We are working in Biosafety Level 1 laboratory with the organisms belonging to the white list. All lab team members have successfully passed safety and security training and are constantly supervised and guided by our instructors. While working in the lab all team members strictly follow the norms and regulations of the Institute of Technology and the rules of Biohazard waste disposal. If the strain we have developed will later be used in industrial bioreactors we need to further consider the possible risks to humans and the environment.
We use a non-pathogenic organism that belongs to the white list to make the working process safer.
We are using light-inducible promoters, which are safer, more robust and can be upscaled to industrial usage more easily compared to chemical inducers.
One of the issues our project may face is the usage of indium phosphide (InP) as a nanoparticle source. In the powder form, InP is toxic to humans and may cause the health issues if inhaled. During the preparation of InP nanoparticles our team was very careful and followed the safety rules. Everybody weared the N95 face mask, protective gloves, and the milling process was done under the fume in water solution to avoid nanoparticles spread in the air. InP is quite expensive, and its use on the industrial scale can be economically not viable. We propose that methods of the InP nanoparticle recycling need to be developed to bring production cost down and decrease the potential harmful effect of the compound. In this case, the nanoparticles will stay in solution and not come in contact with human lungs.
