Team:Edinburgh OG/Safety

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Safety

Our team has expandED the safety aspect of our project to integrate with our human practices. For detailed discussion of this please click below to go to Human Practices page.


Human Practices



Our team has worked to ensure we meet all local, national, international and iGEM safety requirements. We have also actively considered safe experimental design and practice.



Meeting Local Policies


Firstly, each team member has had to abide by University of Edinburgh policies and practices, as governed by the Health and Safety Department Biosafety Unit and has received a lab induction and training in handling of chemicals, sterile techniques, proper disposal of contaminated material and handling of microorganisms.


Meeting National and international Policies


As a team based in Scotland our work has been conducted in accordance with Scottish, UK and European regulations. All safety guidelines outlined in the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 2002 act have been followed and further due to use of Genetically Modified Organisms we have also complied with guidelines stated in the The Genetically Modified Organisms (Contained Use) Regulations 2014


iGEM Policies


We have followed all iGEM policies including completion of the ‘About Our Lab’ and ‘About Our Project’ questionnaires and the final safety form. All organisms used and parts designed are on the white list and are not flagged. Further, none of our parts are found in the Australia group list for export control or the US list of select agents and so we do not have any issues with sending our parts to iGEM.


Safe Design


All organisms chosen for our project are Generally Recognised As Safe. While this provides some reassurance of safety, safety can certainly not be assumed and this is expanded on within our Human Practises. As such each individual experiment was assessed case by case and conducted with appropriate care and within a suitable laboratory.

Penicillium roqueforti, while GRAS, is known to produce mycotoxins that are potentially lethal to humans when it certain growth conditions. Potential toxicity is not well understood however the organism has been widely used in food production for over 1,000 years. To mitigate any risk in genetic modification, whenever possible work was carried out in a laminar flow hood and in a separate laboratory from work conducted by other groups.Further, media in which lowered mycotoxin production has been observed was used for cell culture.

Typical antibiotics are ineffective in selection screening with Penicillium roqueforti however success with phleomycin screens is widely reported. This highly toxic group of glycopeptide antibiotics poses risk to human health however no safer alternative could be found. To minimise any risk posed by the requirement to use this toxic substance, phleomycin was used only as low concentration liquid solutions and only handled within a laminar flow hood. All materials that made contact with phleomycin solutions were repeatedly washed and then disposed of in a cytotoxic bin following appropriate procedures.