Team:UNebraska-Lincoln/Integrated Practices 5
Future Vision for Safety in Synthetic Biology
In iGEM, it is a common practice for teams to choose their projects by first identifying real life issues, researching these issues, attempting to design a microorganism to help resolve an identified issue, and then engineering such an organism. As a first-year iGEM team, we could have tremendously benefitted from a systematic method to discuss environmental concerns in the design stage of our project. Safety cases would not only provide a systematic method to discuss environmental concerns, but it can also become a key element in the documentation of the project. Safety cases can also be a map to more detailed information of the project.
Our team envisions the use of a systematic technique to gain confidence in the safety of engineered microorganisms as common practice in the future of synthetic biology. Such thorough methods of safety assurance will be required for certification and regulation of SEBO’s. We see that the iGEM competition has an opportunity to be on the forefront of this inevitable movement. The UNL 2016 iGEM team has laid out unique ideas for how systematic safety assurance methods could be integrated into the iGEM competition and the field of synthetic biology.
Some Ideas:
The idea of BioBricks is a forward thinking concept. Parts are designed, engineered, characterized and submitted to a repository. The BioBrick standard has been an indispensable component of synthetic biology’s growth, as it promotes the sharing of ideas, and has allowed for the development of more complex systems, by giving synthetic biologists quick access to previously characterized parts.
SafetyBricks
Much like BioBricks, safety cases of iGEM projects could be built and then submitted to a repository for future iGEM teams to take into account when designing their projects. SafetyBricks could be safety cases of individual BioBricks, an environmental/safety characterization of BioBricks in a specific chassis.
Once a BioBrick has been created, future teams do not have to redesign the exact same part and isolate or synthesize the DNA sequence. This allows for the field to be capable of designing more complex systems. A repository of SafetyBricks would have a similar effect on safety in the field of Synthetic Biology. Teams using parts that safety cases have already been built for will be able to develop even more thorough safety cases on them and adapt them when developing safety cases of their own. A greater confidence in engineered microorganisms could ultimately be achieved.
By building an organized repository of SafetyBricks, future iGEM teams can more quickly build safe, robust systems and understand how they may function in the environment. Safety cases will help teams integrate safety at all levels of their project, understand unanticipated behavior when introduced in in a simulated or real environment, and develop increased and justified confidence in the behavior of their systems.
A quick search in the SafetyBrick repository of similar projects could help teams more easily identify potential hazards and may point them in the direction of evidence in literature for developing their safety case.
Synthetic biology systems are becoming more complex. Their behavior in the environment will become more complex as well. Encouraging the use of a systematic method for gaining confidence in the safety of a synthetic biology system will allow synthetic biologists to address modes of failure when introducing these organisms to environments outside of the lab or to simulated environments.
We can begin to identify patterns of failure that will be increasingly important as systems become increasingly complex. The identification of underlying patterns of failure will lead to quicker identification and mitigation of failure modes in system design and construction.
iGEM Competition
The iGEM competition could integrate safety cases into the competition by adding the development of a safety case as a medal requirement. Safety is currently a deliverable, which is a requirement to be eligible for medals. Safety could have a larger role in the iGEM competition which would have a positive impact on the field of synthetic biology. Including a medal requirement for safety could serve as a small incentive for teams to give safety more consideration. A special award could also be created for the best safety contributions to synthetic biology.
For teams that are unable to obtain lab results, developing safety cases can still be a very beneficial task. Literature can be used as evidence of the safety cases. These safety arguments can be further strengthened by future wet lab results.
Developing safety cases would also be a perfect task for iGEM teams composed of high school students. It would increase their awareness of the safety and environmental concerns and will also give them a structured way to develop their synthetic biology ideas.
The scope of iGEM projects are limited since the timeframe to work on them is relatively short. Alterations to safety cases can be made. These can be called future safety plans. Hypothetical safety arguments can be made and supported by results in literature. Future safety plans can be picked up by future teams and refactored/validated.
The real-life introduction of iGEM projects into the environment is largely out of the scope. However, the role of the iGEM competition is to help advance the field of synthetic biology. By working towards ensuring the safety of systems or BioBricks and further developing systematic ways to gain confidence of engineered microorganisms, the iGEM competition can contribute to one of the field’s limiting factors.
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