Human practices

An oscillating HEK-cell, how can society benefit from these cells? Therapeutic drug monitoring is our answer. When treating multiple diseases the concentration of the drug in the blood has to be constant. The steady level of the drugs will determine therapeutic outcomes and can increase survival rates. Currently therapeutic drug monitoring is done by blood sampling. In patients who need lifelong monitoring, these hospital visits and the blood sampling itself can have a negative effect on the quality of live. Therefore, we developed a system that can measure the level of drugs at home. Furthermore, when these measurements can be done at home, they can be done daily. This means a more dynamic way of collecting information instead of the static measurements done in the hospital which results in more accurate data and possible better therapeutic outcomes. To test our views of our projects we talked to different specialists in medicine. We focused on three possible fields in medicine: transplantations, epileptics and psychotics. In these fields, therapeutic drug monitoring is of great importance. We asked three specialists how they see our project will influences the lives of their patients and future treatments. We used this information to further shape our project.

professor Diethard Monbaliu

Professor Monbaliu is a reputable abdominal transplant surgeon, at the department of microbiology and immunology at UZ Leuven, Belgium. He also part-time teaches the medicine students ‘topographical and radiological anatomy’ and supervises thesis students.

Professor Monbaliu confirmed that there is a need for a more dynamic measurement and a better evaluation of patients’ compliance which could result in less transplant rejection. He brought our attention to Tacrolimus, which is now the most used immunosuppressant. Furthermore, he mentioned the problem of patient variability and how our device should take this into account. Read More

Before our meeting with professor Monbaliu, we were doing research on the immunosuppressant cyclosporine, which we thought was used most after transplantations to reduce the chance of rejection. However, professor Monbaliu clarified that it is not cyclosporine that is mostly used nowadays, but tacrolimus is. Both drugs have the same mode of action but tacrolimus has less side effects. We were interested in using tacrolimus for our research however the drug is too expensive for us to use. Therefore, considering the information professor Monbaliu gave us and our financial possibilities, we chose to use cyclosporine. Next to this, professor Monbaliu confirmed that there is a need for a more dynamic measurement and a better evaluation of patients’ compliance which could result in less transplant rejection. Furthermore, the reduction of blood sampling is, according to the professor, a great advantage. However, a problem he brought to our attention was the fact that every patient is different which means that finding the optimal concentration of cyclosporine/tacrolimus is a challenge. Our device should thereby be calibrated individually for every patient. Bringing this information into account we considered that these differences and the problems that go with them could be assessed during clinical studies. Where different patients and their different values can be assembled, which can lead to procedures needed to determine the optimal drug concentration and calibrate our device. Read less

★ ALERT!

This page is used by the judges to evaluate your team for the medal criterion or award listed above.

Delete this box in order to be evaluated for this medal criterion and/or award. See more information at Instructions for Pages for awards.

Gold Medal and Integrated Human Practices

This page will contain information for your Gold medal Human Practices work, which you can also use to nominate your team for the Best Integrated Human Practices page. To make things easier, we have combined the Gold medal page with the Best Integrated Human Practices page since we expect the work to overlap considerably.

iGEM teams are unique and leading the field because they "go beyond the lab" to imagine their projects in a social/environmental context, to better understand issues that might influence the design and use of their technologies.

Teams work with students and advisors from the humanities and social sciences to explore topics concerning ethical, legal, social, economic, safety or security issues related to their work. Consideration of these Human Practices is crucial for building safe and sustainable projects that serve the public interest.

For more information, please see the Human Practices page.

Gold Medal Criterion #1

Expand on your silver medal activity by demonstrating how you have integrated the investigated issues into the design and/or execution of your project.

Best Integrated Human Practices Special Prize

To compete for the Best Integrated Human Practices prize, please describe your work on this page and also fill out the description on the judging form.

You must also delete the message box on the top of this page to be eligible for this prize.

Inspiration

Here are a few examples of excellent Integrated Human Practices work: