Team:Gaston Day School/Safety

Safety

Safe Lab Work

Picture of outside the lab

Outside perspective picture of our lab. Safety features include present instructor, no food or drink present, chemical warning sign, and locking door with limited key distribution.

    • Picture of inside the lab

    Table inside our lab. Safety features include a fire blanket, fire extinguisher, eyewash station, hand washing station and sign, first aid kit, and hand sanitizer.

    • Safe Project Design

    Our project includes built-in safety features. We have you made certain decisions about the design to reduce risks, as our project is about evaluating them.

    Choice of a non-pathogenic chassis: All E. coli strains (including K-12, W3104, C) being used are derived from the K-12 strain which is nonpathogenic and approved for high school lab use. The bacteriophages

    (T4 bacteriophage, Coliphage phiX174) have an extremely limited capacity to infect cells because of their specificity for some E. coli strains derived from K-12. Therefore, they should have minimal to no effect

    if accidentally released.

    We also collected wild samples from Gaston Day School's campus, and submitted a checking form to iGEM requesting special permission. We were granted permission, and used routine lab safety procedures

    in handling the samples and disposing of them.

    Safety and Security: Lab Work

    This year, our team mainly focused on safety and security by trying to evaluate the possible risk that the released E.coli might be infected by certain bacteriophages and their plasmids can

    be transferred to other bacteria. Firstly, we used T4 early promoters and successfully proved that plasmid DNA from E.coli could be transferred to another. Since the E.coli can

    be released in different ways and may exist in different environments, we collected soil samples around our school and the results showed the risk of contamination of the E.coli phages

    is low in the nearby areas. Then we are working on collecting samples from further places which havemore complicated environments so that the chances of discovering E.coli contamination will

    increase and our idea can be better proved.