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From 2010.igem.org

Safety

Please use this page to answer the safety questions posed on the safety page.

Would our project ideas raise safety issues?

The answer to this is probably yes.

One issue is that of the unknown nature of what some of the systems proposed in the preliminary brain storm phase might do.

The idea of a cell free system within a cellular system raises the issue of unintentional release. As a very general idea, this raises issues of a general nature, the specific safety aspects of the specific pathways utilised being dependant on future decisions about the system design. From a functional perspective, the way parts within this system depend upon one another suggests that unintentional release would not pose a danger to the public, in and of itself. As the cell free system depends upon the existence of the cellular system to exist any spillage or escape is likely to prevent the system from operating. The remaining concern would be based on safety of specific sequences if there is the possibility of horizontal transfer. Safety concerns such as this may be one way to build upon and focus a direction for anyone working on a system like this in that the general concerns about safety of the system are a design constraint which can be applied to the system.