Safety in Plant Tissue Culture

• Sterile tissue culture technique eliminates or almost eliminates the danger of loose seeds, pollen broadcast, vegetative escape, etc.
• Bamboo is unlikely to cause gene flow due to long intervals between flowering.
• Handling and growing cultures inside a locked and filtered plastic box isolates the organisms from infection and prevents escape.
• Choosing clumping bamboos limits the possibilities of vegetative escape, even if planted in the ground.

Therefore, looking at standard practices for biosafety level 1-P:

1. A locked apartment door and secure windows are more than enough access restriction, in this case.
2. You can inform yourself of hazards and safeguards.
3. Given an organism with low potential for gene flow, the procedures are more than adequate.
4. No special containment is required other than keeping cultures inside the plastic glove box/growing chamber. If removed, they can be sealed inside a small plastic carrying box that is passed into the chamber using aseptic procedures.
5. Records can be kept in a lab notebook.
6. Supplies can be sterilized as they are passed into the glove box/growing chamber and sterilized again as they are passed out.
7. All organisms can be inactivated by placing them inside a pressure cooker, which is sealed before removal from the chamber. The pressure cooker is not unsealed until after an adequate processing time.
8. Maintenance in tissue culture and inactivation through pressure cooking provide adequate pest control.
9. Since there will be no motile organisms, sterile tissue culture is adequate containment.
10. Given the built-in safety of sterile tissue culture and the organisms selected no signage is needed.
11. Working inside an air-tight glove box minimizes the creation of aerosols.
12. Use of gloves eliminates the need for special clothing. Hand washing before and after procedures is adequate.
13. Any accidents and cleanup procedures can be recorded in a lab notebook.