Human Practises

Human Practises is a major part of our iGEM project. The reason for this is that even though the science and the theory makes sense, we need to establish whether our idea is viable in the outside world. This is in respect to understanding what the public think about our project idea but also the concept behind synthetic biology.

To be able to understand this as a team we decided on producing a short survey which asked questioned what our surveyors understood about synthetic biology and Genetically modified organisms (GMOs), we then introduced our idea and asked their opinions on this. We finally asked what the ethical implications of our project would have on the public.

Using the data we obtained from the survey we found that some of our surveyors did not understand the idea behind synthetic biology. From this we questioned what would be the best method to at least increase awareness of the new science and its prospects for the future. Majority of surveyors agreed that education about synthetic biology at schools was the best way in which people could learn about it such that as a team we produced a lesson plan for a Year 9/10 class

Information about this is shown under the Education sub heading

Survey

As part of the Human Practices section we wanted to understand what people from all backgrounds and ages understood about synthetic biology. To be able to do this we used questions which will highlight what people know and what they thought as an outside prospective of our project idea.

To achieve this we have created an online survey which can be found at: Survey

Survey Results

From the responses of the survey we have converted them such that the results can be seen visually through bar graphs and pie charts, this has been shown below.

Q1. How much do you know about synthetic biology?

A. Results from the survey had shown that most of the surveyors had little or some information about synthetic biology with 7 people having never heard of it before or knowing nothing.

Q2. What would help you understand about synthetic biology?

A. From the above graph it can be seen that most surveyors found that teaching at schools would help one understand synthetic biology. To develop from what we understood from this we produced a lesson plan for Year 9/10 students, which can be found in the Education section.

Q3. What do you think are the advantage to synthetic biology?

A. A number of advantages were listed including:

• Synthesis of biological and industrial compounds
• Less damage to environment
• Healthcare and energy production
• Preventing and treating diseases

Q4. What do you think are the disadvantaged to synthetic biology?

A. A number of disadvantages were listed including:

• Lack of control and regulation of what can and cannot be produced from synthetic biology methods
• Create pathogenic or invasive species
• Exploitation by businesses
• Could be dangerous when released in environment

Q5. What are your opinions on the use of synthetic biology (including GMOs (genetically modified organisms))?

A. Majority of surveyors had thought that the idea was a good idea

Q6. What do you think about the use of GMOs to treat human disorders?

A.

Q7. Would you allow yourself to be treated for a disorder using genetically modified bacteria in your gut?

A. From the above bar graph it can be seen that a majority would allow themselves to be treated by GMOs, however it cna also be seen that some however would not give a definite yes answer but will be dependent on the circumstances

Q8. What do you think the ethical issues surrounding this topic are?

A.

• "Playing God", the complexity of organisms and the potential for side effects. "Not natural" (as in the anti-vaxxers)
• "What if the bacteria interfere with other bacteria in the gut ? What if the bacteria mutates and becomes less reliable, or hazardous ? Overproduce NMNAT could literally modify NAD+ pathway, which is a pathway highly regulated and controled. NMNAT by overproducing NAD+ or NADH could generate others disorders..."
• "patents, leaks, misusage, modifying living organisms"
• People who don't appreciate the importance of this research and the risks that must be taken along the way may represent naive opposition

Education

As directed from the Human Practices and Survey wiki page, from what we had found on the survey we thought about going one step forward such that we created a lesson plan that could be used by teacher teaching students in Year 9/ 10. The link can be found under this: Lesson Plan

On top of the surveys two members of the team (Liam and Ross) have gone back to their previous schools and talked about the iGEM competition and the team has been present at many of the University open days, and GENIE workshops for year nine students, talking about the competition and about how our project works.

Publicity

To ensure members of the public were aware of our project but also gain some funding to travel to Boston for the iGEM project. One way we did this was by doing cake sales during the University Open Days, we also had some of the team talk to their previous schools about our work as described in the Education section. We also publicized the work that we had done by talking the University of Leicester news team who kindly wrote about us on the News announcement page. As shown on the link:

Genetically modified bacteria to help combat muscle fatigue being developed by students

Furthermore we contacted Parkinson's UK to use their logo on our work as we think that our project could be something that could help with reducing muscle fatigue. We heard back from them and were given permission to use their logo. In addition our project supervisor Dr Badge will be doing an abseil to raise money for Parkinsons. A press release released by the University of Leicester for this is shown as:

Geneticist roped into abseiling challenge for charity

Collaboration

As well as creating our own survey, we wanted to understand about other projects done by iGEM teams and helping them with their surveys, we collaborated with a number of iGEM teams. This includes: Aix-Marseille iGEM team and worked with Team CGU_Taiwan and many other igem teams on a Global Co-operation survey the translated results for this are shown below:

In this survey you can see that most didn't know whether they would use GMOs

Like in the survey had shown the results for above it can be seen that surveyors thought the best way to understand synthetic biology was by teaching in schools but also a good number also thought that designing a leaflet was a good idea too.

Product Design

As part of our product design we created the logo, as such:

which shows our bacteria colonising (with the bundle forming pili) and also makes the bacteria look ‘friendly’ so that the public understand it is to help and not harm. This logo also uses the original iGEM logo and has Leicester in to show that it is iGEM team Leicester.

This logo was put onto our t-shirts (as seen below) which were worn on our sponsored walk:

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