1.Government official
Synthetic biology, which iGEM largely bases on, is defined as designing and constructing biological devices, biological systems, and biological machines for useful purposes. Since that is the case, the transgenic technology is its basic methods inevitably. The key of transgenic technology is the transgene. A transgene is a gene or genetic material that has been transferred naturally, or by any of a number of genetic engineering techniques from one organism to another. The introduction of a transgene has the potential to change the phenotype of an organism.
The transgenic technology has been used on microbes, Drosophila, mice, and other model organisms for research purposes. And it also shows great potential in benefiting the remedy of genetic diseases, cultivation of agricultural products with high quality or yield, and so on.
Nevertheless, the technology also arouses widespread public criticisms in its legitimacy and morality. Most of these criticisms are direct to the genetically modified organism (GMO), which refers to any organism whose genetic material has been altered using genetic engineering techniques. The GMOs are now widely used in scientific research and are also applied in agriculture as the source of genetically modified food.
Critics for GMOs, especially for the genetically modified food, claim that the risks of the food have not been adequately identified and managed, and they also question the objectivity of regulatory authorities. Some say there are unanswered questions regarding the potential long-term impact on human health from genetically modified food. Also, there are concerns about the contamination of the non-genetically modified food supply from the genetically modified food.
Therefore, on July 3rd, 2015, we interviewed with the expert Mr. Cigang Yu, the research assistant from the research center for nature conservation and biodiversity, Nanjing Institute of Environmental Sciences of the Ministry of Environmental Protection of the People’s Republic of China (NIES). (For details about the institute, see “Brief introduction of NIES” He is researching on the biosafety of GMOs. The purpose of the interview was about the transgenic technology and GMOs. The interview clarified the attitude of Chinese government towards the transgenic technology, and helped us to have more in-depth understanding for the safety of GMOs, and to build up expectations for the future development of the transgenic technology. Furthermore, we will be dedicated to spread the scientific and objective attitude towards the transgenic technology to the people around in the future, since the more rebuttal there is, the clearer the truth becomes.
Please click here to see the interview record.
There are many environmental groups which are devoted to environmental protection in Nanjing. They have successfully launched many campaigns such as “Purification of a Drop of Water” to raise public awareness of environmental protection. Besides, they are very familiar with the conditions of the aquatic environment in Nanjing. Therefore, we made contact with them and participated in the activity named “Journey of Love” on July 26th, 2015. We volunteered to take approximately 50 pupils to the polluted river called the Hong Hua River. We also helped to show them how to use environmental detection device to test the concentration of pollutants in the river. Many pupils were impressed by the pollution, exhorting them to no longer throw domestic garbage into the rivers. We also propagated our project among the pupils and their parents to know about different opinions.
After the activity, we interviewed the organizer of the environmental group and learned a lot about the environmental groups and development of sewage disposal in China. What is more? We sincerely appreciated it when the organizer gave us his suggestions about our project.
Please click here to see the organizer and the interview record.
In the afternoon of July 24th, we interviewed Mr. Wu (Wu Weixing) from the law school, Nanjing University. Mr. Wu is a scholar studying the environmental law and environmental administration.
We introduced our project briefly to him firstly, and then we consulted some of the legal issues related to our project. What we consulted was divided into three aspects:
- the policies of heavy metal pollution and water pollution;
- the government's supports for the development of the relevant technology;
- the legal basis for the application of biotechnology.
In the first aspect, we focused on two problems. One problem is that the regulations on the heavy metal pollution are vague with weak enforcement; another problem is about the necessity for the further legislation and regulation of the heavy metal pollution.
As to the first problem, Mr. Wu told us that the current standard is actually a relatively early one, and the latest one is only a judicial interpretation. Because of the serious pollution caused by heavy metals in these years, it is hard to make more detailed and revised laws in a short time, but the judicial interpretation has been able to greatly strengthen the enforcement of the standard.
On the second problem about the further legislation, the attitude of Mr. Wu is negative. He explained that the heavy metal pollution is a cross-field pollution, so it can be cataloged into atmosphere, water or soil pollution so as to have a hierarchical supervision. What’s more, relevant laws have been or are about to be implemented. So there is no need or trend to have the heavy metal pollution in a more detailed or specific legislation.
In the second aspect, we questioned the supportive policies on new environmental technologies from the national and local government. We put forward that the time of the policies’ issuing is early and the incentive is not obvious, so is it necessary to have a further promotion of the policies? However, Mr. Wu held a different view. He believed that the support from the government is important but not indispensable because of two reasons. Firstly, the fund for environment technology comes from various sources such as the provincial research fund and Nanjing local government’s investment. Secondly, with the growing concern towards the pollution, the amendment and the government’s implement of laws have been launched. And it offers an optimistic background to the development of new environmental technologies.
In view of the fact that our project’s target is pollution control and recycling, Mr. Wu gave us more advice on how to use policies and funds to support our project. The policies include the “Circular Economy Promotion Law”, and the “Water Pollution Prevention Action Plan”. Also, there is a sum of considerable fund specifically supporting the circular economy from the government which we can take advantage of.
In the third aspect, we demonstrated our concerns about the disadvantage of biological methods when dealing with the environmental pollution. On the one hand, the genetic engineering was what our project used, but we were not sure about whether the genetic modified bacterium we created would have some inhabitation from the government and the public. On the other hand, the efficiency of the biological method was relatively low, so we wanted to seek for more help at present.
Mr. Wu dispelled our concerns. In his opinion, the genetic engineering project is only excluded by the agriculture, not the disposal of pollution. In addition, although the biological methods have the relatively low efficiency, it has more advantages such as the moderate condition and low-frequency of the second pollution. Furthermore, he inspired us to use the biological methods to cope with soil pollution.
At the end of the interview, Mr. Wu highly complimented our project and our in-depth thought on the law and policy issues of the project. He wished that we could get a satisfying result in the final. We also expressed our sincere appreciation for his patient answers and explanations.
In conclusion, we did learn a lot from the interview. Firstly, we obtained more legal knowledge about the pollution of heavy metals and water pollution, and thus we have a much clearer concept of the current legal situation in China. Secondly, we knew more supportive policies on the new environmental technology, and to know that the application of the genetic engineering in the disposal of pollution will not contradict the related laws gives us more confidence about our project. Thirdly, we got information about the policies’ support to industrialize our project. Last but not least, we are inspired by the idea to expand our project to the disposal of soil pollution. No doubt that it could be a promotion both for our project and the application of synthetic biology on environmental issues.
Please click here to see the interview record.
On 4th August, we visited the BRUMP recycling technology corporation in Hunan Province. During the visit, we interviewed with Dr. Tang, the adviser of the company about our project as well as the development of the sewage disposal enterprises.
First of all, we introduced our project to him. Then we consulted hem about some frequently used sewage disposal methods in relative companies. He told us that methods such as precipitation, resin adsorption, reverse osmosis and electrochemical methods are the most frequently used methods. He also suggested that biological methods aren’t the most prevalent yet except microbial methods. Many factories utilized the microorganisms to extract and purify precious heavy metal from the tailings.
During the interview, Dr. Tang also asked us about the state of the metal that we retrieve as well as the adaptability of our bacteria. He mentioned that these two problems are pivotal for the further development of our project. He also said that he was passionate about biological methods because there are inevitable disadvantages in chemical methods such as the high expenses, secondary pollution, low specificity and so on.
We also consulted him about the aspects to which enterprises pay more attention because we wanted to improve the practical value of our project. The most important aspect is the manipulation of the technology. There are many technicians in the company who barely know about the principle of the technology. Therefore, it is vital for them to manipulate easily without knowing the principles. Secondly, companies also pay a lot attention to whether the technology can cause pollution to the environment. Companies are optimistic about new technologies because not only are they beneficial for the company itself, the government encourages the development of new technology as well.
In the end, Dr. Tang said that our project was aiming at a practical problem in our society and that we should improve the accuracy of heavy metal adsorption. The prospect of our project will be better as long as we keep polishing the details of it.
On 14th-15th August, our team was invited by Peking University to attend CCiC (Conference of China iGEMer Committee). The summit was a rehearsal of the Jiant Jamboree in September. All the 31 teams invited to the summit were invited to give presentations about their project. The speculators can ask questions about them. Besides, previous captains of Peking-iGEM and Tsinghua-iGEM were also invited to give speeches about the development of synthetic biology in China. We also brought our posters with us and discussed our projects with teams all around China.
The precious experience not only enlightened us about the design of our experiment, but also provided us with new ideas about synthetic biology. The presenters in our team also got more familiar with the presentation.
We have designed a questionnaire about the treatment of heavy-metal contaminated sewage both in English and Chinese and distributed it through the Internet. During the past two month, we have collected 498 samples. These samples qualified us to make further analysis about our topic.
We have a variety of respondents of different ages, different occupations and different knowledge levels. As to the age, respondents of 18-25 years old, such as university students, account for more than one-third of the total. The rest are people at their 41-50 year old, 31-40 year old or 26-30 year old, which account for 55%. Besides, there are few respondents under 18 or over 60. As to the knowledge level, most respondents have received well-round education. That is to say, this survey covers mainly university students and intellectuals who have enough social experiences and are easily influenced by new-born stuffs.
When surveying about public awareness of sewage treatment, most respondents (98%) pay attention to such sort of news in daily life, which illustrates high attention paid to water pollution. However, subjects only have limited knowledge of current conditions and sewage treatment disciplines and it is demanding for us to further promote the propagation of water contamination. As to the opinion on the treatment of industrial polluted water, most respondents are unsatisfied and concerned about it since lots of problems still exist.
In this part, we investigated the knowledge of heavy metal contamination and the knowledge of biological approaches dealing with heavy metals. Respondents know that heavy metals mainly come from industries and electronic products, yet hardly know exact harms heavy metals will do to humans. Therefore, we believe more information should be spread widely in this part.
In the meanwhile, most respondents don not know about biological approaches dealing with heavy metals. They believe this kind of methods will have a bright future and hold positive attitude towards it. However, considering one-fourth of respondents are blindly confident about it, it is necessary for us to promote the propagation of bio-technology application.
We have also investigated the ways in which public residents get informed of pollution prevention. It shows that there are plentiful of ways but the Internet is the main information resource. Respondents reflect that the information is extremely limited and wish to learn more about heavy metal pollution.
In a word, from the statistics above, both the resource and the number of respondents ensure that our survey is of convincing credit.
There is a lack of useful and convincing information about the treatment of pollution. The public are looking forward to further propagation. It shows public awareness of environmental protection and their hope for open information.
Although the public have shown much attention to water contamination, yet their knowledge is quite limited and they remain pessimistic about current conditions. We believe environmental organizations and governmental departments should inform the public of current conditions in time and promote eco-friendly ideas.
As to the heavy metal contamination, the public merely know a little about it. As to our project “Metallosniper”, even though they are not familiar with it now, yet they hold positive attitudes about its future development. Therefore, we can focus on promoting the harmful influences of heavy metal contamination and potential prospects about biological treatments. In that way, we can further propagate our project. Please click here to see the detail of the questionnaire.
In late August, we were invited to visit Nanjing Normal University on occasion during which we talked with Prof. Chuanchao Dai in School of Life Science. We have also shown to him our iGEM project as well as the iGEM competition. Prof. Dai showed great interest in it and told us that he intended to organize their students to participate in the competition in 2016. We promised him we would spare no efforts to help them organize a team. Nanjing Normal University has been a normal school and values tremendously about nurturing teachers. Therefore, it will benefit a large community if we help them participate in the iGEM competition.