Using synthetic biology, scientists have solved many of the world’s pressing problems—making life better for many. While our team aspires to follow suit with our novel FSHD therapeutic, we understand the risks that synthetic biology and the use of synthetic organisms pose. Alongside our academic institution, we work to mitigate these risks responsibly for the health and safety of our researchers and environment.

In order to ensure the safety of all iGEM participants and the general environment, iGEM issues a set of rules and regulations detailing proper conduct with certain biological organisms. This section covers how we adhere to these rules.

iGEM uses a list called The White List to aid teams in understanding what biological parts pose significant risks and what biological parts do not. Parts that are on The White List do not pose enough risk for iGEM to require secondary paperwork for their use. Our team does not use any biological material that is not found on the white list. This means that we are only required to submit a singular safety form. In this form, we disclose all biological materials used and demonstrate our understanding of the risks they pose. Our team utilized E. coli, C2C12, and HEK293T cells.

HEK293T and C2C12 pose many of the same risks. They both can be easily infected by a virus; and they both can easily infect a human with a virus that they may carry. For these reasons, we take strict precautions in order to ensure a sterile environment for these cells so that they do not come into contact with such contaminants that pose risks to humans. We do this by utilizing biosafety cabinets and cleaning with sterilizing materials and by wearing the proper equipment that ensures that we don’t introduce outside contaminants and ensures that the cells do not come into contact with us. To be successful in mitigating the risk of contamination and release of viral biological parts, we must have a laboratory facility that meets our needs. Below are pictures of our lab and safety equipment.

Figure 1: A glimpse of our experiment bench

Figure 2: Our team member (Michael) is displaying proper PPE usage for our BSL 2 lab. He is wearing closed-toed shoes, long pants, gloves, and a lab coat that is only worn in our secure BSL 2 laboratory space and does not interact with possible contaminants in other parts of our lab.

DH5-Alpha cells, like mammalian cells pose the risk of viral contamination. Unlike mammalian cells, DH5-Alpha cells are less likely to transfer viral particles to humans. Also unlike mammalian cells, DH5-Alpha cells pose the risk of contaminating the lab. To mitigate these risks, we clean surfaces with sterilizing agents, don gloves, and turn on a bunsen burner before working with bacteria in a certain area and discard any gloves that were used while working with said bacteria. This reduces the risk of contaminants being introduced to our bacteria by the surfaces we work on or by pathogens in the air. We also spray surfaces with sterilizing agents after putting our bacteria away in order to ensure that we do not have bacteria that can spread across our lab surfaces.

In order to safely work with bacteria, our team often must use flammable sterilizing agents and fire in near vicinity of each other. In order to safely use flammable sterilizing agents and fire, we do our best to make sure that all sterilizing agents are dried via Kimwipe before any flame is ignited.

Figure 3: A glimpse of our flame setup

Figure 4: Our team member (Vanessa) is displaying proper PPE usage for our BSL 1 lab. She is wearing long pants, closed-toed shoes, a lab coat, and gloves. This is the standard for our BSL1 lab.

Before using a harmful reagent, all personnel reviewed each safety data sheet (SDS) together. We only used these reagents as necessary. Otherwise, they were stored according to its SDS.

Our project utilizes plasmids that cause the expression of the muscle degenerative gene— Dux-4 full length. We understand that our genetic components can be used by malicious agents to induce negative effects on humans. We are taking the proper precautions to prevent our possibly harmful genetic material from being used for malicious intentions by only working in a secure laboratory that requires key card access to enter. We do not share any of our possibly harmful genetic sequences with non reputable collaborators and mentors.

At Stanford iGEM, we deeply care about the environment and are committed to taking steps towards reducing our footprint on the planet. One of these steps is recycling all recyclable materials, including the gloves that we use in the lab that haven’t been dirtied past the point of recyclability. Another step that we are taking is the responsible disposal of our living waste. We bleach and ethanol sterilize every mammalian and bacterial cell that we use in our experiments before we dispose of them. This ensures that our possibly harmful living organisms are not causing infections at landfills sites.

Additionally, all iGEM team members including interns completed the following laboratory training modules:

Finally, all iGEM team members completed in-person training with the lab manager, where we were shown all important laboratory features in the UTL, such as emergency showers and eyewash stations, first-aid items, Safety Data Sheets, special waste bins, hazardous storage areas, and more.

The safety and wellbeing of our researchers, interns and environment is deeply important to our team at Stanford iGEM. We go above and beyond iGEM guidelines and standards in order to ensure that we mitigate all possible risks related to our project.