Safety Training
All members of the team received a lab tour and basic safety instructions in September 2023. Before the summer wet lab sessions, all members who went into the lab were given detailed safety training including but not restricted to:
- Fire drill
- Use of the fume cupboard to handle antibiotics
- Safe use of the Bunsen burner
- Antiseptic techniques
- Safe disposal of biosafety waste
- Proper personal hygiene
We have used the E. coli strain BL21 and DH5α for transformation and experiments. Both of them are lab strains with BSL1.
Biosafety waste
All disposable materials, including agar plates, falcon tubes, microplates, pipette tips, etc, that had been or may have been in contact with laboratory bacteria are disposed of with the following procedures:
- Used materials are placed in a designated bin with a biosafety-labeled plastic bag
- Kept sealed (if possible) until processed
- At the end of the day, 1:49 Dettol is flushed into the plastic bag with lids or caps open. All surfaces of the biosafety waste are ensured to be in contact with Dettol.
- Bag-soaked biosafety waste soaked in Dettol is left overnight until the bag is disposed of as normal waste.
Antiseptic procedures for reusable materials
Reusable materials that had been or may have been in contact with laboratory bacteria include confocal flasks and glass pipettes (as streakers or spreaders). Glass instruments are soaked with 1:49 Dettol overnight, cleaned, and autoclaved before next usage or storage. In our lab, a household pressure rice cooker is used as an autoclave machine as there is no autoclave machine at our school nor any authorized person who can operate an autoclave machine. Streakers and spreaders are soaked with 70% alcohol and flamed before the next usage or storage.