Lab Biosafety
In this lab we will be working with hazardous chemicals. These substances pose hazards to you, other people and the environment. We will therefore discuss the precautions necessary for handling these materials.
Standard safety practices
Eating, drinking, smoking, and storing food and drinks are not permitted in the laboratory. Do not wear jewelry (this includes watches), and keep your hands clean and your nails short at all times.
Wearing a lab coat is compulsory and it should be worn only in the lab, in order to prevent and quarantine possible contamination. The lab coat must be long-sleeved and completely buttoned up to fully protect skin and street clothes from spills. The lab coat should also be laundered on-site or by a laundering service.
Gloves should always be worn when handling bio-hazardous materials or hazardous chemicals. Disposable latex gloves provide an adequate barrier between the lab employee and most hazardous materials. However, when handling organic solvents and corrosive chemicals, one should use nitrile gloves. Despite the fact that nitrile gloves are twice as expensive as latex gloves, many labs have chosen to use nitrile gloves exclusively because increasing numbers of people are developing allergies to latex.
Safe Microbiological Techniques
- Follow the standard safety practices as described above.
- Keep all doors and windows closed when experiments are in progress.
- Decontaminate any spills of GMOs immediately with the following procedures:
- Remove fluids with tissue or paper towel, and then dispose of the paper in the waste-basket for biologically contaminated waste.
- Decontaminate the surface on which the material was spilled with 70% ethanol or another validated disinfectant.
- Wash your hands afterwards.
- Minimize the creation and spread of aerosols by:
- Only use closed tubes to centrifuge.
- Prevent caps from getting wet.
- Heat wet inoculation needles the properly, i.e. first heat the shaft, then the eye.
- Allow inoculation needles to cool down before putting them back into the fluid.
- Never use force to empty pipettes, but rather allow gravity to do its work.
- Pour out all fluids in a gentle manner and never from a great height.
- Decontaminate used materials by autoclaving them or by immersing them in a validated disinfectant.
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Disposing of inactivate biological waste:
- Place all biological waste in a waste-basket specifically used for biological waste. The waste should then be transported to the autoclave or to a waste incinerator that is capable of burning contaminated hospital waste.
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Wash your hands with disinfecting soap after the experiment and before leaving the laboratory.
Biosafety Cabinet
A biosafety cabinet(BSC) — also called a biological safety cabinet or microbiological safety cabinet — is an enclosed, ventilated laboratory workspace. A BSC protects the operator and the environment from pathogenic materials and volatile chemicals. There are three types of biosafety cabinets:
- Class I: This BSC has the basic requirements for safety work in a laboratory. It protects the operator and environment from exposure to aerosols derived from the sample inside the cabinet, but it does not protect the sample itself from contamination.
- Class II: This BSC protects both the operator and the environment from exposure to biohazards. In addition, BSC Class II also protects the sample from external contamination. This extra protection is induced by an additional airflow that carries possible contaminants from the operator away from the sample.
- Class III: This BSC provides an absolute level of safety which cannot be attained with BSC Class I and II.