Safe Organisms

We use two kinds of organisms, Escherichia coli and Caenorhabditis elegans in our experiments. E.coli is categorized as a Risk Group 1 organism while C.elegans is on the whitelist. According to the official iGEM description, “Risk Group 1 organisms do not cause disease in healthy adult humans.” and organisms on the whitelist “do not cause any threat to the environment”. To make sure that everything is safe enough to use, we have always been talking to our lab technician, Mr. Ho xx, about the proper usage, storage and disposal methods.

Safe Project Design

Safety is always our first priority when carrying out the program. Although the only species we use is E.coli and C.elegans, which are only organisms which do not cause harm to human when used properly, we believe that there is still a danger when our bacteria is released into the public environment, especially to children and elderlies. Therefore, we make sure that no bacteria or organism carrying our modified genes will be released out of the laboratory. To achieve this, the bacteria will always remain inside the laboratory; we always bring worms into the laboratory but not our bacteria outside the laboratory into the public environment. While doing any experiment with e.coli, we ensure the bacteria do not expose to the environment by setting up a sterile space using a Bunsen burner and working in the heated area. Also to keep the bacteria away from the open environment, we seal every used petri dishes with parafilm before long term storage.

Safe Lab Work

Besides of ensuring a safe project design, we also believe that safe lab practices are important, so we emphasize safety through maintaining a high level of personal hygiene. We wear lab coats and gloves while doing any experiment and wash our hands with soap before leaving the laboratory. To prevent any bacteria being left on the bench after experiments, we always use alcohol to wipe the bench thoroughly before we leave. (While doing any experiment with e.coli, we ensure the bacteria do not expose to the environment by setting up a sterile space using a Bunsen burner and working in the heated area. Also to keep the bacteria away from the open environment, we seal every used petri dishes with parafilm before long term storage.) We received safety training when joining the team, topics include risk assessment, general precautions, fire precautions, handling chemical spills, disposal of chemical wastes and experiments on biotechnology. Details of the training can be found in here. which we follow to the letter.

Safety Concerns

Some steps of our experiments require the use of UV light, whereupon exposure to UV radiation may result in sunburn, pigmentation of skin and slight discomfort. To ensure our safety, we make sure that any parts of our body won’t be directly exposed to UV radiation; we will place a UV filter board between us and the source of UV radiation so that it will be blocked from us.