Team:Harvard/Safety

From 2009.igem.org

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1.Would any of your project ideas raise safety issues in terms of researcher safety, public safety, or environmental safety?</b><br>
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One element of our project that might raise safety issues is that the extraction of PCB from Spirulina algae requires the use of mercuric chloride. This is both a hazard to researcher safety and environmental safety, as mercuric chloride is highly toxic and fairly corrosive. Its use requires both use of a fume-hood and double gloving, and special disposal. Avoidance of use of mercuric chloride was one of the main reasons we elected to pursue PCB biosynthesis as an element of our project. Having yeast synthesize the PCB themselves would obviate the need to do an extraction, and therefore free us from having to use mercuric chloride.
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2. Is there a local biosafety group, committee, or review board at your institution? </b><br>
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Yes there is. <br><br>
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3. What does your local biosafety group think about your project? </b><br>
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Provided proper use and disposal of the mercuric chloride, they sanctioned its use for laboratory purposes.
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4. Do any of the new BioBrick parts that you made this year raise any safety issues? <br>
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No, none of the parts we made this year raise any safety issues.
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<p>Special thanks to these individuals and labs for their generous donation of useful reagents and valuable discussions:
 
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Professor Sarah Matthews for helpful discussions on the special handling and characteristics of phytochrome enzymes.
 
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<br>Thanks to Dr. Eberhard Schaefer for usful information regarding the D153 PhyA-DBD fusion vector and Dr. Andreas <br>Hiltbrunner and doctorol candidate Anja Possart for providing said vector.
 
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Thanks to Dr. Bruce R. Branchini for providing the pGEX-6P-2 plasmids encoding the green and red luciferase mutants.
 
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Thanks to the members of the Murray Lab; Lori, Natalie and Derek, for useful yeast strains and reagents.
 
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Thanks to Tehyen Chu from the Kunes Lab, for useful yeast strains and vectors.
 
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Thanks to Dr. Jim Haber for the Gal inducible HO-endonuclease expessing yeast integrating plasmid and helpful suggestions concerning its use.
 
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Thanks to the Elledge lab for useful yeast strains.
 
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Thanks to Drs. Robert Stearman, Andrew Dancis and Richard D. Klauser for the YIpDCE1 yeast dual expression plasmid.
 
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...and thanks to everyone else who provided tons of advice along the way!
 
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Revision as of 01:27, 22 October 2009

Hi Mom

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1.Would any of your project ideas raise safety issues in terms of researcher safety, public safety, or environmental safety?
One element of our project that might raise safety issues is that the extraction of PCB from Spirulina algae requires the use of mercuric chloride. This is both a hazard to researcher safety and environmental safety, as mercuric chloride is highly toxic and fairly corrosive. Its use requires both use of a fume-hood and double gloving, and special disposal. Avoidance of use of mercuric chloride was one of the main reasons we elected to pursue PCB biosynthesis as an element of our project. Having yeast synthesize the PCB themselves would obviate the need to do an extraction, and therefore free us from having to use mercuric chloride.

2. Is there a local biosafety group, committee, or review board at your institution?
Yes there is.

3. What does your local biosafety group think about your project?
Provided proper use and disposal of the mercuric chloride, they sanctioned its use for laboratory purposes.

4. Do any of the new BioBrick parts that you made this year raise any safety issues?
No, none of the parts we made this year raise any safety issues.

Team

Projects

Parts

References

Lab Notebook

Ethics