RE: A big thank you on biosafety

Dear Petra, I don't know whether your response came only to me or really
went out to everybody in the flow Cytometry group. 


Just to comment on your e-mail: I think all of this is a very healthy and
urgently needed discussion to ensure all cell sorter operators are
reasonably well protected when they perform cell sorts of potentially
biohazardous specimens. 


When I read your comment at the bottom of your e-mail: "put some undiluted
bleach on it" a number of questions come up. Just to list a few: 

1.    How has that been validated?

2.    Do we truly need to use undiluted bleach? For how much time?


As I am not directly working in this field (however oversee a flow cytometry
facility that sorts AIDS virus-infected nonfixed human and non-human primate
specimens), I leave the rest of the discussion to the experts in this field.



Regards, Joern


Joern E. Schmitz, MD

Assistant Professor of Medicine

Harvard Medical School


Division of Viral Pathogenesis

Department of Medicine	     

Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center

Research East 213D

41 Avenue Louis Pasteur

Boston, MA  02115


Phone: 617-667-5206

Fax:   617-667-8210


http://bidmc.harvard.edu/display.asp?leaf_id=4102


http://www.hms.harvard.edu/aids/programs/cfar/cores/immflowlma.htm


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-----Original Message-----
From: Disterer, Petra (Medsch Hampstead/Medicine)
[mailto:p.disterer@medsch.ucl.ac.uk] 
Sent: Saturday, September 16, 2006 6:20 AM
To: cyto-inbox
Subject: RE: A big thank you on biosafety


Dear Flowers,


Having worked with Prions for three years, I think I should put my two cents
in. There is no evidence at all that TSE from elk or moose is transmissable
to human. On the other hand there is considerable evidence that
cross-species TSE infection is extremely difficult, for example infecting
mice requires high-dose administration of pure beta sheet prion protein
directly to the brain and passaging into other mice. Scrapie also is
impossible to transmit to human and it's been around for hundreds of years,
so we really would know by now.


So basically I would estimate the risk to be very low. For safety precaution
I would see if the cells could be fixed before sorting and avoid aerosol
formation as you would with any potentially infectious sample, but I'm just
suggesting that for your peace of mind. I as the researcher working with
those cells would not take any precautions beyond what I would usually with
all tissue culture.


I'm assuming here that with "material" you meant cells and not purified
prion protein. I don't think you could FACS that, as the sizes wouldn't be
big enough.


Again for line purification - you'd be coping with cells that potentially
contain prion protein not free concentrated prion protein, so I think that
cleaning according to what you normally do for potentially infectious cells
would be adequate.


Just to mention, prion protein (the normal alpha helical form and
potentially some misfolded forms) are present in quite a few cells which
you've probably already sorted, such as central nervous sytem neuronal cells
or Purkinje cells.


I think we as scientists should be careful about subscribing to the media
induced panic about prion protein. (Ie prion protein is not practically
indestructable - put some undiluted bleach on it and that'll do fine).


Hope that helps


Petra Disterer

The UCL Inst.of Hepatology


      -----Original Message----- 

      From: Joern Schmitz [mailto:jschmitz@bidmc.harvard.edu] 

      Sent: Fri 08/09/2006 22:05 

      To: Cytometry Mailing List 

      Cc: 

      Subject: RE: A big thank you on biosafety




      I totally agree: The Institutional Biosafety Committee has to look at
this.


      BTW: Who has decided that the biosafety level should "only" be BSL-2
when

      you are handling "bugs" that are basically indestructible?


      My gut feeling tells me that right now nobody really has any clue
about any

      potential longterm effects of aerosols from these specimens that you
are

      about to generate ...


      Joern E. Schmitz, MD


      -----Original Message-----

      From: Charles A Kuszynski [mailto:ckuszyns@UNMC.EDU]

      Sent: Thursday, September 07, 2006 11:22 AM

      To: cyto-inbox

      Subject: Re: A big thank you on biosafety


      I would be more concerned about the potential for aerosol production
and

      biosafety issues than whether you can clean the sample tube.  Your

      institutional Biosafety Committee needs to look at this project and
suggest

      the requirements for operator safety and containment.


      Charles A. Kuszynski, Ph.D.



      Hello,


      An investigator here has inquired about using the MoFlo for sorting

      prion infected material.	This will be from deer and elk with chronic

      wasting disease, which is treated as BSL2, and may eventually also be

      scrapie, which I think is also BSL2.


      I was wondering if anyone out there has done these kinds of sorts, and

      if so, what sort of containment and line decontamination they have
used?


      Thanks very much.


      Anne