Team:Wageningen UR/HP/Silver
Safety & Ethics
Creation of a new diagnostic tool takes more than research and development. Implementation of such a device means it will be brought into direct contact with society. To ensure that our work is safe for the end user and to prevent miscommunication about the purpose of the technology, it is essential to consider the social aspects that our tool will bring. Apart from engaging our local communities with our project, which can be read on the Education and Public Engagement page, we also discussed the implications of Mantis with experts on biosafety and ethics. By this, we aim to create a safe and responsible technology that will be accepted by society. Feedback obtained from these discussions was integrated into the project, resulting in guidelines and laboratory safety protocols. Furthermore, it allowed us to consider all ethical aspects that are associated with implementing the device into society, such as risk perception and user responsibility. To translate the knowledge we gained on biosafety to society, a comic was created. Here, a friendly bacterium called Modidi explains the risks associated with genetically modified organisms, as well as their risk perception. A detailed description of the four resources below can be found by clicking the buttons at the top:
- Comic: This comic is targeted to the public to inform them about the importance of considering the perception of risk from a general and scientific context. For example, although some genetically modified organisms indeed have potential to cause disasters, other ones are not as dangerous.
- Ethics: In this section, you can find a personal ethical analysis about risk perception, transfer of responsibility and the autonomy of patients concerning diagnostics.
- Biosafety: In this section, you can find information about safety issues concerning our device and synthetic biology in general. One of the aspects that are discussed is biocontainment. Risk assessment and safety assessment techniques are also proposed.
- Lab Safety: In this section, you can find the different rules that we have followed in our work environment to ensure safe working conditions.
