Team:GeorgiaTech/Ethics and Safety

From 2010.igem.org

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<p><center><font color="#FFFFFF" size=5><b>Overview</b></font></center></p>
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    <td bgcolor="#964141" width="800"><font color="#FFFFFF"><p>1. Would any of your project ideas raise safety issues in terms of:</p>
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<li>researcher safety,</li>
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<li>public safety, or</li>
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<li>environmental safety?</li>
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<p>Our idea involves the insertion of the AOX gene from the sacred lotus, which redirects energy from the
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metabolic system to be released as heat in response to a cold-shock. The protein product produced is
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directed to the inner membrane of the cell, and not released into the environment. As our research
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is confined to in vitro usage at this point, and the components used have no known adverse effects
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on the environment, there is very little risk associated with a potential accident involving our project.
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The research pursued does not pose any known safety hazards to researchers, the public, or the
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environment. The strains of E. coli we utilized were non-pathogenic, standard lab strains that are safely
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used in a Biosafety Level 1 laboratory setting.</p>
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<p>2. Do any of the new BioBrick parts (or devices) that you made this year raise any safety issues? If yes,</p>
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<li>Did you document these issues in the Registry?</li>
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<li>How did you manage to handle the safety issue?</li>
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<li>How could other teams learn from your experience?</li>
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</ul>
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<p>We constructed a bacterial plasmid containing the AOX gene with a targeting sequence, OmpA, and
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promoter, HybB, which have no known biosafety issues.</p>
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<p>3. Is there a local biosafety group, committee, or review board at your institution?</p>
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<li>If yes, what does your local biosafety group think about your project?</li>
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<li>If no, which specific biosafety rules or guidelines do you have to consider in your
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country?</li>
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</ul>
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<p>The Occupational Health and Safety Committee and the Environmental Health and Safety Office
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of the Georgia Institute of Technology has approved Professor Eric Gaucher’s laboratory for
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Biosafety Level 1 Research.</p>
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<p>4. Do you have any other ideas how to deal with safety issues that could be useful for future
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iGEM competitions? How could parts, devices and systems be made even safer through
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biosafety engineering?</p>
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<p>Our group has discussed the sharp learning curve associated with the first year of a team’s experience
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with iGEM. Although our institution offered, and we all attended, a biological laboratory safety class,
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there were many things we learned along the way, specific to research performed in the bacterial
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genetic engineering laboratory. We would propose a collaboration of iGEM members to produce an
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online, visual, one-hour introductory course on the basic biosafety issues that could arise during the
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iGEM research process.</p>
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<img src="https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2010/a/a2/Sponserslogo.jpg" alt="sponsors" width="970" border="0" usemap="#Map3" />
<img src="https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2010/a/a2/Sponserslogo.jpg" alt="sponsors" width="970" border="0" usemap="#Map3" />

Revision as of 15:24, 27 October 2010