Overview
Safety has always been significant in synthetic biology, so as a team participating in iGEM 2016, we take on our responsibility to assure the safety of our project and other process in the competition.
Safe Project Design
Synthetic biology offers a stage for researchers to create new genetic machines to solve real-world problems. Along the way, iGEMers meet many problems about gene expression such as promoter leakage, expression delay and so on. Researchers are putting forward many new tools to solve the problems such as logic circuits, CRISPER, Riboswitches and so on. This year, we designed a foundational toolkit to regulate gene expression based on previous researches. It is like we provide a black box to our end-users(syn-bio scientists) and they define the input and output. Our toolkit can transform the input signal into output with three main advantages:
1. Threshold settings
2. Stable expression
3. Phase transform
According to our research from our end-users, they all showed a positive attitude to our toolkit, they would try to adopt such a bi-stable or tri-stable switch to regulate their expression systems.
What our users need to do is to add a sensing mechanism forwards our circuit, for instance,in our application part,we employ plac and patp2 as signal sensors to response to the environment. And iLDH and beta-galactosidase are as output to degrade lactic acid for balance.
To some degree, the safety issues highly depend on the certain application. Our regulation system works in the cells just in gene level. It has nothing to do with toxins, viruses and pathogens. And the only consequence it will bring to the host strain is overload which causes the bacterial grow slowly.
To get full appreciation of gene regulation system, our toolkit just step a little forwards. Logic gate circuits offers the principle of multiple regulations, it provides more possibilities and involves the concept of switch. And RNAi, riboswitches,post-translational modification enrich the methods of gene regulations. Our circuits are doing more specifically, providing you the logic gates and regulation methods, you can employ it to tell your own story. It is easier for fresh iGEMers to get start with and focus on the application but not the genetic network.
Safe Lab Work
Safety in Lab work is also important. Our team has an effective security guarantee on this issue. Before new members entering the lab, we organized safety training courses taught by seniors, graduate students and Principle Investigators in our collaborating lab. Members will be admitted to work in the lab only if they have passed the safety examination. And undergraduates are not allowed to some Level 2 equipment unless they are accompanied with graduate students. We have trained them about the standard experiment operation, safety regulations of equipment use and strict practice rules in the polluted area.
Safety with parts&organisms:
Fortunately, the strains we employed in our project this year are all safety Level 1 organisms, and all the parts related to gene regulations will not produce potential toxins and pathogens, so most experiments are at Biosafety Level 1.
These are several points we have emphasized on in our lab safety courses based on the previous experience:
1. Polluted area must be isolated from the normal operating platform. Experimenters are required to wear lab coat and polyvinyl chloride plastic gloves when entering it.
2. Toxic reagents must be collected specially.
3. Volatile chemicals involving experiment must be operated in the fuming cupboard.
4. Laboratory appliance must be sterilized before and after use.
5. Safety and maintaining of complex equipments must be taken charged by certain staff.
Safe Shipment
We value the safety in sending parts to registry a very important aspect of competition. We would never send liquid sample but only frozen dried material. The sealed 96 well plate was wrapped with enough bubble paper to make sure it will not be broken. Sometimes the DNA delivery will be checked by customs, so we prepared certain safety certification to make sure the containing materials are not harmful. We prepared, packaged and delivered all according to courier’s requirements. And in most delivery in China, the customs may discharge or check our materials. This procedure may take additional days. And we took the delay into consideration before sending out our parts.
