Team:Virginia/Safety
In biology, and especially synthetic biology, safety and containment are of utmost importance to the researcher, the environment, and the general public. The 2016 Virginia iGEM team followed strict safety guidelines and made responsible chassis selections for our project.
Our lab
Our experiments are conducted in a certified biosafety level 2 (BSL-2) lab. Every member of the team received proper BSL-2 training according to the University of Virginia Environmental Health and Safety department prior to the start of the project. The links to the completed BSL-2 training modules can be found here.
Our chassis
Our selected chassis is E. coli. In our experiments, we used two K12 derivatives: XL1-Blue and JW5807-2. These are risk group 1 organisms. Our submitted parts are the N-carboxybenzyloxy (CBZ)-cleavage enzyme (Bba_K1879000), and our functional CBZ-cleavage enzyme BioBrick (Bba_K1879001). The enzyme sequence was acquired from Nanduri, et. al. and ordered from Integrated DNA Technologies. This part is only effective on the synthetic CBZ protecting group and is not harmful to plants or animals. We faced no difficulties shipping our DNA parts to the registry.
Safety practices
Standard safety protocols were followed when using any harmful chemicals. Ethidium bromide, a known carcinogen, was used in our experiments to visualize DNA in gel electrophoresis. A special set of tools were used only for ethidium bromide experiments in a fume hood and gloves were worn whenever we came into contact with ethidium bromide. All ethidium bromide waste was thrown in a special container that was then given to the Environmental Health and Safety department for disposal. Chloroform, which was used as a solvent in some experiments, was always handled in the fume hood to prevent accidental inhalation.
UV radiation was used for visualizing gels from DNA gel electrophoresis. To prevent exposure from harmful, mutagenic UV rays, team members wore gloves, lab coats, and face shields when using the UV illuminator.
Any materials that came into contact with living organisms were treated before disposal. All liquid waste was bleached before being poured down the sink with water, while all solid waste was autoclaved before being thrown away.
For more information on our safety practices, please refer to our iGEM Final Safety Form.
