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Best Blood Practices

Governing Guidelines

We looked into the guidelines reported in the Public Health Agency of Canada when looking at working with blood. Per the Canadian Biosafety Standards, there are no issues working with animal blood in a control level I lab since the blood is not being introduced to any human pathogens or any specimen that is at a higher risk level. Any work done in the lab should still be treated with good microbiological lab practices (Canada & Agency, 2016). The Canadian Food Inspection Agency does not have any stipulations about working with animal blood use in a lab or transportation within Canada (Branch, 2015). Guidelines may be different depending on the country you live in and should be looked into before working with blood in your lab.

Safety Considerations

When working with pigs blood and/or cells in the lab, we practiced extreme caution in order to ensure the safety of our fellow team members and advisors. The safety precautions that we followed included, wearing all the proper personal protection equipment (lab coats, gloves, and safety glasses). We also ensured the proper disposal and cleaning of lab equipment that came in contact with the pigs blood: petri dishes, pipette tips, volumetric pipette tips, paper towels and glass containment vessels used to transport the blood, using biohazard bags as a primary means of storage until loaded into an autoclave. After using mechanical equipment and lab space, we take time to make sure the equipment and lab bench is properly cleaned and sterilized with a 12.5% bleach solution followed afterwards by a 70% Ethanol solution rinse of the surrounding area. Upon reception of the blood in the sealed glass vessel the containers were surrounded by plastic bags and then placed into either a styrofoam transport container or a cardboard container. Once in the lab the glass container was removed inside a fume hood along with pouring of the initial blood solution in the fume hood.

Blood Experiment Considerations

Aside from safety considerations, there are also other aspects to look at when working with blood. For example, we had to add the anticoagulant heparin to the blood we obtained from a local butcher shop, The Mad Butcher. This was done in order to prevent the natural coagulation process from occurring as much as possible before we could work with the blood in the lab. This is another factor to consider when looking at the results from our experiments. Depending on when we could get the blood or if there was any issues in transporting it, there may have already been a substantial amount of natural clotting that had taken place. Another factor to consider when working with blood is what source you are getting the blood from. It is important to ask if the supplier puts anything into the blood before you receive it. We were ensured by our suppliers that there were no additives that we were not aware of.

References

Branch, L. S. (2015, July 1). Health of animals regulations. Retrieved October 16, 2016, from http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/regulations/C.R.C.,_c._296/index.html

Canada, G. of, & Agency, C. F. I. (2016, August 15). Canadian Biosafety handbook, Second edition - Canadian Biosafety standards and guidelines. Retrieved October 16, 2016, from http://canadianbiosafetystandards.collaboration.gc.ca/cbh-gcb/index-eng.php#s26