Integrated Human Practices

We expanded our work in Silver by building and analyzing a "life circle ethical matrix" and proposing a user manual.

See our work below.

Working in a new dimension in synthetic biology, we also believed it was necessary to questionate ourself about the philosophical perspective of synthetic microbial communication.

See our work about "Ethics of information" there.

Ethical matrices

As a descriptive ethical matrix, its purpose is to highlight the decision process done by the team at every step of the project in the respect and integrity of stakeholders. During the conception of our device, three conditions are emphasized from the crossings between stakeholders and values (well-being, autonomy, fairness):

• material conditions: taking into account the resources, to compensate their unequal repartition)
• moral conditions: responsibility in design, responsibility of the intermediate actors )
• cultural conditions: acceptability by users.

As a normative ethical matrix towards the members of the team, it is a way to compel our social responsibility in this project.

Presentation of the stakeholders in the development of our technology

Actors: any person or group of people who can make a decision concerning the right way to act and who can have an impact on that decision. As actors, we also wanted to introduce non-humans, in our case the environment.

→ iGEM Team, environment, non stakeholders, future generation

Users: people who use a technology and who may formulate certain wishes or requirements for the functioning of a technology.

→ Users local, NGO

Regulators: organizations who formulate rules or regulations that engineered products have to meet. It can be norms concerning health and safety, but also guidelines linked to relations between competitors and fair trade.

→ NGO, government, WHO

Ref.: Van de Poel, I. and Royakkers L. (2011). Ethics, Technology and Engineering. An introduction.

Remains to be examined

Currently being examined

Already examined or inherently true

No control possible for now

Click on the numbers to see how our different matrices evolved with the life cycle of our device
(see their descriptions below)

1 - Brainstorming

This ethical matrix is the one describing the important points taken in consideration to choose the subject. As an iGEM team we wanted a technological and innovative challenge, to surpass ourselves. We also wanted to help resolve a concrete worldwide problem, having a positive impact on social and environmental aspects.

2- Production

The key element emerging from this ethical matrix is that our production process needs to be as eco-friendly as possible. Thus applying all the classical rules of production as follows: use a cluster structure to reduce the transport, re-use facilities, treat production waste properly, choose the most optimized solution for each step of the process, from plant heating to final packaging. As the technologies are evolving rapidly, is seems then obvious that all the decisions taken need to be re-assessed regularly to ensure that the processes in place are the more efficient ones in terms of resource comsumption and secondary products production. Another important point is the respect of the workers, we need to make sure that the health standards for working in the factories will be respected at all times during the production.

3- Sales

The total freedom of choice and transparency of our selling process is intrisinc to our apporach and poses no problem. For the future, we have to work on communication around our product to be sure that the stakeholders know what is it and can take an enlightened decision. These stakeholders will then also be included in the setting of commercial deals. Then to respond to most of the challenges of this matrix, a business plan and a SWOT analysis were carried. Currently, an evaluation of the final price of the product is carried to ensure its long term economic viability in comparison to existing systems offered to NGOs. Furthermore tests are done to ensure the added value of our product. A problem that still exists for this step is that for now we have only contacted NGO doing actions in the African continent and thus thought our device to fit in their organisations. To further develop our product we need to ensure that we are not creating inequalities in the world, and making our device accessible et each place where cholera is a problem. For that we need to widen our contacts and think of adapting the selling process to different NGOs.

4 - Education

Here "education" describes the fact that with the distribution of a new product and the autonomous use of it, there is a minimum required education to do. Explaining to the local population the right way to use it is part of the responsibility of developping a new product. To be able to reach the attention of the population, this education needs to be done in accordance with cultural approaches and will introduce environment preservation. For example currently, theatrical representations are done to easily explain hygiene gestures to the african population. This education needs to be understandable by everyone, whatever their country, education or language... it has to be universal. On the other hand, the NGO participating in the device distribution need to be included in the elaboration of the educational supports since they will be in the foreground of this education. As a result of this matrix, it was decided to create a first draft of a user manual. It will evolve with the advices of NGOs and the consultation of local population to best fit their needs. To ensure an easy and fair access to this education support, it is necessary to always combine it if the device and make it available anywhere it is used.

5- Distribution

The distribution process was thought as a step carried by NGOs as they are the closest intervenant to the populations at risk and over the years they have established a trusting relationship with them. A key feature of this step is that these NGOs must have the freedom to re-evaluate the distribution pattern, as it must not disturb their routine activities and as they are in the best position to know the real needs of populations. On the other hand it is essential to ensure that the distribution process is helping populations in need, fairly and in a non-discriminatory way. For that the multiple stakeholders need to have of review on the distribution process and in that case NGO can no longer carry the distribution by themselves, other instances need to be able to replace them. This distribution can be re-evaluated regularly by demand of any of the stakeholders. For the future the ideal situation would be for the populations to self-manage the repartition of the product. In the meantime we have to make sure that the distribution pattern does not create long term inequalities between populations.

6 - Containment

Containment is a key element of our project and more generally in a lot of synthetic biology project. As these projects rely on modifying microorganisms, they also have to ensure the safety of the environment by not introducing non natural organisms in the wild. For that purpose, containment needs to be a priority at each step of the life cycle of the product. It is thus a responsiblity for many stakeholders in the process. Leakage of the container would result in spoilage of the surrounding area, possibly leading to an imbalance in its microbiota. A leakage in the drinking water would also lead to the contamination of the drinker, situation for which significative researches need to be carried. In more concrete terms, each stakeholder needs to verify the containment of the product. the iGEM team during production and sale, the NGOs during storage and distribution and local supervisors need to be appointed to manage storage and use. This containment constraint also needs to be managed during explainations of the system to the populations, they have to understand the importance of it. Therefore in the instruction manual considered, information concerning the verification of containment and emergency behavior to adopt in case of problem need to be clearly stated. The majority of the challenges concerning containment are still being adressed because it is not acceptable to do a rush job on them. Moreover, since the global system was not obtain in the laboratory in the time of the project, final tests were not carried and are still to be done.

7 - Utilization

As already stated in the education ethical matrix, in order for everyone to ba able to know the right way to use the device, a user manual needs to be done. The main challenges of utilization are technical and social but both are mutually dependent. To have a system user-friendly, trustworthy and acceptable depends on the technical choices made. The first key element that needs to be emphasized is the user-friendliness, without this users will not use it and will not even want to try it. Acceptability comes after, if the population tries it, the first uses will determine if it will be accepted or not. Acceptability relies on not changing the habits of the users, meaning that the utilization should not interfere neither with any kind of professional activity, nor with their daily life routines. The taste, color and odor of water needs to remain unchanged. Trustworthiness is dependent on the quality of our system and its result in its real-life utilization, if the populations knows how to use it and accept it, they will judge its trustworthiness on the long run. If our system gives them good results and no one falls sick using it, its trustworthiness will gradually increase. We can also try improve this trustworthiness feeling by showing NGOs and local people of influence the scientific results to convince them of the efficiency of our device. They will then induce trust in the users. Furthermore for now we do not have the benefice of hindsight and thus we need to conduct regular assesment of the social and technical balance between benefices and risks of the use of our device. This continual evaluation needs to be done with the help of the NGOs and the population, reporting to us problems encountered. The kind of surveillance will allow us to coninually adapt the use of the device and correct potential flaws.

User manual disclaimer: The notice was made to provide a pragmatic support to the use of the Bluepuri bag project. The notice was established with hypothetical data. The duration of the water treatment was estimated thanks to modeling. We are aware that complementary results are needed to validate the main features of our system. We set up the response time at 1 hour according modeling work.

8 - Waste treatment

We firstly imagined a simple waste treatment solution comprised of a container where people can throw the used device, the NGOs were imagined as the responsibles for bringing and collecting these containers. Considering the contamination risk this solution needs to be more elaborated and people need to know the right gestures to treat their waste, education needs to be done and as for the utilization, a user manual needs to be done. Furthermore this treatment solution can not only rely on the NGOs, the population should be able to operate the waste treatment itself. The goal for the future being that the population can treat the waste completely autonomously. Speaking of waste treatment for our system we realised that we should also think about the treatment of other waste in these countries. It led us to the idea that if we want to have a great impact we have to take into account the current situation of waste treatment in the country targeted. For instance in Africa in spite of the efforts engaged in waste treatment there are still problems of transportation, storage and treatment¹. We should thus think of a way to adress this situation at the same time as we imagine the waste treatment system for our device. This also applies if we want a fair access to the treatment solution, inequalities in waste treatment already exist and need to be adressed first if we want a fair access to the waste treatment of our device.

1. Bello IA, Ismail MNB, Kabbashi NA (2016) Solid Waste Management in Africa: A Review. Int J Waste Resour 6:216.
https://www.omicsonline.org/open-access/solid-waste-management-in-africa-a-review-2252-5211-1000216.php?aid=73453

Ethic of information