Team:William and Mary/Safety
Safety and Training
At the beginning of our project, the team received training in basic chemical safety and biosafety (BSL-1) from our PI, and took a 2 hour course on all aspects of lab safety from the Director of the Environmental Health and Safety Office at the College of William and Mary. Throughout our project, we followed an IBC approved BSL-1 protocol to ensure more than adequate measures were taken to ensure pure and safe science. These included:
Sterile technique (gloves, wiping down lab benches with 70% ethanol before and after work, washing hands before entering or leaving the lab)
Containment and inactivation of hazardous or harmful chemical and biological agents (working with chemicals such as ethidium bromide in the hood, bleaching culture containers after use, autoclaving BSL-1 trash)
Banning of all food, drink, or cosmetic application from the lab
Key-coded lab access
Use of only BSL-1 strains (Escherichia coli 5-α, 10-β, and JS006; Mycobacterium smegmatis mc2155)
While some parts of our project were obtained from BSL-2 strains (the fap operon from Pseudomonas aeruginosa and SaSuhB from Staphylococcus aureus), isolation of the sequences was done in a separate laboratory with appropriate BSL-2 protocols. The isolated parts do not directly contribute to pathogenicity but were nonetheless treated with extra caution. These parts were also approved as part of our BSL-1 protocol.