Team:DUT China A/Safety
Project Overview
Our project aims to develop a DNA hydrogel system which can target, capture and isolate circulating tumor cells (CTCs). Once the DNA aptamers target the CTCs, it will trigger the rolling circle amplification (RCA, or R) followed by a multi-primed chain amplification (MCA, or M). The amplified DNA fragments will form a network of hydrogen to capture the CTCs. This structure enlarges the size of CTCs and help to separate them. Moreover, this separating process can be seen because of the fluorophore attached to the DNA template.
General Wetlab Safety
Team DUT China A attaches great importance to the safety and security
of both scientists and the environment. Our host lab, Zi Laboratories,
follows General requirements for laboratory biosafety in China.
Although all the members involved in the experiment were trained
strictly before thanks to their professional course, our professional
experimental teachers still helped us to conduct systematic
experimental safety training right before the lab work start. The
consultant, who has extensive experience in genetic engineering and
has been doing research on the circulating tumor cells for many years,
helped us to understand the experimental procedures and attentions for
the experiments relating to cells. Throughout the project, we reported
the progress to our directors and got instructions from them every
week.
We strictly obey the rules of the laboratory practices and guidelines.
All our reagents and instruments have their own fixed position,
strictly comply with the drug label management regulations. Everyone
doing the experiment should wear experimental gloves and safety
goggles and do not take them out of the lab. We close UV light after
sterilization of our clean bench and then perform operations under
white light. Before performing the experiment operation around the
flame lamp in the cleaning bench, we use the 75% alcohol spray to
clean our hands and wait for them to be air-dried. Moreover, all the
toxic reagents are used according to their instruction. Sharp objects
such as broken glass are placed separately from other items. After the
experiment is completed, we sterilize the experimental equipment and
place the experimental in a special garbage bag and hand over to the
biological waste professional processing company. All the methods
above are to ensure the safety and security of the laboratory and to
avoid the environmental pollution of the experimental organisms.
Project Specific Laboratory Safety
Three cell lines including HeLa (Epithelial cell adhesion molecule negative, EpCAM-negative), MCF-7 (EpCAM-positive) and A431 (EpCAM-positive) used I our project are commercialized and widely-used in research, without any pathogen. Our project is free of chassis due to our design. All the DNA aptamer and parts we used in our project are synthesized by credible biotech company. The ligase and other enzymes would be collected with other liquid waste and sterilized under the condition of 121.3℃, 103.4kPa for 20 minutes. What’s more, the organisms we used in our experiment would be deactivated following the standard procedure.
The final aim of our project is to detect circulating tumor cells with human blood. However, we will not conduct any test with blood but take white cells to simulate real blood environment and carry out experiments under such conditions.