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From 2014hs.igem.org

1. Would any of your project ideas raise safety issues in terms of: researcher safety, public safety, or environmental safety? The biological materials used in our project are not related to pathogenicity and/or toxicity. The organism that we worked with in this project include non-pathogenic strains of E. coli, DH5α, which belongs to Risk Group 1 (no or low individual and community risk): a microorganism that is unlikely to cause human or animal disease. E. coli, DH5α has been widely used in the field of synthetic biology and its safety has long been proved. In order to test the tool system we developed, we also work on CHO cells, Chinese Hamster Ovary cells, which is widely used in genetic engineering and pharmaceutical field and proved to be safe. The coding that we inserted in to the CHO cells are basic standardized parts of GFP and RFP, which will not in any way raise safety concerns. All personnel working in the project have been trained with sufficient knowledge of laboratory safety and follow the safety regulations the university lab we worked in strictly. The entire process did not pose any danger on the researchers and shall not in case of accidental leakage. All tissues and cells are inactivated before being disposed. The standard method of inactivation is exposure to 96% formic acid overnight. The disposed materials do not in any way pose danger to either the public or the environment. In accidental leakage of the inactivated material, no serious safety problem will be caused because the tissues and non-pathogenic bacteria will only survive under strict laboratory environment inn theory.