Welcome to the safety page of iGEM IISER TVM.
Project OASYS aims to make a blood biomarker-based microfluidic device that can aid in the diagnosis of clinical depression.
Like Uncle Ben wisely said “With great power comes great responsibility”, our team has given utmost priority to ensuring a safe workplace and product design.
You can find the details of all the safety and ethical aspects that have been considered in our project design here.
Our Device
With our plan to have a discardable chip,
it was important for us to ensure the safety of our environment,
the materials used for the chip has to have minimal effect on the environment.
To ensure the safety of our users and to bring down the price of our kit
for the benefit of society, minimising or avoiding the use of enzymes were better.
The detection unit of our tool is designed to be a permanent hardware of multiple use,
and therefore the material has to be chosen carefully so that it is durable,
but also aids in the eventual disposal of the hardware.
Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) - Studies have shown that the degradation products of PDMS do not have any significant effect on soil microbes, animals or crops. PDMS also do not bioaccumulate.
Enzyme-free quantifiers - Both the aptasensors and the nanoprobes can quantify the biomarkers at physiological concentrations without using enzymes, thereby avoiding the risk of enzymes accidentally leaking and causing discomfort to the user.
Leakage preventive valves - These valves ensure that the blood that enters the device does not leak out because of backflow and cause contamination.
Polylactic acid (PLA) - The material used to make the shell of our detector unit is biodegradable as well as recyclable.
Risk assessment and management
Wetlab
Risks
Our work primarily involved the use of fluorophore-attached
DNA oligos for the detection of biomarkers. This did not pose any specific safety concerns, apart from the
general lab safety measures.
We have to procure the biomarkers from a reliable company.
We have experiments involving the use of E. coli DH5 alpha and BL21 DE3 for the cloning
and expression of Gs alpha protein. Both of these belong to risk group 1.
The use of nanoparticles in our experiments needed the use of masks when working with them.
Experiments like Native page, TEM, gel electrophoresis etc. involve the use of
specific laboratory equipments that has to be dealt with carefully.
All the chemicals have to be handled with proper care.
The material used for chip-making has to be chosen to minimize the
effect on the environment.
Proper waste disposal measures have to be taken.
The tool we designed is to be tested on blood, but this would pose a
lot of safety issues from blood-borne pathogens and contaminants.
Actions
The DNA oligos was purchased from idt and the biomarkers were purchased from Merck.
All our team members have received safety training prior to working in lab.
This included the training for handling basic laboratory equipments and emergency
measures.
The workspace was wiped with 70 percent ethanol, before and after work.
All experiments involving Ecoli was done in the biocabinet and the cabinet was
sterilized with UV before and after use.
Use of instruments like TEM, and
plate reader was only done in the presence of a phd.
In native page,
we used SYBR Safe instead of Ethidium bromide as it is less mutagenic.
Proper training of waste disposal on the basis of colour of bin was given
to the members by the lab technician. The waste disposal system is managed
by Indian Medical Association Goes Eco-friendly (IMAGE).
While running experiments involving circuits for fluorescence detector,
proper care was taken to ensured that all circuits were correctly made
before connecting to power output.
We have decided to avoid the use of blood
for our experiments, minimising the risk of any potential exposure to
pathogens present in blood.
Proper precautions to be taken for conducting experiments.
Permission for conducting activities in different locations has to be taken.
Surveys should be conducted after obtaining proper consent.
We also wanted to make sure that the the waste from experiments
conducted in schools were segregated and discarded properly,
ensuring safety of students, environment and fostering safe
lab conducts among students.
Actions
When conducting activities on public places,
permissions from nearby legal authorities were acquired.
All the surveys had a consent form to be signed before filling the survey.
This form also had the details od the data being collected and how it will be used.
All the experiments as part on outreach in schools were done using common
chemicals that are found in everyday items and was not harmful to humans.
The waste from these experiments were collected and disposed of separately.
Ethical concerns
Eliminating the use of blood in our research helped to alleviate
the concerns related to procuring samples and handling of blood.
All the data collected from surveys had a consent form,
and the data collected has not been used for any other purpose.
We have planned a structure on how data can be collected from our
chip with the user's permission into a database while ensuring their privacy.
For more information checkout the Implementation page.
Figure 1 : Safety consent form
Events
Meeting with Dr Annapoorna for insights regarding ethical considerations.
Meeting with Mr Rohan Aggarwal, founder and CEO of Vidcare Innovations, to learn about the safety aspects to be considered when building a microfluidic device.
Outreach events held in high schools involved experimental demonstrations
and also group experiments for the students.
The students were taught how the waste from these experiments should
be segregated into different boxes according to the type of material before disposal.
Find out more about this event by clicking here
