Team:DTU-Denmark/HP/Silver
Human Practices Silver Criterion
This part is largely a compilation and concentration of the following pages:
Education and Public Engagement
Ethics
Education
Whatever the challenge, it is important to spread passion to the researchers of tomorrow. Unfortunately synthetic biology is barely introduced in Denmark at the high school level. Combined with that the public is starting to get “GMO scared”, this poses a great threat to what can be accomplished within the field of synthetic biology, we think that the correct solution to this is education both of students and of the general public. This is why we have decided to focus as much as we have on the Biosensor project, and education in general.
High school student
To spread word about iGEM and synthetic biology to future students within the field we invited a high school student, Minh Greulich, to be a part of the team.
Minh assisted on the interlab study, helped us test the protocol for the Biosensor project and did some creative work related to the wiki.
This is what Minh had to say about her experience being on the team: "It was surprising for me, to experience such a relaxed and playful environment, despite the very serious and difficult nature of the work. My takeaway from participating in the project was that biomedicine is a field of work, where you can be sure to contribute to improving the world, and still have a life whilst doing so."
By helping us in the lab, Minh gained valuable skills and learned what it means to be a part of a team. She was eager to learn and enthusiastic about the project.
Biosensor
We aim to engage high school students at a broader scale, through the development and distribution of educational material and exercise material for assembling their first biosensor.
The need to develop this also stems from The Danish legislation is tough on synthetic biology, and it is not possible for high school students to make their own plasmid modifications. We have, together with the Danish organization Biotech Academy’s Biosensor project, made a free kit that will be distributed to high schools. This kit enables an average high school student to work with synthetic biology at his or her own school - while still taking the law into consideration.
The Biosensor project is an effort to expose Danish high school students to the world of experimental synthetic biology. The Biosensor kit makes it possible for high school students to work with biobricks.
The Biosensor project was created by DTU’s iGEM teams from 2015 and 2016, Biotech Academy, and further developed by the BioBuilders’ 2017 team. We are preparing to ship out the kits to 200 high schools in Denmark by Spring 2018.
Safety Around Snake Venom
The project revolves around detecting snake venom so it was apparent from the beginning that a safe work environment had to be secured, especially whenever snake venom was handled.
First of all, the snake venoms was purchased from a renowned and trusted supplier that also provided safety sheets [2]. They laid the base for the safety protocol established for working with venom in the laboratory. Venom in its solid form posse the highest risk of harming the handler as it is highly concentrated and a puff of wind may introduce the venom to the eyes or respiratory tract. As a result, only two people on the team was allowed to weigh out the lyophilized venom and it took place in a fume hood wearing gloves, dust mask and eye protection at all times. The venom was immediately dissolved in an, for the experiment conducted, appropriate buffer to minimize the above mentioned risks.
Even though venom diluted in a solution is less dangerous we still work at concentration potentially harmful to humans. Hence, experiments with venom took place in fume hoods wearing gloves and no sharp objects were used. All solutions containing snake venom was disposed off in sealed containers and afterwards sent to destruction in the same way as solid biohazard waste.
Read more about safety in the laboratory here.
Ethics
In this section we are stepping back and considering the ethical implications of our innovation, the economics of the issue and motivations for all involved. That is the social responsibility that carries with knowledge and technology, the financial responsibility and incentives that follow and lastly the considerations of proposing out imperfect solutions in order to alleviate suffering.
Social and human responsibility
Leading the way
We are privileged in Denmark, so privileged that we had a challenging time finding good problems to be solved. A part of that privilege is abundant and nuanced access to what goes on around the world. We have sufficient tools and opportunity to enable us to solve an issue like this. The impact of catalyzing innovation within such a new field as synthetic biology, a field where there is potential lives to be saved.
Helping those in need
When choosing the project we mostly considered local projects within diagnostics, however we did not think that these projects would have anywhere near as big of a potential impact as snake envenomings. The potential to save thousand of lives motivated us greatly. We think that projects should focus on helping those in need, especially when corporate interest is void.
The people affected by snake bites are often field workers, who do not have the money for expensive treatment, which is why our focus has always been on potentially cheap solutions. Furthermore, 400,000 people each year suffer from amputations or disfigurements, which leads to huge loss of labour in a labour based economy [1].
Technology, Synthetic biology and Safety
Taking our project into account, the application does not raise alarms. We are working with closed contained products without any living organisms.
The parts we are using are safe. We are applying GMOs to produce the recombinant proteins going into the device, as we are not putting any GMOs in the device we are preventing any exposure and release of dangerous organisms.
Even though, our project is not utilising the most controversial tools of synthetic biology, there are still some important ethical aspects that have to be considered, and we are continuously aware of the power of technology and the responsibility that goes along with it.
Public Engagement
Snakebite is an urgent, neglected problem and we are immensely passionate about contributing to the solutions. We do not think that the final solution to this problem is near, we have therefore dedicated a large proportion of our project to educating and spreading awareness about the problem of snake bites.
Social media
Through social media such as Facebook, our homepage, instagram, twitter, and snapchat we have informed the public and our fellow students about our project and synthetic biology as a means to address important societal problems.
Fairs and presentations
Our team has attended multiple fairs during the project.
At DTU’s Open House we talked to potential new students about the opportunities you get by starting at DTU and being a part of an iGEM team such as DTU BioBuilders. We also attended two student fairs held at DTU the DSE Fair and PF Study Fair, where we reached out to DTU students to get people enthusiastic about our project, iGEM, and synthetic biology.
In collaboration with a Danish society called Young Scientist we attended their annual Science in Forum event where we had the opportunity to talk to learners and students of all ages as well as people from the industry about our project.
In an attempt to communicate the problem of snake envenoming, we presented at a multitude of events during the last 8 months. The presentation at the Synapse (a society for students and professional within the field) event was in collaboration with Copenhagen University’s iGEM team. At this event we gave a presentation about our project and our supervisor Chris Workman gave a presentation about synthetic biology as well as iGEM. We also presented for the student organisation Society for Biological Engineering, the high school society Academy for Talented Youth and the previous mentioned Biotech Academy camp that was held during the autumn break. We presented iGEM and our project before an audience of high-school students considering starting their studies at our University with great response.
One of our team members also attended the International Synthetic and Systems Biology Summer School 2017 in Cambridge to keep us up-to-date with the newest research in Synthetic biology in addition to getting us valuable contacts working within the issue of snake envenoming.
Press
The website and magazine of the Technologist are initiatives of EuroTech universities Alliance (DTU, TU/e, EPFL and TUM) to promote technical solutions which address major challenges in modern society and bring together exciting research and innovation from around the globe.
We are to be published in issue No. 15 in January 2018. The issue of snake envenoming, its diagnosis, and iGEM-participation will be covered.
The magazine is available from leading newsagents, at major train stations, airports, etc. or can be ordered via www.technologist.eu.
This year our university newspaper, DTU Avisen, has expressed particular interest in our project and written an article about the project and the team. The article is published in the November edition of DTU Avisen, where we are featured on the frontpage.
Conclusion
In conclusion our main goal has been to promote synthetic biology to a wide target audience. This has been achieved mainly via the Biosensor project, public engagement activities and via the documentary.
The Biosensor project ensures that the average high school student receives an introduction into the world of synthetic biology, whereas the documentary and our public engagement spreads the message to a more general public. The Snakebite Detectives iGEM project has been the backbone of this journey, standing as an example of the potential of synthetic biology, BioBricks, and hard work.
We have taken ethical considerations of our work into account, while also taking safety and human responsibility and resources into account.
We have identified challenges facing solutions such as ours and proposed an incentives to motivate further innovation within fields, where financial incentive to innovate has been infeasible or absent.
We hope that solutions such as these can serve as investment opportunities for companies. Thus closing in the distance between ideal solutions and reality.
References
[1]WHO Technical Report Series (2017). WHO manual for the preparation of secondary reference materials for in vitro diagnostic assays designed for infectious disease nucleic acid or antigen detection: calibration to WHO International Standards. World Health Organization, 1004
