Safety

Overview

HBUT has always been very concerned about safety. We take safety as the priority while we are doing or planning to conduct experiments. 2019 HBUT iGEM team developed a biological method to deal with the effluent which has high concentration of nickel ions using the knowledge of synthetic biology. We transformed S. cerevisiae with three genes which realizes the goal of reducing the concentration of nickel ions in effluent. The chassis organism we used was barely Saccharomyces cerevisiae, which is classified into Risk Group 1 on the White List. Our PIs, Dr.Liu Zhijie, Dr.Dai Jun and Dr. Zhou Yin, who are experienced and scrupulous, offered us training on experimental skills as well as lab safety. All the members who were in charge of the wet-lab experiments have received lab safety training. Here we are going to share more of our experiences in safety control.

Safe Project Design

Choosing a non-pathogenic chassis

Safety is an important reference for us to find chassis creatures. In our project, Escherichia coli (DH5 bacteria) and Saccharomyces cerevisiae (lab strains that are non-pathogenic) are the two chassis organisms when we performed the molecular cloning and protein expression. All the other experiments including nickel ion concentration detection and fluorescence measurement were carried out in vitro.

Choosing parts that will not harm humans/animals/plants

Harmful parts are not allowed in our project. The parts in our project are most commonly used promoters in yeast and common ion channel proteins, so none of our parts would raise any safety issue according to the current professional knowledge.

Safe Lab Work

Work space

The Safety Level of our lab is Level 1 (low risk). We only conduct experiments in open bench and biosafety cabinet.

Biosafety and biosecurity training

Our PIs, Dr.Liu Zhijie, Dr.Dai jun and Dr.Zhou Yin are responsible for the safety and security of biology labs. They both have a long history of working with organisms and parts. Additionally, they are very familiar with the experimental procedures and practices we used. All the experiment participants have received safety training from professors at the beginning of the iGEM 2019 season.

Lab work

According to the requirements of iGEM policy, in our daily bench work we never performed any dangerous experiments or faced any unusual safety issues. Our bench work followed some basic regulations as below:

1. Only Dr. Liu Zhijie keeps the key of the lab.

2. Gloves, lab coats, pants and close-toed shoes are demanded during lab time.

3. No food or drink is allowed in the work space.

4. Experiment participants need to understand the experiment completely.

5. Fire, electric heaters, microwave oven should not be left while being used.

6. Sterilize all liquid waste and solid waste containing living organism.

7. The last person to leave the lab should make sure that water and electricity have been turned off, doors and windows have been locked before leaving.