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| - | ==Safety==
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| - | <p>'''Would any of your project ideas raise safety issues in terms of:'''
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| - | '''researcher safety,
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| - | '''
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| - | - No. Nicotiana tabacum cells (NT cells) are a common plant used for decades in plant research. No known hazards are associated with NT cell research.
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| - | '''
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| - | public safety,'''
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| - | - No. We do not intend on developing the project in any way such that the public would encounter are project. Even so, in a hypothetical commercial development, NT cells are not expected to put the public at risk. None of the parts we intend to make, promoters and fluorescent reporters, are natural or have not shown any health threat to date.
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| - | '''environmental safety'''
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| - | - No. While other plant models could conceivably cross with wild-type plants and generate unforeseeable hybrids, NT cells mitigate that risk. Because NT cells are incapable of sexual reproduction and can only proliferate in their media, containment of the cells is easier to manage with less risk should the NT cells ever breach containment.
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| - | '''Do any of the new BioBrick parts (or devices) that you made this year raise any safety issues? If yes,'''
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| - | No. Our reporter genes are standard fluorescent proteins used repeatedly not just in iGEM but research abroad. Our modified plasmid poses no risk to the researchers, public, or environment. The inducible promoters selected are found naturally in plants and are predicted to pose little risk.
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| - | '''Did you document these issues in the Registry?
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| - | How did you manage to handle the safety issue?
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| - | How could other teams learn from your experience?'''
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| - | '''Is there a local biosafety group, committee, or review board at your institution?'''
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| - | '''If yes, what does your local biosafety group think about your project?'''
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| - | --- Yes. The ____________________ supports our project, especially with regard to the fact every member of the iGEM team completed the ___________________ safety course.
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| - | If no, which specific biosafety rules or guidelines do you have to consider in your country?
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| - | '''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?'''
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| - | The steps previously and currently taken by iGEM teams to design systems where modified organisms can be screened or terminated under certain conditions are excellent ways of providing safety. Certainly, controlling where and how organisms can grow helps to ensure modified organisms do not unintentionally interact with the environment. These are all internal controls, and while 99.9% reliable, we believe the risk of unforeseen mutation cannot be overlooked. Several systems of control will have a few layers of regulation, but there will be one nexus of vulnerability that the whole system hinges upon, and the question must be asked what happens if that fails. A dysfunctional fluorescent protein may not deserve attention, but genes regulating proliferation, reproduction, or repressors could cause bacteria, fungi, or plants to escape containment. Adding layers of regulation do help, but ultimately they affect the quality of the plasmids or genes used and may ultimately hinder the goals set for the project.
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| - | Therefore, we propose two alternate ways of providing safety in an iGEM doomsday scenario to help in the event of some future iGEM bacteria that infects humans or plants, affecting public health or crops. One solution would be to have a small novel protein be embedded in iGEM vectors that we could immunize against in the extremely rare event a project ever posed a risk to people, plants, or animals. Two, a standard inducible promoter that is reverse of the forward insert. Taking advantage of the knockdown effects of double stranded RNA in both prokaryotes and eukaryotes would act as a shutdown mechanism. We recognize the need for such measures at this juncture is not present. Yet, as iGEM grows and teams take on more ambitious projects, ten or twenty years down the road, such measures may need to be considered.
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| - | </p>
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