Team:Heidelberg/Jamboree
Engagement
Engaging with the public
Kevin Esvelt's Lecture at Heidelberg University
Opening science to a broad public is a major goal in iGEM. To integrate public opinions and concerns into the scientific process is increasingly important as new biological inventions could influence the humanity as a whole, the environment and our coexistence with nature. Therefore, we did not want to miss the opportunity to host Kevin Esvelt, the inventor of PACE (phage-assisted continuous evolution) and CRISPR-based gene drives, for an open lecture at our university. Kevin Esvelt presented his work on "Gene drive evolution, localization, and restoration". This highly intriguing topic and he, being the speaker, attracted more than 300 students and researchers with various different backgrounds. The concept of gene drives already exists in nature and allows particular genes to spread through populations even if those genes are not necessarily beneficial for an organism´s fitness. Kevin Esvelt and his colleagues mimicked this naturally occurring concept using the CRISPR/Cas technology, thereby enabling genetic alterations in sexually reproducing organisms to spread throughout populations. This way, new genes can be introduced into populations, e.g. to control reproduction of apopulation under specific circumstances. Consequently, applications of gene drives include preventing the spread of pathogen carrying insects like mosquitos transmitting malaria. As gene drives are a tool to bias inheritance of genes, the potential, enormous impact of releasing gene drive carrying organisms into nature raises major bioethical concerns. Therefore, Kevin Esvelt´s is continuously perusing an open dialog with the society about benefits and potential risks of scientific technologies before they are even started to be implemented in his lab. Notably, this aim of integrating the public opinion and discussion into the scientific process from the very beginning is also a hallmark of and key criterion for successful iGEM projects. By giving people a voice, they also get a choice. Emerging technologies may affect countries or even our planet as a whole and the broad public should have a voice in which way technology should be developed and how it is to be used. Besides CRISPR-based gene drives, Kevin Esvelt is also the inventor of PACE (phage-assisted continuous evolution), the method we want to build upon in our project. We were lucky to not only host Kevin Esvelt’s lecture at the BioQuant building, but even had the opportunity to actually show him our lab (which is located in BioQuant) and PACE apparatus and discuss our iGEM project. He provided extremely helpful advice not only on how to set up PACE technically, but also on how to design corresponding experiments safely and responsibly and how to communicate our project outside the scientific community. If you are interested in how we integrated Kevin Esvelt’s advice into our project design, please visit our Integrated Human Practices page. We are proud of having hosted Kevin Esvelt as a speaker and guest and are thankful for his inspiring input that shaped our project from its very beginning on.
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