Team:DTU-Denmark/HP/Silver
Human Practices Silver Criterion
This part is largely a compilation and concentration of the following pages:
Education and Public Engagement
Ethics
Education
Whatever the challenge, it is important to spread passion to the researchers of tomorrow. Unfortunately synthetic biology is barely introduced in Denmark at the high school level. Combined with that the public is starting to get “GMO scared”, this poses a great threat to what can be accomplished within the field of synthetic biology, we think that the correct solution to this is education both of students and of the general public. This is why we have decided to focus as much as we have on the Biosensor project, and education in general.
High school student
To spread word about iGEM and synthetic biology to future students within the field we invited a high school student, Minh Greulich, to be a part of the team.
Minh assisted on the interlab study, helped us test the protocol for the Biosensor project and did some creative work related to the wiki.
This is what Minh had to say about her experience being on the team: "It was surprising for me, to experience such a relaxed and playful environment, despite the very serious and difficult nature of the work. My takeaway from participating in the project was that biomedicine is a field of work, where you can be sure to contribute to improving the world, and still have a life whilst doing so."
By helping us in the lab, Minh gained valuable skills and learned what it means to be a part of a team. She was eager to learn and enthusiastic about the project.
Biosensor
We aim to engage high school students at a broader scale, through the development and distribution of educational material and exercise material for assembling their first biosensor.
The need to develop this also stems from The Danish legislation is tough on synthetic biology, and it is not possible for high school students to make their own plasmid modifications. We have, together with the Danish organization Biotech Academy’s Biosensor project, made a free kit that will be distributed to high schools. This kit enables an average high school student to work with synthetic biology at his or her own school - while still taking the law into consideration.
The Biosensor project is an effort to expose Danish high school students to the world of experimental synthetic biology. The Biosensor kit makes it possible for high school students to work with biobricks.
The Biosensor project was created by DTU’s iGEM teams from 2015 and 2016, Biotech Academy, and further developed by the BioBuilders’ 2017 team. We are preparing to ship out the kits to 200 high schools in Denmark by Spring 2018.
Ethics
In this section we are stepping back and considering the ethical implications of our innovation, the economics of the issue and motivations for all involved. That is the social responsibility that carries with knowledge and technology, the financial responsibility and incentives that follow and lastly the considerations of proposing out imperfect solutions in order to alleviate suffering.
Social and human responsibility
Leading the way
We are privileged in Denmark, so privileged that we had a challenging time finding good problems to be solved. A part of that privilege is abundant and nuanced access to what goes on around the world. We have sufficient tools and opportunity to enable us to solve an issue like this. The impact of catalyzing innovation within such a new field as synthetic biology, a field where there is potential lives to be saved.
Helping those in need
When choosing the project we mostly considered local projects within diagnostics, however we did not think that these projects would have anywhere near as big of a potential impact as snake envenomings. The potential to save thousand of lives motivated us greatly. We think that projects should focus on helping those in need, especially when corporate interest is void.
The people affected by snake bites are often field workers, who do not have the money for expensive treatment, which is why our focus has always been on potentially cheap solutions. Furthermore, 400,000 people each year suffer from amputations or disfigurements, which leads to huge loss of labour in a labour based economy [1].
Technology, Synthetic biology and Safety
Taking our project into account, the application does not raise alarms. We are working with closed contained products without any living organisms.
The parts we are using are safe. We are applying GMOs to produce the recombinant proteins going into the device, as we are not putting any GMOs in the device we are preventing any exposure and release of dangerous organisms.
Even though, our project is not utilising the most controversial tools of synthetic biology, there are still some important ethical aspects that have to be considered, and we are continuously aware of the power of technology and the responsibility that goes along with it.
Public Engagement
Snakebite is an urgent, neglected problem and we are immensely passionate about contributing to the solutions. We do not think that the final solution to this problem is near, we have therefore dedicated a large proportion of our project to educating and spreading awareness about the problem of snake bites.
References
[1]WHO Technical Report Series (2017). WHO manual for the preparation of secondary reference materials for in vitro diagnostic assays designed for infectious disease nucleic acid or antigen detection: calibration to WHO International Standards. World Health Organization, 1004
