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For iGEM competition, instead of the successful engineered approach that was created by the iGEMer’s project, safety concern is also another crucial part of the iGEM project. This not only includes the biocontamination concern of our engineered E. coli cells exposed to the environment but also the hazardous chemical regulation during the lab work. In this page, we will illustrate how we strictly obey the regulations and rules in our faculties laboratory to process our rigorous bioengineered design.
Lab Safety
Before our wet lab team members enter the lab, we need to have safety training that educated us on the basis of laboratory rules and how to discard waste correctly. Moreover, there has a technician to teach us how to use the devices in the lab and we are required to announce our supervisors when we have any decisions made. Also, our university has two technicians to monitor our experiment’s progress. They will announce to us when we have the wrong operations. Also, all chemical hazards in our faculty have a strict management system, we need to follow the regulations when doing the experiment. If there is an accidental injury event(cut or burn), we’ll call the emergency contact of our department.
In our project, we have used the DH5 alpha Escherichia coli strain as our engineered organism. E. coli bacteria are common in the natural environment, especially living in the intestines of creatures. Also, it has been the most common bioengineered organism in laboratory studies. However, nonstandard operations might cause diseases such as severe stomach cramps, bloody diarrhea, and vomiting to the lab scientists. Therefore, strictly following the experiment guidance and disinfecting in time is important to the labmate’s health. Although our GMOs are planned to function in natural water sources, we will not release them into the environment. All our experiments will be progressed inside the laboratory and we will kill the bacteria with disinfectant or autoclave after we finish the experiment. Also, according to the actual use in Water treatment plant in Macau, we will apply a final filtration step with applying 0.2uM filter membrane to avoid the E. coli bodies release to the environment.
Based on the biosafety guidelines, it is important to provide training and educate our lab members before we start any experiments related to chemical reagents that might be harmful to our health. We should be familiar with the characteristics of the organisms and chemical reagents that we are using, and understand the possibilities of these materials that can risk the human body if any direct contact happens. Our lab members should be well-trained and carry out experiments under supervision by staff or students who are more experience in lab work. We should be aware of Personal Protective Equipment which is written in the guidelines, lab coats, and various protective devices such as goggles and gloves. No slippers, sandals, contact lenses, or makeup are allowed. After the experiment, the beer produced will not be consumed and will be discarded. All the cells will be autoclaved or bleached to avoid their release to the wild.