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From 2012hs.igem.org

Safety

Each member of the Tyngsborough iGEM Tiger Squad has learned and currently follows the Flynn's scientific safety contract. Each year, we take a scientific safety refresher to brush up on our safety procedures. We were always supervised in our labs by our Team Leader, Ms. Ravgiala.

Environmental Dangers With our device, the largest environmental concern is proper disposal of the bacteria themselves and the chemicals we were using. As we were never able to test our theoretical device, the concerns surrounding the use of carbon monoxide gas were not an issue. We were always careful to properly dispose of cell growth plates and microtubes, always letting them sit for 20 minutes in 10% bleach and sealing them properly. Chemicals that could be possibly considered dangerous were always used in a waste hood and disposed of properly in designated waste containers.

Personal Safety Procedures Our whole team was always supervised by an instructor, and wore gloves, goggles, and aprons. We used different antibiotics in our transformations, such as ampicillin, and were always very careful and handled them in the safety hood.

Sterile Handling Techniques When using the bacteria, we never re-used pipette tips or other transferal equipment that had a chance of contaminating the bacteria. We wore gloves at all times when handling bacteria, and were certain to clean all equipment before and after use and kept all equipment sterile during lab procedures. All materials, whether they were reusable or being thrown out, were cleaned thoroughly and with bleach when applicable.

Click here for a [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOQAq4Nl4og link to a funny Youtube video] of what NOT to do in a lab setting. (All credit goes to the producer of the video Zach Lipovsky.)

Lab Safety Extras Click here for the Safety Contract read and signed by all students.

Demonstrating Safety At iGEM

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