Team:Duke/HP/Silver
Imagining and Investigating
General strategy layout.
Expert Interview
In order to investigate the affect of an RDT in Sub-Saharan Africa, we asked a professor with years of experience in Muhuru Bay to give us some insight to the culture and how to integrate our design with that culture.
Social and Political Research
To talk about health is to talk about culture. This analysis shows some possible cultural barriers to HIV mitigation as well as some possible benefits of an RDT. Overall, an RDT should help to empower and inform populations in order to obtain more effective care for themselves and their families. With knowledge comes the power to change, and change is in desperate scarcity when it comes to the culture surrounding HIV infection in the region.
Economic Research
HIV/AIDS is a degenerative illness. In this sense it does not inflict damage quickly and violently, but rather, insidiously and slowly. It is draining economically in both the direct costs associated with treatment and the indirect costs. Indirect cost takes the form of the productive years lost when life is cut short as well as the ability to do work taken by the disease. HIV/AIDS takes a great economic toll on countries afflicted by the disease. It is a particular drain on those still developing economies.
Education In our Lab
During the course of the summer, our lab hosted a high school student, Justin Park, as well as a fellow Duke undergraduate, Daniel Getman, in our lab. Both young men shadowed lab members and learned about the different procedures associated with synthetic biology. While we were sad to see Justin leave at the end of the summer, we really enjoyed being able to teach him so much about something that he didn't know much about. Daniel is continuing to shadow our team and hopes to join future teams. Both of our students were also guests on our youtube channel. Click here to learn more about Justin and Daniel's experiences!
Engaging with our Community
Marbles Kids Museum
In addition to teaching Justin and Daniel, our team also went into the local community to educate about synthetic biology. One of our programs centered around elementary students and getting them excited about DNA and biology. Our team made visits to the Marbles Kids Museum in Raleigh where team members were Guest Star Scientists and taught kids how to make oragami DNA, candy DNA, and necklaces with DNA from wheat germ! Both the kids and our team had a truly DNAtastic time! For more information on our visits to the Marbles Kids Museum, click here.
Mosquito Forum
Another of our programs centered on using curriculum created during our collaboration with Gaston Day School, and East Chapel Hill High School and used the curriculum on our college campus as well as in the local community. Our team had a really fun time not only educating our peers and our local community but also engaging with them about the ethical issues surrounding synthetic biology. To learn more about the curriculum and the individual sessions, click here.
