"
Team:SharonBasicallyAcid/Safety
From 2013hs.igem.org
| Official Team Profile |
|---|
Safety
1.) The largest threat to researchers, the public, and the environment is potential contamination by the E. Coli bacteria. If this project were to be conducted on a large scale, large quantities of the bacteria would be necessary and would therefore increase risk. Both humans and animals could be harmed by the bacteria. Fortunately, if careful measures are taken to limit exposure to the bacteria and to sanitize areas that come into contact with the bacteria, this problem can be managed. The team has not received formal training but has taken care to disinfect materials that make contact with the bacteria. Though E. Coli used in the project can be harmful, it is something that is easy to obtain, so the risk of someone with malicious intent using the bacteria would not be significantly raised. The best way in which to avoid that kind of scenario is to limit access and exposure to the bacteria, especially when there are large amounts of it.
Lab Safety
While working with the E. Coli bacteria, our team took careful measures to avoid contamination. Any used pipette tips were soaked in bleach in order to kill the bacteria. Additionally, team members made sure to wash their hands after participating in the experiment. We made sure to tightly close and safely store any containers holding either bacteria or DNA samples. We monitored and took great measures to contain the unused bacteria and DNA samples as well.
How Our Bacteria Promotes Safety
There are no current technologies that assist growing plants that require a low pH. Farmers grow these particular plants, such as tomatoes and blueberries, in an artificially acidic environment. Adding acids to the soil can be detrimental to the environment in many aspects. The primary concern is what the consequences would be if the chemicals leaked out of the system and into surrounding areas. It could contaminate other plants that need a high pH to grow, thus killing crops that supply entire towns with food. There are also uncontrollable factors, such as acid rain or water runoff that can change the pH. Because of this, this method requires a lot of manpower to constantly maintain the correct pH for the plants to grow in.
Our solution is better than directly adding chemicals to the environment because it takes all of these issues into consideration. Using a bacteria that would be able to change the pH on its own is clearly the best method to growing plants in acidic conditions. Because the bacteria releases protons on the basis of the surrounding pH, we would not need to worry about uncontrollable environmental factors changing the pH because the bacteria does not take into consideration what is changing the pH, simply the quantitative data. We would not need to maintain the soil so regularly because bacteria reproduces in the soil by natural causes.
