Team:GeorgiaTech/Ethics and Safety

From 2010.igem.org

Safety Training

Team Member	Training
Mitesh Agrawal	Marc Pline's Bio Safety Training
Margo Clark	Marc Pline's Bio Safety Training
Robert Fee	Marc Pline's Bio Safety Training
Christina Graves	Marc Pline's Bio Safety Training
Atta Hassan	Marc Pline's Bio Safety Training
Scott Holmes	Marc Pline's Bio Safety Training
Monica Huynh	Marc Pline's Bio Safety Training
Gita Mahmoudabadi	Marc Pline's Bio Safety Training
Christian Mandrycky	Marc Pline's Bio Safety Training
Debika Mitra	MSE Safety Training
Amy Schwartz	Marc Pline's Bio Safety Training
Shadeah Suleiman	Marc Pline's Bio Safety Training
Sid Tantia	Marc Pline's Bio Safety Training

Note: Marc Pline is from the GT School of Biology

Questions About Ethics and Safety

1. Would any of your project ideas raise safety issues in terms of:

researcher safety,

public safety, or

environmental safety?

The Georgia Tech iGem project involves bacterial thermogenesis via cloning of a naturally occuring plant gene. All genetic parts involved are found currently in natural plants or bacteria and none pose a threat to environmental, public, or researcher safety. All bacteria strains used are nonpathogenic. Further, it is highly unlikely that genes under experimentation would cause adverse effects even if expressed in wild type bacterial colonies, as the heat production is both benign and extremely energy intensive, which would be a highly unfavorable trait. All laboratory materials, both biological and chemical, are safely used in a Biosafety Level 1 laboratory setting.

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?

The BioBrick device constructs contain an alternative oxidase gene (AOX) attached to a targeting sequence (OmpA) with a promoter, HybB; none of these known biosafety issues.

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?

The Occupational Health and Safety Committee and the Environmental Health and Safety Office of the Georgia Institute of Technology has approved Professor Eric Gaucher’s laboratory for Biosafety Level 1 Research.

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?

Our group has discussed the sharp learning curve associated with the first year of a team’s experience with iGEM. All group members attended an institute biological laboratory safety class, but many things were learned along the way, specific to genetic engineering research. We would propose a collaboration of iGEM members to produce an online, visual, one-hour introductory course on the basic biosafety issues that could arise during the iGEM research process.