Biosafety rules and documents

Our lab follows China National Institute of Pathogenic Microorganisms Biosafety Management and Central South University Laboratory Safety Rules as these aspects below.

• Lab access and rules (those 3 rules below are specially supposed to remember for daily lab life)
  1. Eating and drinking are not allowed inside the working area.
  2. Anyone who is participating in the experiment is supposed to wear lab coats and protective goggles.
  3. You are not allowed to wear protective goggles to touch any resting area or somewhere outside the lab.
• Correct disposal of biological wastes and lab consumables
• Differences between biosafety levels
• Biosafety equipment and chemical safety(such as biosafety cabinets and chemical fume hood)
• Fire, water and electrical safety(We have fixed using time of large-scale scientific instruments and for sterilization)
• Disinfection and sterilization
• Transport rules
• Emergency procedures
• Responsible individuals (such as lab or departmental specialist or institutional biosafety officer)
• Good microbial technique (such as lab practices)

Lab Biosafety Level

The iGEM CSU_CHINA team of 2019 were working mainly in the BSL-1 lab at the Department of Life Science, Central South University for our project.

Biosafety Training

All the team members followed a lab safety training and signed relevant safety documents prior to entering the lab at Central South University. A thorough and comprehensive lab safety training was provided by the biosafety offices of the universities and the departmental specialists. And the biosafety training also has an Internet-based test and values 1 academic point for bachelor students.

Personal protective equipment

Team members were equipped with lab coats, protective goggles, and disposable nitrile gloves. No other protective equipment was necessary according to the lab biosafety guidelines.

Work areas

Which work areas do you use to handle biological materials?

Chassis

We have worked with the strain of the biosafety level 1 approved.

• cell lines: MDA-MB-231, MDA-MB-453, HBL-100, MCF-7, HCC-1806, HEK293T
• organisms: Escherichia coli DH5alpha

Specific risks

Our project does not include gene drives, nor have we worked with animals. All species names (including strains) have been listed in the safety form.

The E. coli strains DH5alpha we use in this project are 1st-Risk-Group organisms which has little safety risk to the environment.

Human cancer-derived cell lines we use are 2nd-Risk-Group organism which are in principle cancerous. Malignant degree of them depends on the type of cancer cells, type of tissue exposed, the host's immunity and many other things. The possibility of getting a cancer through direct exposure (which should and would be avoid of course) to these cell lines is quite low. If they escape the lab, they are unlikely to survive.

Our project is generally performed with very low risks, as no pathogenic bacteria or hazardous chemical reagent is used. However, some common risks are still inevitable, for example, get contaminated while using nucleic dye, get burned while using spirit lamp especially in the super clean bench, also some reagents are toxic like DMSO, ethidium bromide. At the same time, MDA-MB-231, MDA-MB-453, MCF-7 and HCC-1806 is in principle cancerous.