Team:Bordeaux/Safety

Sleep with EpiC elegans

Safety in laboratory is an essential part in research, because we use genetically modified strain of bacteria. They are mostly antimicrobial resistance (AMR) to an antibiotic, in order to be selected. Then we should be very carefully to not spread out these AMR.
All the team which worked in the laboratory had a safety training where we learnt to separate waste to be destroyed in the correct pathway, where to treat chemical waste. When we used pH-meter, we had to use glasses. In addition to the common biosafety used in laboratory, the bioinformatics team had the idea to modelize how a bacterium could spread out if good biosafety are not apply correctly. It is a real struggle to not spread out AMR in the environment, in order to not change the ecosystem or to contaminate things.

In order to realize this model, we had to do two different experiences to collect data. The first one was to spread bacterial strain onto a table disinfect in advance and mark out. The second one was to know how long it take to a bacterium to lost his plasmid. These data increase the reliability of the model for one organim as E.coli, how far can it spread, and how long it take to lost its genetically modify plasmid (DNA).
This model will provide for any researcher a simple tool to test if the organism on which he is working on (potentially dangerous) can spread or not in the wild.

But it is only an indicator of what will happen if biosafety is not scrupulously respect, and it not prevent researcher to do mistakes.

See more details in the model page.