Safety
Although we did not encounter any issues with biosafety during the course of this project, a discussion of safety is mandated by the iGEM requirements so we included it here.
- Would any of your project ideas raise safety issues in terms of:
- researcher safety,
- public safety, or
- environmental safety?
Perhaps environmental, if we are planning to actually test the Continuous Greening Cycle in the deserts. Considering the current state of our project, that is very far off into the future, however.
- Do any of the new BioBrick parts (or devices) that you made this year raise any safety issues?
No.
- 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?
Yes, our university has a biosafety committee which requires students and faculty alike to take a biosafety course as well as submit an application before engaging in any research activity involving genetically-modified organisms. In general, as we stuck to the 'safe' organisms of E. coli and S. cerevisiae, the committee did not show any objection to our project.
- 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?
It may be better for part requests to be sent out as purified DNA instead of bacterial stabs as was done this year. Bacterial stabs may cause some issues when going through customs in certain countries (Japan, for example).
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