TidyTron: Reducing lab waste using validated wash-and-reuse protocols for common plasticware in Opentrons OT-2 lab robots.

Every year biotechnology labs generate a combined total of ∼5.5 million tons of plastic waste. As the global bioeconomy expands, biofoundries will inevitably increase plastic consumption in-step with synthetic biology scaling.

Qualitative and Quantitative Analysis of Certain Aspects of the Cytotoxic and Genotoxic Hazard of Hospital Wastewaters by Using a Range of Assays.

Health care facilities and hospitals generate significant amounts of wastewater which are released into the sewage system, either after a preliminary treatment or without any further treatment. Hospital wastewater may contain large amounts of hazardous chemicals and pharmaceuticals, some of which cannot be eliminated entirely by wastewater treatment plants. Moreover, hospital effluents may be loaded with a plethora of pathogenic microorganisms or other microbiota and microbiome residues.

Genotoxicity of wastewater from health care facilities.

Health care facilities use for therapeutic purposes, diagnostics, research, and disinfection a high number of chemical compounds, such as pharmaceuticals (e.g. antibiotics, cytostatics, antidepressants), disinfectants, surfactants, metals, radioactive elements, bleach preparations, etc.

Eye irritation hazard of chemicals and formulations assessed by methods in vitro.

Background: The aim of this study was to compare human and animal skin irritation data with results of selected in vitro methods, including HET-CAM test, Neutral Red Release Assay, Neutral Red Uptake Assay and EpiOcular eye irritation test and with already existing data of eye irritation obtained from animal experiments.

Methods: Chemicals employed in previous skin irritation validation studies and commercially available cosmetic formulations were subjected to further testing using in vitro methods Neutral Red Release (NRR) assay, Neutral Red Uptake (NRU) assay, HET-CAM test and EpiOcular assay.

Results: The study revealed that skin irritants are not necessarily eye irritants; specifically volatile or solid materials may be misclassified.

Toxicity hazard of organophosphate insecticide malathion identified by in vitro methods.

Objectives: Malathion is generally not classified as toxic. However, the toxicity seems to be species-dependent. Local and systemic toxicity data for birds are rare, but a decrease of wild bird densities in areas where malathion was applied was reported.