Team:Chalmers-Gothenburg/HP/Silver
Introduction
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Outreach
An important part of every iGEM project is to spread information about synthetic biology and its applications to the public. It is also important to reach out to the public and tell them about your own project and answer the questions that they might have and establish a dialogue. To do this we did some outreach to the university and the public through different channels and in different ways.
University outreach
We wanted to make our whole university aware of the cool project that we were working on and therefore decided to spread information about iGEM and our BREATHtaking biosensor. We did this in two ways; by having a lunch lecture and and also making a mini series about the project in cooperation with Chalmers University of Technology.
The lunch lecture was about iGEM and our project and was conducted for Chalmers students, primarily biotechnology students. We answered questions and encouraged the students to get interested in synthetic biology, to support us and join the team next year.
Even though the lunch lecture was great, the team was not content with only reaching out to biotechnology students was enough. Therefore we reached out to Chalmers Public Relations section and they made a mini series in three parts which they distributed on their Facebook page. This way, we reached a broader crowd, both within and outside the university. In the two first episodes we explain our project, our achievements and plan for the Jamboree in Boston. The last episode will be released after Boston, where the viewers will see how great the Jamboree in Boston was.
Public outreach
Lecture about synthetic biology together with team iGEM Lund
We collaborated with team iGEM Lund and held a lecture about synthetic biology in Lund at Lunds University’s 350 year anniversary. The lecture was open for the public and the information was kept at a popular scientific level. The lecture started with the history of traditional genetic engineering and continued with the description of synthetic biology. When the audience understood the concept of synthetic biology, each iGEM team presented their own project and how they used synthetic biology.
The lecture continued with future applications of synthetic biology and the ethical aspects were discussed. Research and responsibility goes hand in hand and the main message of this part was that it is important to think and discuss ethical dilemmas and questions before conducting any experiment. Different views on different subjects were presented in a natural way to let the audience create their own opinion. The lecture ended with a talk about scientific communication; how the communication work between researchers and the public today and why it is important to establish such a conversation.
After the lecture, the audience had the possibility to talk with the speakers and either ask questions or discuss specific subjects. There were questions about the project and some discussion about ethics, showing that the audience got interested and started to form their own opinions.
Survey Lung cancer
To further reach out to the public and to get their help when designing a screening program, we created a survey about lung cancer screening program. We wanted to see what the public thought about having regular examinations for lung cancer, similar to how we screen for breast cancer in Sweden. We also investigated if the public thought that the tax money should finance or subsidized these screenings. This survey was open for everyone to answer and spread via different communication channels. A few more results from the survey is presented in Integrated Human Practices, Screening Program.
We collaborated with iGEM Bilkent-UNAMBG and let them distribute the survey in their country to see if the results would differ between countries. The participation was good, with 605 and 268 participants in Sweden and Turkey respectively.
When asking the question: “If you would have been called for a free regular medical checkup (screening) for lung cancer every year, would you go?”, both countries showed identical results (Figure 1). The majority of the participants (89 %) in the survey would go to the medical check-up, showing a positive attitude for the screening program.
When asked the following question: “Do you think such a screening program should be totally financed or subsidized by the government?” the result showed that most of the participants think a lung cancer screening program should be either funded or subsidized by the government (Figure 2). The large difference between the countries is that most participants for Sweden think a subsidization would be the best while majority from Turkey believe that the whole screening program should be financed by the government. Overall, there seems to be a positive attitude about setting up a lung screening program in both countries.
