Overview

In any case, safety is always of top priority. This year, we made multiple efforts to achieve integrated safety in all aspects of our project. Our safety work consists of three main parts:

• Safety in Implementation: We determined the potential safety and ethical concerns from the perspective of biological ethics and made several attempts to manage the risk.
• Safety in Laboratory: We strictly comply with government regulations and school regulations regarding lab safety. A duplicate insurance method is involved to avoid accidents.
• Safety in Education: We took full responsibility for the safety of our audience with specific methods towards the potential risks in our education work.

The integrated safety

in Implementation

Safety and Ethical Concerns

Certainly, our endeavor to alter the Martian surface environment would pose no threat to Earth's existing inhabitants. Nevertheless, in the interest of all mankind, we diligently evaluated the potential hazards associated with space exploration. Our engagement with experts in environmental ethics and biological ethics sheds light on various safety and ethical concerns that demand careful attention and resolution (more details in Human Practices).

From the perspective of biological ethics, Dr. Mingjun Zhang concurred that the unpredictable evolution of our engineering bacteria could potentially pose risks to both humanity and the extraterrestrial environment. A reliable risk management strategy, Dr. Zhang stressed, would be quite necessary for the future development of our project.

Attempts Towards the Risks

In response to the safety concerns, we proposed to develop a "Suicide Switch" that could terminate the engineered bacteria by detecting changes in pressure. No existing one from previous iGEM projects, according to search on our software.

However, during a follow-up with Dr. Jingwei Zhang, he highlighted the potential shortcomings of our "Suicide Switch": For one thing, frequent genetic mutations caused by the high radiation in space might easily silence the suicide module. For another, it would be extremely difficult to determine when we should activate the switch. Even if the "Suicide Switch" could automatically respond to specific stress conditions, the unstable environment of terrestrial planets increased the risk of a "False start".

The unreliability of the "Suicide Switch" became evident due to the harsh space environment, necessitating alternative approaches to address our safety concerns.

Future Development

Suggested by Dr. Jingwei Zhang, we agreed that packaging bacteria with hydrogel layers could not only prevent biological leaks but also facilitate the exchange of energy and vital substances^[1][2]. This indicates a new risk management strategy. However, there remains a need for further improvement in adapting the hydrogel material to our biofilm for space exploration.

Undoubtedly, it's a formidable task for a group of college students to comprehensively address all safety and ethical concerns pertaining to extraterrestrial environments. We are committed to playing our part and contributing to a brighter future for all mankind.

in Laboratory

In adherence to school regulations, every member operating in the wet lab passed the Lab Safety Examination at Fudan University and obtained a safety certificate (opens new window). In a proactive measure to bolster safety protocols, we developed specific lab safety rules (opens new window) tailored to our work environment. A lab practice quiz (opens new window) is arranged as duplicate insurance to reinforce our commitment to lab safety.

in Education

In “Intern Researchers”, we hosted a Lab Experience Day that involved a teaching experiment for high school students (more details in Education). In terms of safety concerns, all the students who participated had been well-trained on lab safety issues by the Shanghai Natural History Museum (opens new window). To further minimize the risks, we provided them with a comprehensive lab safety lecture and specific safety guidelines (Slides (opens new window)). We highlighted that "everyone operating in a lab should be responsible for the safety of himself/herself, other individuals, and the environment".

Additionally, we got parental permission and voluntary signatures on safety commitment letters (available here (opens new window)). During the experiment, all the students received personalized guidance from our team members to avoid safety accidents.

References

1. Li, L., Zhang, R., Chen, L., Tian, X., Li, T., Pu, B., Ma, C., Ji, X., Ba, F., Xiong, C., Shi, Y., Mi, X., Li, J., Keasling, J. D., Zhang, J., & Liu, Y. (2022). Permeability‐Engineered Compartmentalization Enables In Vitro Reconstitution of Sustained Synthetic Biology Systems. Advanced Science, 9(34), 2203652. https://doi.org/10.1002/advs.202203652 ↩︎

2. Tang, T.-C., Tham, E., Liu, X., Yehl, K., Rovner, A. J., Yuk, H., de la Fuente-Nunez, C., Isaacs, F. J., Zhao, X., & Lu, T. K. (2021). Hydrogel-Based Biocontainment of Bacteria for Continuous Sensing and Computation. Nature chemical biology, 17(6), 724–731. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41589-021-00779-6 ↩︎