Team:NTHU Taiwan/Safety
Bateria strain choosing
We have found many research using safety level 2 bacteria with better efficiency for quantum dots synthesis. For bio-safety considering, we've finally chosen using E. coli JM109 as our target bacteria, which is sfety level 1 and non-pathogenic. Checking SDS of the strain, we are sure that it is nontoxic to human and harmless to ecology.
Gene parts choosing
The four main gene parts chosen are Cada, MT-2, MntH, and yhaO
Cada: A promoter that start function we detect cadmium ions in the environment. Sensitivity can lower to micro molar scale.
MT-2: A gene express a metal ion capture protein which has affinity to 2-charged ion such as zinc ion and cadmium ion. The protein is harmless and non-secreted by bacteria.
MntH: A gene express an ion channel on our target bacteria, which is totally harmless.
yhaO: A gene, which improve quantum dot synthesis, is also harmless.
Chemicals
The only toxic chemical in our experiment is cadmium. We have applied to NTHU for the use of cadmium ion. Our lab members also join the course of lab safety to make sure we got enough knowledge to handle any situation. The experimental waste of labs is disposed with the standard progress of NTHU.
Kill Switch
Among all of our goals, there is the most important thing we need to mention. Safety is always the core of our project and we also conjure up a safety mechanism when we are going to implement our project in the real world. We are going to use the existing part in iGEM, KillerRed (Part: BBa_K1184000),to set our safety killing mechanism.
Once our bacteria get leaked into the environment, the external light will induce the killing mechanism and let our engineered bacteria commit suicide. This showcases that we did not just put effort into better results but also take care of environmental safety.
References
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nthuxigem@gmail.com