b>What measures are you taking to reduce these risks?</b></p>
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<p>We chose a very safe chassis organism to use, K12 <i>E.coli</i>. We are also wearing proper Personal Protective Equipment, such as lab coats, gloves, and safety glasses when handling biological materials. Additionally, any surfaces that have been potentially contaminated by bacterial species are thoroughly cleaned using ethanol and/or bleach. </p>
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<h2>Risks of Your Project in the Future</h2>
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<p><b>What new risks might arise from your project's growth? Also, what risks might arise if the knowledge you generate or the methods you develop became widely available?</b></p>
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<p>No safety risks would arise from the availability of our product or the knowledge of how to generate our product. There may be some impact to materials industries if the generation of genetically altered recombinant silk became commercially viable. For example, the natural silk industry may suffer if recombinant silk with altered properties became cheap. </p>
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Please use this page to write about anything related to safety in your project. <!--Be sure to talk about both
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<li> <a href=" ">Learn about lab Safety for Today</a></li>  
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<li> <a href="">Learn about Safety for the future of your project.</a></li>
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<h3> Your Lab </h3>
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<p><b>Does your project currently include any design features to reduce risks? Or, if you did all the future work to make your project grow into a popular product, would you plan to design any new features to minimize risks?</b></p>
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<p>We did not utilize any design features to mitigate risks. Expressing our protein causes the chassis bacteria to be metabolically disadvantaged, and so it would likely not survive in the wild.</p>
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<h2>Standard Operating Procedures</h2>
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<p>While the biological materials that we were working with did not present any hazards, a few of our solvents and chemicals did. Lithium bromide and hexafluoroisopropanol (HFIP) are used to solubilize natural and lyophilized silk, respectively. They were critical to our project, but due to their hazardous nature, we had to familiarize ourselves with how to safely and properly use them. We drafted the following Safe Operating Procedures for training and for reference:</p>
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<a href="https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2014/e/ed/HFIP_SOP.pdf">HFIP SOP </a><br/>
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<a href="https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2014/1/1f/LiBr_SOP.pdf">Anhydrous Lithium Bromide SOP </a>
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<p> Use this section to tell us about your laboratory. Where is it located? What sort of equipment do you use every day? Have you decorated it for the summer? How do you look wearing a lab coat? Take pictures! Show off your space! </p>  
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Image:Example2_Lab_1.png|The building our lab is in!
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Image:Example2_Lab_2.png|The inside of our lab!
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Image:Example2_Lab_3.png|Team Member 3 doing an experiment
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Image:Example2_Lab_4.png|Working in biosafety cabinets
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Image:Example2_Lab_5.png|Team all gloved up and ready for work!
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Image:Example2_Lab_6.png|Equipment that we use to do SCIENCE!
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<li> <b>Now :</b>  Read the <a href="https://2014.igem.org/Safety">Safety Hub </a> and learn about safety in iGEM. Ask questions by emailing safety at <i> igem DOT org </i>. </li>
 
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<li><b>Now - Jamboree:</b> Complete <b>Check-Ins</b> and receive approval before acquiring and using certain materials in your lab</li>
 
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<li><b>Now - Wiki Freeze:</b> Edit this Safety page to tell us about what you're doing</li>
 
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<li><b>June 9: </b>Submit the About Our Lab form.</li>
 
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<li><b>Let us know by June 25 </b>if you will need an extension on the Preliminary Version, or your Preliminary Version will be significantly incomplete.</li>
 
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<li><b>June 30: </b>Submit the Preliminary Version of the <b>Safety Form</b>.</li>
 
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<li>Participate in Virtual Open Office Hours to ask questions and discuss safety topics (exact date to be determined).</li>
 
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<li><b>September 1:</b> Submit the Final Version of the Safety Form.</li>
 
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<li><b>October: </b> Wiki freeze (exact date to be determined)</li>
 
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<li><b>October 30 - November 3: </b>GIANT JAMBOREE!</li>
 
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Latest revision as of 01:01, 18 October 2014

iGEM UCLA





Safety

Training

Briefly describe the topics that you learned about in your safety training.

Our safety training covered hazardous material storage and usage, biohazard usage practices, protective personal equipment, engineering and human safety controls, and in-depth properties of select hazards, such as peroxides and flammable compounds. The laboratory safety training requirements at UCLA can be found here

In your country, what are the regulations that govern biosafety in research laboratories? Please give a link to these regulations, or briefly describe them if you cannot give a link.

In the USA, biosafety regulations are provided by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the American Biological Safety Association (ABSA), and National Institute of Health (NIH)

Project Risks

Risks to the safety and health of team members, or other people working in the lab:

E. coli K12 strain does not pose a major safety risk to humans. Nephila clavipes silk, which is the expressed protein product in our project, does not pose a safety risk either. Nevertheless, skin contact and potential ingestion should be eliminated or minimized.

Risks to the safety and health of the general public, particularly if any biological materials escaped from your lab:

Spider silk does not pose any safety or health risk to the environment if released. E. coli may have unpredictable impacts on the local ecosystem if released, but this is unlikely.

What measures are you taking to reduce these risks?

We chose a very safe chassis organism to use, K12 E.coli. We are also wearing proper Personal Protective Equipment, such as lab coats, gloves, and safety glasses when handling biological materials. Additionally, any surfaces that have been potentially contaminated by bacterial species are thoroughly cleaned using ethanol and/or bleach.

Risks of Your Project in the Future

What new risks might arise from your project's growth? Also, what risks might arise if the knowledge you generate or the methods you develop became widely available?

No safety risks would arise from the availability of our product or the knowledge of how to generate our product. There may be some impact to materials industries if the generation of genetically altered recombinant silk became commercially viable. For example, the natural silk industry may suffer if recombinant silk with altered properties became cheap.

Does your project currently include any design features to reduce risks? Or, if you did all the future work to make your project grow into a popular product, would you plan to design any new features to minimize risks?

We did not utilize any design features to mitigate risks. Expressing our protein causes the chassis bacteria to be metabolically disadvantaged, and so it would likely not survive in the wild.

Standard Operating Procedures

While the biological materials that we were working with did not present any hazards, a few of our solvents and chemicals did. Lithium bromide and hexafluoroisopropanol (HFIP) are used to solubilize natural and lyophilized silk, respectively. They were critical to our project, but due to their hazardous nature, we had to familiarize ourselves with how to safely and properly use them. We drafted the following Safe Operating Procedures for training and for reference:

HFIP SOP
Anhydrous Lithium Bromide SOP