Upon entering a lab there are certain risks one is exposed to, which is why it is crucial to take preventative measures. Daily safety procedures for safe wet lab work to be conducted include proper dress attire which entails a lab coat, closed-toe shoes as well as long pants to protect your legs and skin from the potential dangers and threats you may encounter upon conducting experiments in the lab. It is also important to ensure long hair is to be tied back and loose jewelry is not worn to prevent potential contamination of the materials you are working with. Another tactic to be used to fight against contamination (especially when working with RNA in our project) is the use of ethanol sprays, as it is effective in killing bacteria, microbes, and other microorganisms that may be on the tools while conducting sensitive experiments. Some materials that are regularly cleaned with ethanol solution are pipettes, workbenches, gloves, all gel casting trays. Cleaning work areas are always important, for example, when our team conducts in vitro transcriptions, we always emphasize and prioritize a clean work area that has been thoroughly wiped down and sterilized with ethanol sprays to prevent RNase contaminations.
Apart from lab dress codes, it was also critical that every member of our team received proper WHMIS training and certification prior to conducting experiments in the lab. Members are also always accompanied by either an advisor or our primary investigator when conducting experiments in the lab.
Over this year we have had to also formulate new safety protocols due to COVID19 such as limiting the number of people in the lab, the implementation of face masks at all times, social distancing, and cleaning measures. During the course of our project, provincial and federal restrictions were implemented and changed, leading to our team having both online and some in-person meetings when permitted. It has been especially difficult to have productive and timely lab results while in a pandemic, but thanks to the University of Lethbridge and our advisors, we have been able to spend many hours in the lab to create our project.
One aspect of our project that must be acknowledged is the off-target silencing effect which is the suppression of genes other than the desired gene target, leading to dangerous mutations of gene expression and unexpected consequences. The method of using an RNAi herbicide to target knapweed was chosen because of its ability to attack a unique gene from a specific species. Traditional herbicides are nonselective and not exclusive to weeds, resulting in damages to the natural biodiversity that we aim to protect. The incorporation of RNAi in our project will solely be activated when the siRNA construct is introduced into C. stoebe and cleaved by DICER.
But, our team had also attended a Biosafety, Biosecurity, and Bioethics workshop provided by Mindfuel, a Science Alberta Foundation, and a presentation by Fabian Rohden, a PhD candidate at the University of Lethbridge, on Dual Use Research of Concern. This workshop and presentation discussed the misuse of bioengineering projects and unintended consequences in science, giving our team many things to consider and reflect on the original design of our project. For example, we discussed the ways our project could be unintentionally misused in the world. Like if someone potentially took our development process to target non-problematic species like people instead of invasive plants.
Our team had also originally planned to build a remote-controlled robot to deliver the RNAi herbicide to areas of Waterton, but after receiving feedback from judges of Mindfuel, we agreed against it due to the theory that the hardware would damage native plants by driving over them to spray Spotted Knapweed.
