From 2010.igem.org

Revision as of 12:52, 20 October 2010

Safety

What does safety mean to us?

The understanding of safety guidelines, the reflection on related issues and the respect of those practices is tremendously important for us. During the process of our work, we therefore continuously discussed and reasoned about potential ethical and safety problems, which could arise from our project. We always strictly follow safety practises guidelines in the lab and respect all the rules and regulations. But this is not enough. This page represents our reflection on an issue, that too often gets forgotten. We use the iGEM [1] guideline and its key questions for our documentation:

  1.  Would any of your project ideas raise safety issues in terms of:
         * researcher safety,
         * public safety, or
         * environmental safety?
  2. Do any of the new BioBrick parts (or devices) that you made this year raise any safety issues? If yes,
         * did you document these issues in the Registry?
         * how did you manage to handle the safety issue?
         * How could other teams learn from your experience?
  3. Is there a local biosafety group, committee, or review board at your institution?
         * If yes, what does your local biosafety group think about your project?
         * If no, which specific biosafety rules or guidelines do you have to consider in your country?
  4. Do you have any other ideas how to deal with safety issues that could be useful for future iGEM competitions? 
         * How could parts, devices and systems be made even safer through biosafety engineering?

Identifying safety issues in your project

Hazard and probability

Documentation and management of safety issue

Parts Devices and systems Cell chassis enhancement

Biosafety engineering

Designing and using a safer host organims/chassis

Public perception of risks and safety issues

Playing by the rules

Playing by the rules is not just a slogan. Millions of human lives as well as an incredibly high amount of funds have already been wasted by a lack of reflection and precaution. To prevent history from repeating itself, we rapidly consulted the most relevant resources for (bio)safety issues:

   iGEMs page on safety issues: https://2010.igem.org/Safety
   Verordnung über den Umgang mit Organismen in der Umwelt: Freisetzungsverordnung
   Verordnung über den Umgang mit Organismen in geschlossenen Systemen: Einschliessungsverordnung

Others: Bases Biotechnology

References

[1] Schmidt M.: Diffusion of synthetic biology: a challenge to biosafety. 2008. Systems and Synthetic Biology. Vol.2(1-2):1-6

[2] Schmidt M.: Xenobiology: a new form of life as the ultimate biosafety tool. 2010. Bioessays 32:322-331

[3] Tucker JB and Zilinska's: The Promise and Perils of Synthetic Biology . The new Atlantis. Spring 2006, p.25-45

[4] HSE: The SACGM Compendium of guidance Part 2: Risk assessment of genetically modified microorganisms. 2009

[5] Schmidt M.: Do I understand what I can create? Biosafety issues in synthetic biology. Chapter 6 in: Schmidt M. Kelle A. Ganguli A, de Vriend H. (Eds.) 2009. Synthetic Biology. The Technoscience and its Societal Consequences. Springer Academic Publishing

[6] Barbara Johnson: Understanding, Assessing, and Communicating Topics Related to Risk in Biomedical Research Facilities. 2001. Anthology of Biosafety IV - Issues in Public Health Biological Safety Association.