Cornell iGEM understands the inherent risks associated with working in a lab facility and we aim to take all necessary precautions to minimize these risks. Our completed safety form can be found here.
Any team member who works in the lab is required to attend an orientation session with Dr. Shivaun Archer, a senior lecturer in the Meining School of Biomedical Engineering at Cornell University. Additionally, all members are required to go through standard training for working in a lab by completing two courses through Cornell EH&S.
Training - All team members who work in the wet lab must complete Cornell EH&S general lab safety and chemical waste disposal courses prior to the onset of work. These courses set specific guidelines and are the standard requirement for work in a biosafety- level 1 lab at Cornell. Additionally, all team members must complete a lab orientation session with the manager of the BME instructional lab, Dr. Shivaun Archer. During these sessions, Dr. Archer familiarizes new members with the safety equipment and procedures specific to the labspace in which we work.
Prior to the onset of work for the year, all new members are required to go through a safety training program. During this program, safety officers reinforce safety procedures learned during the EH&S courses, discuss safety protocol pertaining to specific chemicals with which we work, and ensure all lab members fully understand all safety procedures.
Safety Officers - The safety officers were team members chosen to directly supervise the activities of the other team members. One team member each was chosen for the wet and dry lab subteams to ensure that all team members were working safely, whether with bacterial cultures or power tools. These team members also act as liaisons to the wet lab and machine shop managers and, when necessary, the Institutional Biosafety Committee to ensure proper equipment usage.
These team members are responsible for discussing the proposed work plan for the project with the wet lab and machine shop managers before starting work to ensure that it is safe to continue. In the case of the wet lab in particular, this involves going through a detailed list of protocols, including all organisms, chemicals, and genetic constructs being worked with, to ensure conformity with the Environmental Health & Safety guidelines. They must go through the same safety training as all other team members, but are required to redo the training each time we recruit new members in order to keep up-to- date with safety considerations. In addition, they maintain contact with the supervisors of the workspaces, usually in the form of a weekly check-in, to discuss any safety concerns that have arisen and ensure that equipment continues to be used properly.
Enforcement - Team members who violate safety rules are required to work under the supervision of the safety officers for the remainder of the week, or until the safety officer believes the member is capable of performing the task unsupervised. For multiple infractions or complete disregard to safety protocols, a member may be restricted from laboratory work until he/she undergoes EHS chemical safety online training again, and demonstrates proper performance to a team leader of failed technique(s) in a controlled setting.
Micromurals-Specific Safety Concerns - The current project works with a few strains of bacteria, DH5ɑ and BL21(DE3), which are both BSL1 organisms. While these organisms are relatively benign, Cornell iGEM treats all biological materials with the utmost caution, performing plating and other protocols where a team member may encounter a bacterium in a biosafety hood. The gels produced by the bacteria undergo a cleaning and purification process, during which the bacteria are lysed and filtered out of the gel under vacuum filtration which removes particulate matter as small as 10 microns. Once the gels are cleaned, they are not considered a biological hazard and can be exposed to the public outside of a laboratory environment.
In the case that carbon dioxide-uptaking microbes are embedded into completed gels, they will be contained likely in sealed/locked containers or out of areas that may prove to be unsafe. Further, these microbes should be anaerobes, or facultative anaerobes with an elevated oxygen-sensitive kill switch.