Team:Tuebingen/synbio
Synbio-Day
On a nice Saturday morning, we built up our pavilion in one of Tuebingen's main shopping streets to start our SynBioDay 2015.
The pavilion was decorated with posters about the iGEM competition, our team and projects as well as synthetic biology in general to provide information to people passing by. We also offered food and drinks to people to encourage further discussions.
People had the opportunity to take part in a quiz in order to test their knowledge about synthetic biology. Exemplary questions were the definition of a gene and a genetically modified organism, and what could happen to if one ate genetically modified food. Discussions revealed a broad variety of background knowledge and attitudes towards synthetic biology. We had lots of different interested guests from all ages, ranging from children and families to a postdoc in bioinformatics or a professor for chemistry. Discussing controversial topics gave us new insights into people’s reasoning and worries for and against gene technology.
In conclusion, the SynBioDay was a success as we could share our knowledge with the general public. The aim of the day was to draw some interest about our work and to prevent prejudices about synthetic biology and GMOs.