ABSTRACT
Biosafety is the prevention of negative effects on human health, plants, soil, and aquatic ecosystems from engineering microorganisms. Biosafety assessments are an important part of occupational and environmental safety in engineering processes based on microbial activities. The biosafety of microorganisms is classified into four risk groups by the ability to cause infectious diseases. The biosafety of the production, transportation, and the intentional release of microorganisms into the environment is an especially important issue for the bioremediation of polluted soil and biogeotechnology. Pure cultures for engineering bioprocess must be selected and tested using standard microbiological methods. Preliminary assessment of biosafety of the microbial strain can be done by assessment of potential pathogenicity of identified species using the PubMed database. Environmental impact assessments of the engineering application of pure microbial cultures must be also done for the evaluation of engineering application impacts on human, animal, and plant health. A quiz bank is added to this chapter.
