Team:Lethbridge Canada/safety

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<h1 class="heading_first">Personal Safety:</h1>
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<img class="safety_banner_image" src="https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2013hs/9/97/Lethbridge_hs_igem_2013_banner_safety.png"><br></br>
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<p>When in the lab, each member of our team is careful to use gloves, goggles, and lab coats in order to protect us from any
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chemicals or specimens that might escape their containers. Although if some corrosive or other harmful chemical were to spill
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on the skin or in the eye of any person in the lab, there is an eye wash station and an emergency shower located conveniently
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in the lab. On the first day that our team was shown the lab, the locations of each of these safety measures were made known
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<p><b>1. Would any of your project ideas raise safety issues in terms of researcher safety, public safety or environmental safety?</b></p>
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to us. In addition to these, we were also shown the binder where the MSDS (Material Safety Data Sheet) for each chemical in
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the lab is kept so that we would be able to handle and dispose of the chemicals properly.</p>
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<p>The Lethbridge High School iGEM team works in a university laboratory with Containment Level 1. We work with non-pathogenic strains of <i>E. coli</i>, DH5&alpha; and BL21(DE3). </p>
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<p>Before any member of our team was able to participate in any lab work he/she was required take and pass a WHMIS (Workplace
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<p>There are some hazardous chemicals with which we work in the lab, such as ethidium bromide. Team members always wear appropriate personal protective equipment – gloves, lab coats, protective glasses, pants and closed toed shoes. Our supervisors assist us when we work with organic substances and heavy metals (for example, formaldehyde and silver stain waste). We have a fire extinguisher, emergency shower, an eye-wash station and a first aid kit readily available. We also are always working with one of our University student advisors. All high school students received WHMIS and lab-specific safety training prior to starting our project.
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Hazardous Material Information System) test. Also, before beginning our project, as a team we had to observe and perform
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</p>
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tutorials of the experiments that we were going to perform. Not only was this a fantastic learning experience, but also it
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helped us to become more comfortable in this lab setting and therefore less likely to make a mistake and compromise our safety.  
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In addition to all of this, if any person had missed the instruction on how to use a piece of equipment properly or was
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<p>We will be keeping our produced Oxytocin contained from public use. It would be available for research purposes only. Due to the fact that there is little known about the hormone, we want to make it available to researchers. An environmental risk is the possibility of the bacteria containing our parts escape the lab. There is the risk of horizontal gene transfer to other organisms, which may enable them to also produce Oxytocin. Oxytocin has been implicated in multiple cell-pathways so it is difficult to predict what effect it may have on the environment (1).</p>
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unclear on a protocol, there is always an adviser in the lab with us and could explain.</p>
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<p class="padding_top_p"><b>2. Do any of the new BioBrick parts (or devices) that you made this year raise safety issues?</b></p>
 +
 
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                                                <p>Our part containing the gene for Oxytocin-Neurophysin I does not raise any significant safety issues. If all bacteria, DNA, protein samples and chemicals are handled according to protocol, working with our part is quite safe.</p>
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<p class="padding_top_p"><b>3. Is there a local biosafety group, committee, or review board at your institution?</b></p>
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<p>The group at the University of Lethbridge responsible for biosafety is Risk and Safety Services. They are aware of the project and are very excited about the High School iGEM Program. We have complied with the Risk and Safety Services regulation by getting WHMIS and Lab-specific safety training, providing volunteer consent forms and permission forms when travelling for workshops and the Jamboree.</p>
 +
<p>We follow the Laboratory Safety Guidelines outlined by Health Canada: <a href="http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/lab-bio/index-eng.php">Public Health Agency of Canada</a></p>
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<p class="padding_top_p"><b>4. 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?</b></p>
 +
 
 +
<p>We think that there should be another means of observing the production and results of the findings produced within a specific iGEM lab from an outside source. An outside source that is very qualified regarding the field of synthetic biology, capable of examining the creation of new parts, the installment of assured safety measures and the handing out of results to the world. We would require the Risk and Safety Services of our institution to bring in this individual and have them work with the Risk and Safety Committee. By having and independent third party examine the work of an iGEM team; we can be certain that our parts are as safe as possible. Assured safety through the use of an outside source not directly relatable to the iGEM team, will assure troubleshooting to the possible problem of misguided information and action that could result in interference outside of the lab.</p>
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<p class="padding_top_p">
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<a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19863843">1. Strunecká et al</a>
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<div id="safety_float_right">
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<img src="https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2013hs/6/63/Leth_hs_2013_safety_1.jpg" alt="Lab Safety" />
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<img class="shift_up_safety" src="https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2013hs/1/15/Leth_hs_2013_safety_2.jpg" alt="Lab Safety" />
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<img class="shift_up_safety" src="https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2013hs/a/aa/Leth_hs_2013_safety_3.jpg" alt="Lab Safety" />
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<img class="shift_up_safety" src="https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2013hs/5/5d/Leth_hs_2013_safety_4.jpg" alt="Lab Safety" />
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<h1>Environmental/Public Safety:</h1>
 
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<p>Although it is unlikely that our specimens would unintentionally leave our lab area or that it would cause any extreme
 
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harmful effects if it did get outside of the lab, we still took precautions. The E-coli that we work with is a non-pathogenic
 
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strain (DH5 alpha) and is engineered not to be able to survive outside of our laboratory. Although this is also the case,
 
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each member of our team is extremely careful to keep the specimens in a sealed container and to transport it very carefully.</p>
 
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<p>Although there is no biosafety group, committee or review board at our institution, we were required to follow university
 
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risk and safety guidelines. We also deferred to the Public Health Agency of Canada – Laboratory Biosafety and Biosecurity.</p>
 
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Latest revision as of 19:54, 20 July 2013



1. Would any of your project ideas raise safety issues in terms of researcher safety, public safety or environmental safety?

The Lethbridge High School iGEM team works in a university laboratory with Containment Level 1. We work with non-pathogenic strains of E. coli, DH5α and BL21(DE3).

There are some hazardous chemicals with which we work in the lab, such as ethidium bromide. Team members always wear appropriate personal protective equipment – gloves, lab coats, protective glasses, pants and closed toed shoes. Our supervisors assist us when we work with organic substances and heavy metals (for example, formaldehyde and silver stain waste). We have a fire extinguisher, emergency shower, an eye-wash station and a first aid kit readily available. We also are always working with one of our University student advisors. All high school students received WHMIS and lab-specific safety training prior to starting our project.

We will be keeping our produced Oxytocin contained from public use. It would be available for research purposes only. Due to the fact that there is little known about the hormone, we want to make it available to researchers. An environmental risk is the possibility of the bacteria containing our parts escape the lab. There is the risk of horizontal gene transfer to other organisms, which may enable them to also produce Oxytocin. Oxytocin has been implicated in multiple cell-pathways so it is difficult to predict what effect it may have on the environment (1).

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

Our part containing the gene for Oxytocin-Neurophysin I does not raise any significant safety issues. If all bacteria, DNA, protein samples and chemicals are handled according to protocol, working with our part is quite safe.

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

The group at the University of Lethbridge responsible for biosafety is Risk and Safety Services. They are aware of the project and are very excited about the High School iGEM Program. We have complied with the Risk and Safety Services regulation by getting WHMIS and Lab-specific safety training, providing volunteer consent forms and permission forms when travelling for workshops and the Jamboree.

We follow the Laboratory Safety Guidelines outlined by Health Canada: Public Health Agency of Canada

4. 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?

We think that there should be another means of observing the production and results of the findings produced within a specific iGEM lab from an outside source. An outside source that is very qualified regarding the field of synthetic biology, capable of examining the creation of new parts, the installment of assured safety measures and the handing out of results to the world. We would require the Risk and Safety Services of our institution to bring in this individual and have them work with the Risk and Safety Committee. By having and independent third party examine the work of an iGEM team; we can be certain that our parts are as safe as possible. Assured safety through the use of an outside source not directly relatable to the iGEM team, will assure troubleshooting to the possible problem of misguided information and action that could result in interference outside of the lab.

1. Strunecká et al

Lab Safety Lab Safety Lab Safety Lab Safety