Human Practices Development

We have thought about the Human Practices since the very beginning of KILL XYL. We had defined the actors involved and how they impacted our scientific approach. This way, our project could be as adapted as possible to the real needs of society.

Then, as our project advanced and the technical aspects were defined, we worked more on the practical aspects of Human Practices.

First and foremost, safety is crucial in a lab. As we worked in synthetic biology, we had to consider the safety level of each part and organisms we used. We made certain to work at all times in the best conditions. Experiments with P2 level organisms were performed by trained advisors.

To integrate farmer’s opinions, we contacted them and made a survey, first via the web and then in person, during an agricultural fair. This approach helped us to figure out their needs and their thoughts about Xylella fastidiosa, so we could work accordingly.

Thanks to these surveys, we noticed that a product administered by injection was more than disabling for farmers because it was irreconcilable with a large cultivation surface. Consequently, given that it would not correspond to farmers, our Hardware team stopped working on an automated injection system and focused on detection. Thus, we decided to test the delivery system of our treatment, provided it would penetrate the plant and be able to have an action against Xylella fastidiosa. To reply to this new interrogation, we took experiments on Arabidopsis thaliana to find out whether it can enter the plant.

One of the most important changes in our project design caused, at least in part, by farmers' opinion, was moving away from phages. We understood very clearly that they did not feel comfortable with the idea of spreading phages in Nature. This also drew our attention to the legislation related to the use of phages. We concluded that a product containing genetically modified phages would be very hard to market because it would be considered dangerous. Both of these elements led us to redesign our project. We met Ms Mireille Ansaldi, the PI of the phage cycle and bacteria metabolism team in the LCB, to find another solution for using a phage. We decided at this point to use phage-like particles (instead of phages) as their inability to self-replicate would also make them more acceptable.

Finally, in order to get advices on the relevance of our project, we contacted Ms Marie-Agnès Jacques, a X. fastidiosa specialist from the Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA). She warned us that we would be defined by the legislation as a GMO product. We then began a complete study of French and European law, thanks to a collaboration with the Paris-Saclay team. This allowed us to see if our product could be categorized something else than GMOs and if we will be able to sell it in France and in Europe. In addition, we wanted to make sure that our product, especially our phage-like particle, was environmentally friendly and didn't pollute the soil or harm plant. To do so, we tested our phages in various conditions and compared our results to legal rates established by French and European institutions.

To sum up, our project grew permanently intertwined with the human practices. Our various investigations about human practices called our project into question all the time. We changed our mind several times about different points and initiated additional experiments further to our research in Human Practices.