Public Engagement

Science 4U 14^th April

The annual University of Westminster iGEM science4U took place this year with 230 students (year 5 and 6) from 14 primary schools invited to partake in a day of presentations! We had puzzles and games prepared while we engaged with students about the realities and possibilities of synthetic biology. We found that the students were actually very open minded about the topic whereas the teachers bought more into stereotypes such as genetically modified virus bombs!

New Scientist convention Thursday 28 September 2017

Having heard of the New Scientist expo coming to ExCel centre this fall, the team decided that it would be a fantastic opportunity to join and share our project as well as talk about antibiotic resistance to the engaged public! The team were very excited to visit the exhibition and talk about our projects, we also ran into Warwick iGEM and exchanged project ideas (and stress!)

Biology week

On the week of the 16^th October, our team decided to join a group of academics to talk about biology as well as our project to university students. We also decided to use this as an opportunity to talk about iGEM in order to entice more students to join!

Antibiotics unearthed talk on 25^th October 2017

Antibiotics unearthed is a public engagement project as well as a tool set out by the Microbiology society in order to develop new antibiotics. We were invited by Dr Linda Percy in order to give a brief talk about our project to a cohort of students. We also talked about what iGEM was and promoted the competition as a fantastic opportunity for students to engage in.

Engagement

During our project, we also decided also grow our media presence and thus invested time to try increase our social media presence. The official Bio-busters twitter and Instagram pages in particular were constantly updated.

Our social media activity also caught the attention of academics early on and thus allowed us to build up our team’s reservoir of contacts! We also got into contact with the university press and became published on the main page!

Public Surveys

In order for us to assess the public perception of Synthetic Biology, we decided to hand out surveys on regents street and oxford street and collected the data. The results were somewhat surprising.

We found that although 78.6% of the 250 interviewed were aware of the term antibiotic resistance, data unfortunately showed that only 35.9% of people adhered to their recommended dose. Human error in terms of forgetfulness seemed t be a major cause of people forgetting to finish off their course.

iGEM 2017

We are part of the university of Westminster iGEM 2017 team. The goal of this opinion poll is to gather public views on topics regarding our project. Our project is based on synthetic biology and genetic engineering, and we’d like to you opinions on certain topics surrounding our field of research.

Please tick the appropriate answers, and fill in answers in the spaces provided where appropriate.

.

How old are you?

16-18
19-24
25-29
30-39
40-49
50+

2. What is your gender?

Female
Male
Other
Prefer not to say

3. Where in London are you from?

East London
North London
West London
South London
Central London
Outside of London

4. What is your highest level of education?

GCSE
A-levels
Bachelors
Masters
PhD
Other

5. Have you used antibiotics before?

Yes
No
Unsure

If you answered ‘No’, skip question 6.

6. Do you adhere to the recommended course of treatment?

Yes, I follow the full course of treatments, taking regular medication at the correct intervals of time daily
Not really, I try my best to take the medication daily but I usually stop when I feel better

7. Are you familiar with the term ‘antibiotic resistance’?

Yes
No

8. To what extent to do you think antibiotic resistance is a concern to our society?

Please use the space below for your response.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

9. Have you heard of the term ‘synthetic biology’?

Yes
No

10. Which of the following do you think is the correction definition of ‘synthetic biology’?

Designing biological chemicals using enzymes produced from the mammalian salivary gland to help cure life threatening diseases.
Field of research surrounding biological compounds produced from the plant Streptocarpus
saxorum, and using these compounds to synthesise medicinal drugs which target biological pathways in the human body.
Area of research that can be described as the design and construction of novel artificial biological pathways, organisms or devices.

11. Are you familiar with the term ‘genetic modification’?

Yes
No

12. To the best of your ability, please try to define the term in the space provided below.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

13. Do you agree with genetic modification?

Yes
No

14. Do you think genetic modification will be beneficial to society?

Please use the space provided for your response

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

15. What are your main concerns surrounding genetic modification?

Please use the space provided for your response

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

16. Are you familiar with the ethical implications surrounding genetic modification?

Yes
No

17. Are these arguments enough to stop the advancement of genetic modification today or in the near future?

Yes
No

Thank you for your time

Team:Westminster UK/HP/Silver

Public Engagement