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Human Practice
Public outreach efforts are necessary for science in order to enhance the general understanding of science and to facilitate acceptance. In return, the scientific community can greatly profit from the bidirectional dialogue.
The first possibility to present our project to the commmunity was the science fair in the heart of Freiburg, where local institutes could present their research focus to an interested audience from young to old. People showed a lot of interest towards our project, recognizing the importance and the potential of Synthetic Biology in health care as well as therapeutics and were happy to have a dialogue with us.
While being impressed by our project design, many people showed misinformation and uncertainties towards the basics of the immune system. We faced a lot of questions concerning genetic modification as well as immunobiology and vaccination in general.
Inspired by these conversations we conducted a survey, with the purpose to find out where such uncertainties might originate from. By offering the chance to win attractive prizes (thanks to our sponsors!), we could gather a lot of different opinions on controversial topics like vaccination and genetic modification.
We presented the results of the study along with our further elaborated project on the Science Days. This is an annual science fair especially oriented for a younger audience like school classes, hosted by the Science Days Club and the Europapark in Rust, one of the biggest amusement parks in Europe. Based on the experience of the science fair, we again engaged the people in a dialogue concerning our project and the basics of immunology.
In summary, we grasped the chance to inform the public about Synthetic Biology and especially the chances it offers, concretely about CARTELTM. In return, we received valuable input to modify and influence our work by improving the safety aspect, which showed that Synthetic Biology can greatly profit being accessible to the public. To see more about that, see our Integrated Human Practices section
Our Team was given the chance to participate at the science fair 2017, an biennial event in the heart of the city to promote local institutes and science projects.
Synthetic Biology and iGEM
We took the opportunity to represent iGEM and Synthetic Biology in general and to explain our project to curious visitors. There was a huge interest in our project and people liked the idea, because we informed them about the need of a therapy which is effective and has a low risk for serious side-effects and long-term damage.
DNA extraction from fruits
For young scientists we offered a DNA extraction from fruits by materials commonly found in households and taught them about the properties of the DNA and its building blocks, the nucleotides. Not only the kids, but also their parents were impressed since they don't get the opportunity to see DNA with the naked eye everyday.
Puzzle of Immunology
We also spread awareness for the functionality of the immune system with a puzzle termed ‘Immunologie für Jedermann’ (immunology for everybody) which was gratefully provided by the German Society for Immunologie (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Immunologie e.V, abbr. DGFI). We talked to people about the importance of vaccinations and faced their questions and insecurities by explaining, how the immune system actually works. We had great success which was visible by the huge interest the people showed towards our booth, our project and synthetic biology in general. A lot of them promised to keep track of our project and wanted us to keep them informed.
Based on the experience from the science fair, where we received huge recognition for our project, we faced a lot of uncertainty and misbelief concerning the functions of the immune system, vaccination and Synthetic Biology. For that reason we decided to conduct a survey to find out, where such uncertainty might originate from and how to face them. We got feedback from over 140 participants from different countries, who willingly shared their beliefs and opinions.
As iGEM slowly went to an end, we presented our final project on the Science Days, which were hosted in the Europapark in Rust, one of the biggest theme parks in Europe. It is a science fair especially established to bring research and science closer to kids and school classes, and appeal to their joy of discovery. But also adolescents, parents and teachers are targeted and informed about institutes, companies, and education possibilities. This was the optimal opportunity to share our final project to large audience.
http://www.science-days.de/
