Team:Pittsburgh/Safety

Bluetooth Bacteria

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Our Lab

 

Safety in the Lab

 

All of our constructs are expressed in E. coli BL21 which is widely used and not considered dangerous.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we took extra precautions to protect ourselves in the lab. Only two people were allowed in our lab at a time. We maintained physical distance of six feet from each other and wore face masks to prevent unknowing spreading of the virus. We also logged in and out of each space in order to self-monitor for COVID-19 symptoms and track potential exposure.

Safety Outside the Lab

 

None of our expression organisms leave the lab.

Ethical Considerations

 

Further development could see the use of magnetic stimulation of cellular expression (such as ours) in more advanced bioengineering applications. While our system is primarily a mechanism for intracellular pathway construction, there is potential for use in human therapy such as designing cells that respond quickly to disease or infection.

The ethical questions that arise from these applications mirror those of procedures such as in-vivo genetic modification. While we are still years away from seeing these types of procedures in a hospital, consideration should be given to the extent that this technology will benefit and/or harm our society.