Team:Nottingham/Safety






Lab


Safety



The lab can be a dangerous place, filled with toxic bacteria, carginogenic chemicals, and people with messy workspaces.

(You know who you are...)

Gallery:



General Lab Safety

Before entering the Centre for Biomolecular Sciences (CBS), all team members were required to complete an online induction course where we were introduced to working in a Biosafety Category 2 lab and working with genetic modifications. We learned important safety precautions in preparation for future lab work, including how to deal with spills and other lab accidents.

After completing our online safety induction, we were given a tour of the lab so we could put our knowledge of safe lab-practice into action. We were shown how to correctly dispose of various types of waste.

Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)

At all times when in the lab personal protective equipment must be worn. PPE only protects the wearer; PPE does not protect other individuals in the lab.

PPE includes:

  • Disposable gloves
  • Lab coats
  • Safety goggles
  • Insulated gloves for handling hot bottles and samples stored at -80°C
  • Protective masks when handeling hot liquids

Routine safety practices

  • Every morning we clean our bench with Distel (a laboratory disinfectant) before starting any experiments. We repeat this at the end of each day.
  • We also clean our bench with Distel or Chlor-Clean Wipes before starting any experiment which requires an aseptic environment.
  • We clean our pipettes with ethanol wipes to minimise any risk of contamination to the user and our samples.

Project Specific Lab Safety

Much of our lab work was done using non-pathogenic E. coli DH5α, and TOP10 E. coli. This included assembling composite parts that were eventually conjugated into C. sporogenes ATCC 3584, as a safe surrogate for C. botulinum (Group 1).

As a safety precaution, we learned to use Microbiological Safety Cabinets for handling unknown or potentially harmful bacteria, although this was never necessary.

The reporter molecules we are using are all non-toxic to humans in their respective concentrations:

  • Acetone - our volatile reporter to be detected by an electronic
  • GusA - β-glucuronidase for fluorometric assay
  • FAST - a fluorescent protein that works in anaerobic conditions

Food Safety Poster for Students

As our project relates to food safety and the use of appropriate handling and preparation methods, we decided to create a food safety poster for university students as they may have little knowledge of the precautions that should be taken to prevent illness.


Food-Safety Poster