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Revision as of 06:52, 1 November 2017
Silver HP(Content)
Human Practices is an integral part of creating impactful relationships with our community and research that is embraced by a generalized audience. The iGEM competition is centered around synthetic biology, including genetic engineering, which traditionally has been a controversial area of research. Careful consideration of Human Practices ensures that our research is ethical, responsible, safe, secure, and sustainable.
A DIYBio Lab is the perfect way to bridge traditional science, but is typically only accessible to those with a degree or with a university sponsor, with community engagement in an area called citizen science. There are a few primary concerns regarding community wet labs, mainly safety, security, and future implications of community wet labs as they grow, namely in terms of patents.
Our team decided to speak with an expert regarding the safety and security implications of a community wet lab, as it was our primary method of outreach and engagement in the community. We reached out to Dr. Vickie Sutton, the Associate Dean for Research and Faculty Development, and a Paul Whitfield Horn Professor Law and Director of the Center for Biodefense, Law and Public Policy, the only center at a law school in the U.S. to focus solely on issues of law and biodefense, biosecurity and bioterrorism. She served as a political appointee for President George W. Bush, as the Chief Counsel for the Research and Innovative Technology Administration.
Dr. Sutton had a multitude of suggestions to run a safe and secure community laboratory that is in constant communication with local law enforcement, as well as ways to reduce the liability that can arise by having a public practice. She suggested to contact law enforcement beforehand and invite them to come and see what the community wet lab is doing to reduce the risk of concern of bioterrorism or improper practice. She communicated to us that we should have as much transparency as possible with law enforcement in regards to who we work with, who owns the facilities and the work we do. Dr. Sutton mentioned that the concern over “DIYBio” has increased over the years, mainly because of the spread of knowledge, availability of techniques, equipment, and biological parts, and because it is completely uncontrolled and unregulated.
Secondly, we discussed the logistics of patents and how it was possible to patent pieces of genetic material, or if it was possible at all. Dr. Sutton commented that it seemed like the DIYBio community or organizations like iGEM have been created to avoid intellectual property issues. If BioBricks weren’t made available for public use, an issue similar to the limits of patents would be seen, and thousands of dollars would be spent maintaining those patents.
Patenting in the synthetic biology industry is an impediment for any emerging technology because it slows the research and the development of the technology down. The patents can be so broad that it infringes with all aspects of other experiments. There aren’t as many benefits to patenting in synthetic biology, as there are in the pharmaceutical industry. Dr. Sutton advised the team that a patent is good if the item is unique and has utility, but there are many aspects that slow the progress of the item that is being patented as it prevents scientific discussion before it is patented. Dr. Sutton predicted that the future of the majority of patenting biological information will be in personalized medicine, and that it will protect the platform for conducting the testing.
Dr. Sutton helped the iGEM Raiders team understand why “structured” synthesis or science within a lab seems so terrifying to the general public, because of the lack of knowledge of the public to understand what is actually going on within it. There have been many pieces of legislation put in place to protect the public from misuse or unguided and misinformed practice outside of a regulated laboratory.
We have decided to integrate many of her suggestions into our lab protocols going forward to run a better lab. First, the community wet lab is run by mainly students of our university, and therefore, the safety protocols of our wet lab should be in accordance with the safety protocols that are used by the university. We are working to design a safety training program that will need to be retaken yearly, along with documentation of the training. She also suggested separate safety protocols for individual experiments with more details of the precautions to be taken.
These documents will continue to be formulated and put on a communal drive for access for the people who continue to run the lab as the years go on.
To achieve the standard of Gold Integration in Human Practices, iGEM teams must show the evolution of their project in the design/test/build cycle. This cycle is foundational in experiment design and a valuable skill that when developed well, can last a lifetime. The evolution of experimental ideas relies heavily on theoretical application, trial and error, logic, and ingenuity. Troubleshooting and streamlining are some of the main components of research and by integrating feedback from others in the field, we learn so much more than just repeating data that has already been characterized. Our team had the opportunity to meet Dr. Sharona Gordon, a professor from the University of Washington who specializes in Computational Neuroscience and has extensively studied the expression of the TRPV1 protein. Dr. Gordon provided many suggestions and ideas that can be implemented in future projects. We discussed how to make cell response times quicker no just by producing proteins and excreting them outside of the cell, but by using innate molecules or mimicking molecules that closely resemble intracellular proteins that don’t have to be produced and bringing them to the plasma membrane. Dr. Gordon and our team also uncovered different types of fluorescent proteins that could be used - some with shorter degradation and activation times. We learned about optical genetics and different proteins we can activate by using different wavelengths of light. All of these are great ideas for our future work in activating protein secretion in a quick response manner, but most valuably, she relayed to us the optimal conditions in which yeast grow. This information was vital in the directioning of our research to prepare for future implication. Dr. Gordon has extensive experience with TRPV1 in yeast, and has learned over the years that the range of calcium a yeast cell with TRPV1 can handle is 0.1nm to 20nm. This is a much smaller range from those typically given in the literature because when the TRPV1 channels open, they will diffuse a much greater amount of calcium down the gradient by being continuously open than by calcium pumps alone. This cut down many potential replicates of research and trial and error, and maximised the time we spent in the lab working on further research, and not testing a massive range of calcium.
