Lab
In the lab the biggest risks lie within the misuse of equipment or chemicals. To guarantee
lab safety we have adhered to all the national and European laboratory safety guidelines,
which are already enforced in the laboratory of the Molecular Microbial Physiology group at
the University of Amsterdam (MMP-UvA). All members of the team received safety training to
work safely in the lab. As biomedical/life science students we had already received safety
training when going into the lab for practical courses; but in addition to this, during the
first day at the lab we were provided with a guide that contained all the “Rules for working
at Microbiology and Molecular Biology” stated by the Swammerdam Institute for Life Sciences.
Additionally, the guidelines ensure the containment of all strains used or developed in the
lab and include the work with Genetically Modified Organisms, for which we are licensed via
our host group (MMP-UvA). The organisms used (E. coli, Synechocystis and Synechococcus) are
all classified S1 organisms - the lowest risk group and all genetically engineered materials
were properly autoclaved.
Rules (pdf)
Likewise, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we have followed the recommendations of the Dutch
government to ensure everyone's safety and health. We made sure that the amount of people in
the lab would allow keeping a 1.5m distance at all times by setting up a reservation system
with schedules. This also allowed us to make sure to know who had been working in the lab in
a specific time slot in case we’d have had to trace a COVID-19 case.
Setup
We are engineering multiple microbial production systems to sustainably produce industrially
important compounds. We have worked on an algorithm that can design strategies to produce
non-native compounds in a variety of microorganisms. To show that our new algorithm can make
predictions independent on the strain and product chosen, we propose to test genetic
engineering strategies for three non-native compounds (lactate, mannitol and salicylic acid)
in Synechocystis PCC6803. Additionally, we propose to test the genetic strategies for the
production of salicylic acid in Escherichia Coli K-12 and the production of lactate in
Synechococcus UTEX 2973.
Risk Assesment
We have made sure that our project is safe by design by choosing to use non-pathogenic
strains and low-toxic compounds. The organisms used (E. coli, Synechocystis and
Synechococcus) are all classified S1 organisms - the lowest risk group. We have also
considered that created compound-producing microbial strains could potentially compete with
natural species, allowing them to become invasive and harmful to the environment. The latter
is, however, highly unlikely, as the growth kinetics of microorganisms producing a compound
will always tend to be lower than the growth of the native microorganism. Taking all of this
into consideration, we have adhered to all the national and European laboratory safety
guidelines
Survey - Personal Data
Within our project we aimed to explore the opinions of the public about the use of compounds
produced by genetically modified organisms in their daily-life products and their
willingness to use these products. For this purpose we set up a survey for which we had to
take into consideration the storage and security of personal data which we did by setting up
a data management plan. With the support and help from Dr. Brett Olivier we were able to
build a data management plan using the template provided by the VU. In addition, we received
a formal confirmation from the VU that the survey complied to the ethical guidelines from
the VU.
Data management plan (pdf)
Ethical review (pdf)
