Safety has always been regarded as the guarantee for the success of our project. In all our designs, we would ensure the safety of our project by addressing all the risks from the laboratory works to our hardware designs. Try to avoid any safety problems that might happen in our project.

Microbiological Safety

a) Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans) as a commonly used model organism in scientific research has been widely accepted and recognized for its safety. C. elegans is a non-parasitic nematode with well-characterized genome background. The C. elegans do not have any pathogenicity and do no harm to our human health.

b) E.coli OP50 is used to feed the C. elegans in our experimental processes. E. coli OP50 is a non-pathogenic strain of commonly used to culture and feed C. elegans. For the disposal and use of bacterial cultures and media, we strictly followed experimental operating procedures and laboratory safety guidelines to ensure safety.

Working Environment Safety

Our laboratory is equipped with a filter system, which would be changed every six months to ensure our safety. When we need to use toxic reagents, we are asked to use it in fume cupboard to protect us from toxic gases. Meanwhile the humidty and temperature in the lab is strickly controlled to provide a suitable In addition, we completed the specified experimental tasks in the specified laboratory space to avoid cross-contamination.

Disposal

1. Disposal of waste

After experiment, we will dispose of our waste, including used agar plates with worms or bacterium properly following lab safety guidelines. The waste was centered in specific location of the lab and would be treated and disposed by professional person in the lab. The culture medium will be directly imported into the high-temperature sterilization equipment to kill the bacteria and worms. This method can effectively prevent the microorganism from being leaked and guarantee the safety of the working environment. Meanwhile, any waste produced during experiment is strictly forbidden to be taken out the lab.

2. Disposal of the C.elegans

C.elegans is a non-hazardous, non-infectious, non-pathogentic, non-parasitic organism. The main safety concern of our device is the leakage of the modified elegans in a opening environment.

• Design of a sealing capsule

The three places to add the sample/medium/C.elegans will be protected by the valves. These prevents the leakage of the liquid.


• Inactivation of C.elegans by alcohol


We can inject a little amount of alcohol to fully terminate the elegans and prevent the leakage.

• Inactivation of C.elegans by UV light


We can also use UV light to irradiate the device and prevent the leakge.

Biosafety Laws in China

All of our project personnel strictly follow close to the Biosafety Law of the People’s Republic of China implemented in 2021.

Training

The members in our team all got trained on general safety guidelines before entering the laboratory to do experiments. This is to make sure all the members involved in experiment can learn the safty rules in lab. And then perform their experiment following these rules. For some of our team members who need to take charge of some specific experiments, they also need to go through specific training under the guidance of our instructor.

Basic Lab Rules

a) Wear personal protective equipment: Always wear appropriate personal protective equipment, such as gloves, lab coats, and protective eyewear, when handling C. elegans or working with laboratory equipment and chemicals. This helps prevent us from contamination and protect against potential hazards.

b) Sterile: In order to prevent the infection of bacteria, we have taken various measures, such as wearing lab coats, masks and gloves during the experiment, disinfecting the experimental area and our body using alcohol before the experiment, opening the lid of the medium as little as possible when transferring the C. elegans and speeding up the transfer to reduce the contact of the culture medium with the air.

c) Forbidden behavior：Some behaviors including smoking, eating, and sleeping are strictly prohibited inside the laboratory.

d) Proper disposal: After experiment, the waste should be disposed in specific location and be handled properly by professional person in our lab following the lab safety guideline. Any experiment waste is strictly forbidden to be taken out of the lab.

e) Data recording: Accurately record experimental operations, observations, and results in a laboratory notebook and electronic database. This allows for traceability and reproducibility of experiments and facilitates future analysis.