Difference between revisions of "Team:Freiburg/HP/Silver"
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<h2>Synthetic Biology and iGEM</h2> | <h2>Synthetic Biology and iGEM</h2> | ||
<p>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.</p> | <p>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.</p> | ||
| + | <h2>DNA extraction from fruits</h2> | ||
| + | <p>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 bricks, the nucleotides. Not only the kids, but also their parents were impressed since you don't get the opportunity to see DNA with the naked eye everyday. </p> | ||
| + | <h2>Puzzle of Immunology</h2> | ||
| + | <p>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. Also, this fact motivated us to conduct a survey to find more in detail out, what people </p> | ||
| + | <p>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.</p> | ||
</div> | </div> | ||
Revision as of 17:37, 18 October 2017
Human Practice
Making the achievements of science reachable for the public is a very important aspect, which we strived throughout our project.
The first possibility to present our project to a broader public 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 Healthcare and Therapeutics and were willing to be involved in a dialogue with us.
While being impressed by our project design, a lot of people showed misinformation and insecurities towards the basics of the immune system and we faced a lot of questions considering the immunobiologic aspect of CARtel™ .
The survey showed, that there is a lack of information considering knowledge which affects the health aspects of the whole society and that the people are generally willing to be informed in a voluntary manner.
Another Aspect is, that fewest of the visitors have heard about chimeric antigen receptors, therefore they still remarked concerns of security, despite recognizing our efforts. We recorded their reservations and discussed them with experts. This resulted into the integration of mechanisms to improve the Safety aspect of our project, based on the feedback we received from our survey and the dialogue created during the fair.
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 at Rust, one of the biggest amusement parks in Europe. Based on the experience of the science fair, we engaged again the people into a dialogue concering our project and the basics of immunology.
In summary, we grasped the chance to inform the publicity about Synthetic Biology and especially the chances it offers, concretely about CARtel™.
In return, we recieved valuable impulses to modify and influence our work by improving the safety aspect, which showed that Synthetic Biology can greatly profit being accessible to the public.
Our Team was given the chance to participate at the Wissenschaftsmarkt 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 bricks, the nucleotides. Not only the kids, but also their parents were impressed since you 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. Also, this fact motivated us to conduct a survey to find more in detail out, what people
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 designed 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.
