safe microbes

[Jason Bobe]

This list of safe micro-organisms was published in late 90s, to fulfill the "NIH Director's wish to provide a list of organisms that pose no threat to health or the environment". It describes microbes that are safe for grade school classroom use, for example:

http://www.science-projects.com/safemicrobes.htm

Anyone know of a more modern, updated resource like this?

Jason

[Dennis Oleksyuk]

If you are trying to check a particular microbe, you can got to https://www.atcc.org/ find it there and check the biosafety level in the description. They have pretty much every known bug in their database.

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[Patrik D'haeseleer]

Yeah, that's still the best list out there that I know of.

Note that it's definitely not perfect - for example Chromobacteria are listed in List #2A, even though the purple pigment producing Chromobacterium violaceum is a BSL2 organism. (Interestingly, several educational outlets were selling kits of pigmented bacteria that included C. violaceum a while back...)

Patrik

[ukitel]

Here:
http://downloadcenter.bgrci.de/resource/downloadcenter/downloads/B006_Gesamtdokument.pdf
Sorry, it's in german, but you just have to look for the organism name and associated risk group.
Start at page 72, continues until page 770 more or less.
Just bacteria and archea.
There's an analogous document for fungi, etc

[Regina Wu]

Patrik,

I saw a workshop that used Janthinobacterium lividum which produces the same purple pigment but is BSL1. I'm interested in finding these kits. Do you remember what company it was?

Regina

[Nathan McCorkle]

On Thu, Apr 14, 2016 at 2:11 PM, Regina Wu <regi...@gmail.com> wrote:

Patrik,

I saw a workshop that used Janthinobacterium lividum which produces the same purple pigment but is BSL1. I'm interested in finding these kits. Do you remember what company it was?

Regina

Not sure of the specific workshop, but DSMZ and ATCC both have cultures for sale:

https://www.dsmz.de/catalogues/details/culture/DSM-1522.html?tx_dsmzresources_pi5%5BreturnPid%5D=304

http://www.atcc.org/products/all/12473.aspx

[Regina Wu]

Hi Nathan, 

Thanks for the response. I have seen the ATCC and NEB quotes, but as you can tell its a bit pricey for a potential DIYBio workshop. Would you have any leads on labs that have it. I'd been more than willing to pay for the dry ice and shipping to Seattle.

[Dakota Hamill]

DSMZ sells strains for $75, ATCC Is $500.  If you can get them from DSMZ I say go for it, it's what we use.

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[Patrik D'haeseleer]

On Thursday, April 14, 2016 at 2:13:05 PM UTC-7, Regina Wu wrote:

I saw a workshop that used Janthinobacterium lividum which produces the same purple pigment but is BSL1. I'm interested in finding these kits. Do you remember what company it was?

I put together a page with culture collection resources a while back:

http://biocuriousmembers.pbworks.com/w/page/61714006/Culture%20collections

Both eNasco and Flinn Scientific used to sell C. violaceum as part of their pigmented bacteria sets. Today, eNasco apparently no longer sells a set of pigmented bacteria (although they do still sell all the individual species, minus C. violaceum). And Flinn Scientific apparently swapped out the C. violaceum in their set for Micrococcus roseus (pink). I guess someone caught on that selling a BSL-2 strain that is known to have killed people to highschoolers is not a great idea.

As far as I know, none of the educational suppliers currently sell C. violaceum, which is as it should be...

We could definitely use another easily accessible, easy to grow Risk Group 1 blue or purple bacteria though! Janthinobacterium lividum coudl be an option, but someone may need to shell out the money to get it from ATCC first. C-MOULD has Arthrobacter polychromogenes, which makes a nice greyish blue, and Vogesella indigofera which produces indigo - gotta get our hands on some of those...

Patrik

[William Beeson]

Hello,

Have a look at this guideline from NIH (http://osp.od.nih.gov/sites/default/files/NIH_Guidelines.html).  I believe any organism that is listed as "exempt" is considered safe for general lab use by the NIH (section C).  Neurospora is also considered safe based on this (http://www.fgsc.net/neurosporaprotocols/How%20to%20certify%20that%20Neurospora%20final%20.pdf) and that it is part of a food in some Asian countries (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oncom).  

-Will

[Regina Wu]

Hi Dakota,

Thanks for helping. DSMZ is surprisingly affordable. However they're based in Germany so shipping microbes internationally may be the pricey bit. Are you also based in the States?

[Dakota Hamill]

We shipped from Germany to Irelanf, but are,back in the US now.  I want to say shipping was only 35 euro or something.  Strains come lyophilized in glass vial so shipping doesn't need to be cold and is small.

Even if it was 100 dollars to get to the US, it would still be a fraction of what ATCC charges for a single strain.

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