Team:IIT Kharagpur/Safety
SAFETY
About our Lab
Our lab being a Biosafety Level 1 lab, we place great importance on personal safety while operating in the lab. This includes making sure everyone wears appropriate gear such as gloves, lab coat, goggles etc, while handling sensitive protocols. Along with this, proper disposal protocols are in place for the various types of wastes generated during, including toxic and non toxic materials.
Lab Safety
A. Safety in our Lab
Since not all team members had experience in genetic engineering lab before, all lab work was done under the supervision and guidance of at least one of the senior team members, who already had experience in that field. The experienced personnel helped the new members in understanding lab safety, in relation to sterile environment, DNA Handling, Use of toxic materials, Disposal protocols.We gave some training like:
TRANING
1. WET LAB TRANING
In order to ensure the safety of everyone in the lab it is important that everyone has a basic understanding of microbiology, personal protection equipment, safe and responsible laboratory behaviour, biological safety, waste management and documentation. So we gave the basic training to all our new members about wet lab.
2. EMERGENCY SITUTATIONS TRANING
We gave emergency situations training to all new members like what necessary actions to be taken in case of an emergency in a laboratory and if a person is affected. Like Medical emergency, Fire emergency , Chemical spill emergency, Biological spill emergency, Clothing on fire, Chemical spill on body, Biological spill on body, Hazardous material splashed in eye, Minor cuts and puncture wounds.
3. LAB RULE
To negate the possibility of any physical injuries, proper lab rules was followed at all times. These procedures included:
- 1) Wearing gloves, goggles, laboratory coats and other appropriate protective clothing while performing laboratory activities.
- 2) Disinfecting the workspace with 70% Ethanol.
- 3) Following chemical safety procedures
- 4) Emergency first aid box kit at easily accessible to hand places equipped with treatment for small cuts, burns and chemical spills. All members are trained in basic first aid skills.
- 5) Maintaining a neat and well organized work environment
- 6) Decontaminating (by autoclaving or chemical disinfection) all biologically contaminated materials – glassware, animal cages, laboratory equipment, etc. – before washing, reuse or disposal
- 7) Keeping food and drink out of the lab
- 8) Existing emergency protocols to address any unforeseen conditions
B. Safety in our Project
Our laboratories are all under the keen supervision of expert personnel (Both professor and maintenance staff) at IIT Kharagpur. All of our safety guidelines are as per norms of Department of Biotechnology, India. Link to General laboratory safety guidelines. Accordingly our lab has been issued a biosafety level 1 by Government of India since it involves a non pathogenic strain of E. coli and involves standard recombinant DNA technology procedures.
Safe Project Design
The organism we used in all experiments was E.Coli DH5-Alpha, which is a non pathogenic strain and classified as biosafety level 1 organism; It is harmless and was used under well-established protocols and with proper guidance and safety equipment.
The interest in spider silk is mainly due to a combination of its mechanical properties and the non-polluting way in which it is made. The production of modern man-made super-fibres such as Kevlar involves petrochemical processing which contributes to pollution. Kevlar is also drawn from concentrated sulphuric acid. In contrast, the production of spider silk is completely environment friendly.
E. coli DH5-Alpha strain does not pose a major safety risk to humans. Masp2, which is the expressed protein product in our project, does not pose a safety risk either. Nevertheless, skin contact and potential ingestion are minimized by proper use of washed lab-coats and latex gloves..
Project Risks in Future
No safety risks would arise from the availability of our product or the knowledge of how to generate our product. There may be some impact to materials industries if the generation of genetically altered recombinant silk became commercially viable. For example, the natural silk industry may suffer if recombinant silk with altered properties became cheap.
