Safety

Content

Lab Safety
Regulations

Laboratory Safety

Safety is essential, both in the lab and beyond. Identifying and managing risks is everyone’s responsibility. Throughout our project, safety has been a guiding principle for us. Learn more about our efforts towards safety and risk management from our Project Safety Form .

Before starting laboratory work, our team received comprehensive training regarding safe laboratory work. Each team member had to first complete two online laboratory safety courses with exams before physical trainings (Specialized Laboratory Safety Training and Specialized Biosafety Training). After completion, our team received a general laboratory safety training lecture and separate safety tour for the laboratory space. After, we also received student lab specific training.

Our training covered for example, the following aspects:

  • Emergency Procedures: Our team was trained how to efficiently react in unexpected situations, including how to help others if they face an emergency.
  • Waste handling: Our team members were trained to safely and responsibly handle waste, sort it and mark it for future handling as well.
  • Inactivation procedures: In case of a spill for example, our team was trained with proper inactivation procedures.
  • Biosafety: Our team was trained to use biosafety equipment and learned the theory beyond that. Our working facilities were in GMO Biosafety level 1.
  • Disinfection and Sterilization: To avoid contamination and any unwanted contact, our team regularly worked in a sterile manner.
  • Personal safety and safety of others: Lab workers must wear personal protective clothing, including lab coats, goggles, gloves (material depending on MSDS), covering shoes and long enough pants, as well as keep hair tied if it's longer than shoulder length. When moving inside lab, never run or otherwise you might accidentally hurt someone else as well for example.

Regulatory compliance

With all our practices, we followed the iGEM's Rules of Conduct which can be found from here. When holding various events and doing public engagement, we followed the relevant laws established by the authorities. Below you can find couple highlighted occasions:

Regarding Engineering

The use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) is regulated in Finland by the The Gene Technology Act (377/1995). The aim of the act is to promote safe use and development of gene technology, to protect human and animal health as well as the environments in case of contained use or deliberate release of GMOs. The Gene Technology Act is based on EU Directives 2001/18/EC (deliberate release into the environment of genetically modified organisms) and 2009/41/EC (contained use of genetically modified micro-organisms).

Regarding Human Practices

While conducting our surveys, we carefully considered the ethical principles of research with human participants. Our team revised “The ethical principles of research with human participants and ethical review in the human sciences in Finland” -document provided by the Finnish National Board on Research Integrity TENK. The contractor we used to host our surveys, Webropol, is committed to complying with the EU'S General Data Protection Regulation GDPR. You can find their Privacy Policy here. We also included the following disclaimer in the first page of our surveys:

“The answers to the survey and other data are confidential and will be used for scientific research and to raise cancer awareness, taking into account confidentiality and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The data will be reported in the Aalto-Helsinki iGEM project in such a way that individual respondents cannot be identified. All survey results will be available on our wiki by the beginning of October at the latest: https://2024.igem.wiki/aalto-helsinki/”

People present in our video materials, such as project description video, has given us their permission to be shown.

Regarding Education

When hosting different Educational workshops for instance, we made sure that everyone had the necessary protective gear depending on occasion. For example, when teaching Bioarts, we provided each of the students with goggles and gloves to emphasize on the importance of safety regarding research activities. After growing the petri dishes, it was went trough with the kids how to handle the plates carefully.