Our team embraces iGEM's spirit of innovation with a strong commitment to responsible research. We put safety and security at the center of our work - protecting people, our colleagues, and the environment - by designing, operating, and communicating responsibly.

Experimental safety :

As an iGEM team the biggest safety concern is the lab work, where it is crucial to have a clear understanding of the risk factors in play to ensure a successful and reproducible workflow. This is why we proactively map potential hazards in both our experiments and any future use, and we specify concrete countermeasures. To establish the needed safety measures, it is key to understand the specificities of the location and material we work with, as well as their limitations.

Lab setting and oversight

• Biosafety level: BSL-1
• Work areas: open bench for low-risk biological samples; chemical fume hood for volatile/hazardous chemicals
• Institutional controls: accident reporting system; PPE (lab coats, gloves, closed shoes; goggles where appropriate); inventory tracking; physical access control to lab and storage; medical surveillance as required; waste management procedures
• Training completed: lab access & rules, roles of responsible individuals, BSL differences, use of biosafety equipment, good microbial technique, disinfection & sterilization, emergency procedures, transporting samples, and physical biosecurity

Organisms, parts, and DNA screening

• Engineered organism: Chlamydomonas reinhardtii
• Supporting strain: Escherichia coli DH5-alpha for cloning only
• New parts: assembly of new vectors/parts to express the lanthanide-binding protein (parts are not hazardous on their own)
• DNA sourcing: all sequences ordered from a company that is a member of the IGSC, with sequence screening
• Whitelist / permissions: work is covered by the iGEM White List; no prohibited activities and no activities requiring advance permission
• No human subjects, animals, or environmental sampling beyond allowed sources

Experiments scope

• Clone synthesized sequences in E. coli and assemble expression vectors
• Transform Chlamydomonas reinhardtii
• Measure protein expression and REE capture/recovery with mass-spectrometry quantification

Identified hazards

Risk management and mitigation

Short risk register

Policies and guidelines

Future use & compliance

Field-like testing would only occur in the specialized, closed bioreactors at the wastewater plant to assess performance under real effluent conditions, since open release is prohibited. In Europe, such work requires prior authorization under EU Directive 2009/41/EC on contained use of GM microorganisms, along with approval from the national competent authority (e.g., Germany's BfR or France's HCB). Risk assessments, emergency plans, and regular inspections must be in place to demonstrate that the algae cannot escape into the wider environment.

*https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/2009/41/oj

Policies in relevant countries

Being a team with people from multiple nationalities, we aim to investigate the possibility of a follow up on our project in a few different countries, more specifically France, Germany, and Switzerland. For both France and Germany this relies first hand on the fact that the activities are classified into risk classes 1-4 by EU Contained Use Directive 2009/41/EC. For European countries and Switzerland it also requires facility approval and activity notification/authorization before any further steps are taken. The typical is relatively similar, as the procedures have undergone a homogenisation on the European continent, but do have some key differences that we tried to underline in the following.

Real-world impact

This contained algal bioprocess aims to recover REEs safely from industrial/wastewater streams and may also reduce pollutant loads. The combination of genetic safeguards, physical containment, and institutional procedures keeps risks as low as reasonably achievable while enabling responsible innovation.

Safety in Human practices

Safety considerations guide our engagements with partners and communities. When we discuss potential deployments, we emphasise how containment designs, wastewater expertise from EAWAG, and institutional oversight shape the project roadmap. We document feedback, communicate realistic risk narratives, and plan to include findings from our interviews (including the EAWAG session) as soon as they are cleared for publication.