Safety

In this study, two engineering strains E.coli pSB-AA and E.coli pSB-AN were constructed to test their performance in degrading ethanol and acetaldehyde.

1. Security

Our laboratory is Level I in terms of biosafety, which means that all materials we use pose little or no risk to individual health.

When entering the laboratory, we should put on gloves, white coats and masks to protect ourselves. We are not allowed to eat or drink food in the laboratory, and when using chemicals, we must wash our hands before eating. We were also not allowed to wear sandals or touch mobile phones during the experiment. In addition, since this is a special time of the pandemic, we have measures in place to protect ourselves from COVID-19. For example, anyone who comes into our lab first needs to have their temperature taken, undergo a nucleic acid test, and all those who come into our lab are recorded.

Our laboratory is divided into contaminated and non-contaminated zones, so experiments with agarose electrophoresis will only be performed in the contaminated zone. Our team members also strictly prohibit the use of toxic, heavy metals, volatile strong acids or dangerous substances in the experiments. In addition, we have some emergency equipment in case members splash dangerous chemicals on their eyes or skin.

All of our team members were trained by the lab supervisors on how to safely use the lab before they actually started doing experiments on their own. They have specialized laboratory skills and are very responsible for overseeing our implementation of safe laboratory protocols. When we operate some dangerous equipment, such as large centrifuges and autoclaves, we always have an instructor on hand to supervise.

All strains in our project were obtained by DNA PCR and were not extracted from animals. In addition, all steps involving live bacteria and yeast are done on a clean workbench.

The E.coli Nissle1917 involved in the experiments are all commonly used chassis in synthetic biology and are completely safe. In addition, all the genes used in our lab are also non-toxic. And Nissle1917 has been shown to be environmentally sound.

2. safety

We were not able to complete it due to time constraints, but in the future, we will design a suicide system. The suicide system is designed to prevent damage to the body after the strain has degraded the alcohol.

Our laboratory is completely enclosed, so there is no problem of leakage.

3. human practice

The questionnaire designed by our team is completely anonymous. This method protects interviewees' information, such as name, age, gender, address and so on.