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Ethics

For this project the suggested final product is a modified yeast strain that has higher resistance for irradiation. The product is meant to use in chemostats that can produce for example ethanol as fuel, brewery and antibiotics. The product may also be used in scientific research.

We have asked our selves: What consequences will our product have if it got out on the market? Since the product may be used in industries and later on in products for public use we wanted to know what the public thinks about GMO-products. This is the reason why we made a survey about what the public in Gothenburg and the biotechnical scientists at Chalmers thinks about GMO and the areas of use for it. The survey has also been made by the Czech Republic team for the public in Prague.

GMO is an area that wakes a lot of feelings, and almost everyone has an opinion about it. There is an ongoing discussion about GMO in food, where the public in general think that GMO is not ok to use, but the scientist has the opposite opinion and says that GMO has been used in one way or another for decades and is not harmful for humans (Solli, Bach, & Åkerman, 2014). Even if scientists says that the products are safe does 67% of the European citizens think that we should not develop genetic modified food (Solli, Bach, & Åkerman, 2014).

In EU there are strict rules for food that are genetically engineered. For example does all food that in some way has been modified have to be labeled. This is partly because of the risk of non-modified food could be “contaminated” whit modified food (Ahmed, 2002) and partly because of the big concern from the public (Nicolia, Manzo, Veronesi, & Rosellini, 2013). It has been shown that genetically engineered crops are safe to use and aren’t harmful to human, and lower the amount of chemicals that are used on the fields. Even so there are only three crops with genetically modifications that are allowed in the EU (Nicolia, Manzo, Veronesi, & Rosellini, 2013). This can bee compared to the US where they already 15 years ago had 60% of all produced food contained some kind of modification (Ahmed, 2002).

We can see in our survey that the public were significantly less in favor of GMO compared to academics. We believe that one reason for the publics mistrust in GMO-products and research is based on lack of knowledge. People don’t like things they don’t know anything about, and that is one reason to why it is important to start talking about these things in school. Education is often the best way to give people a correct way of the situation and to make them see the possibilities with the technology. There has been made a lot of studies among high school students about their knowledge for biotechnology and what they think about GMO. It seems like the majority of high school student around the world does not know what biotechnology is, but they are in general at least a bit optimistic about GMO as long as it does not involve animals (Usak, Erdogan, Prokop, & Ozel, 2009). There is also a survey that shows that people in the US don’t see the different between genetically engineered food and food that contains DNA ( Lusk & Murray , 2015). We decided to do something about that lack of knowledge and got in contact with high schools around Gothenburg.

One ethical problem that is directly connected to our project is that we are constructing a yeast strain that is more resistant than a natural one. This means that if it got out in the wild, the yeast could be hard to get rid of and could compete with the natural organisms. We have taken that in consideration and have in addition to the repair-system created a Safety Switch that is glucose dependent and will be added together with the yeast for as long as it is kept in a lab environment and are not fully tested and safe to use in production. This safety switch will kill the cell if it doesn’t have constant access to glucose.

The other part of the system, the detection is basically a way for the yeast strain to sense other organisms. This could potentially develop to a sort of communication system between different species. This does already exist among some kind of bacteria, viruses etc that acts as parasites and manipulate their hosts to act in their favor (Esteban & Holloway, 2015). This kind of organisms are really dangerous to other living species and we do not want to create an yeast that in some way could develop in to something more than just a marker.

References Lusk, J., & Murray , S. (2015). Food Demand Survey. Department of Agricultural economics, 2(9). Ahmed, F. (2002). Detection of genetically modified organisms in foods. Trends in Biotechnology, 20(5). Esteban, D., & Holloway, K. (2015). Mad dogs, vampires and zombie ants: A multidiciplinary approach to teaching neuroscience, behaviour and microbiology. The Journal of Undergraduate Neuroscience Ed. Nicolia, A., Manzo, A., Veronesi, F., & Rosellini, D. (2013). An overview of the last 10 years of genetically engineered crop safety. Informa healthcare. Solli, A., Bach, F., & Åkerman, B. (2014). Learning to argue as a biotechnologist: disprivileging opposition to genetically modified food. Cult Stud of Sci Educ. Usak, M., Erdogan, M., Prokop, P., & Ozel, M. (2009). High School and University Students’ Knowledge and Attitudes Regarding Biotechnology. Biochemistry and Molecular Biology education, 37(2).

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 					<a href="https://2015.igem.org/Team:Chalmers-Gothenburg/Project"><li>PROJECT
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 							<a href="https://2015.igem.org/Team:Chalmers-Gothenburg/Theory"><li>Theory</li></a>
-							<a href="https://2015.igem.org/Team:Chalmers-Gothenburg/Constructs"><li>Constructs</li></a>
+							<a href="https://2015.igem.org/Team:Chalmers-Gothenburg/Protocols"><li>Protocols</li></a>
-							<a href="https://2015.igem.org/Team:Chalmers-Gothenburg/Protocols"><li>Protocols</li></a>
+							<a href="https://2015.igem.org/Team:Chalmers-Gothenburg/Constructs"><li>Constructs</li></a>
 							<a href="https://2015.igem.org/Team:Chalmers-Gothenburg/OtherApplications"><li>Other applications</li></a>
 						</ul>
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 			<div id="contentContainer"> <!--The closing tag for contentContainer should be placed at the bottom of each content page.-->
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+<h1>Ethics</h1>
+<p>For this project the suggested final product is a modified yeast strain that has higher resistance for irradiation. The product is meant to use in chemostats that can produce for example ethanol as fuel, brewery and antibiotics. The product may also be used in scientific research. </p>
+<p>We have asked our selves: What consequences will our product have if it got out on the market? Since the product may be used in industries and later on in products for public use we wanted to know what the public thinks about GMO-products. This is the reason why we made a survey about what the public in Gothenburg and the biotechnical scientists at Chalmers thinks about GMO and the areas of use for it. The survey has also been made by the Czech Republic team for the public in Prague. </p>
+<p>We have asked our selves: What consequences will our product have if it got out on the market? Since the product may be used in industries and later on in products for public use we wanted to know what the public thinks about GMO-products. This is the reason why we made a survey about what the public in Gothenburg and the biotechnical scientists at Chalmers thinks about GMO and the areas of use for it. The survey has also been made by the Czech Republic team for the public in Prague. </p>
+<p>GMO is an area that wakes a lot of feelings, and almost everyone has an opinion about it. There is an ongoing discussion about GMO in food, where the public in general think that GMO is not ok to use, but the scientist has the opposite opinion and says that GMO has been used in one way or another for decades and is not harmful for humans (Solli, Bach, & Åkerman, 2014). Even if scientists says that the products are safe does 67% of the European citizens think that we should not develop genetic modified food (Solli, Bach, & Åkerman, 2014). </p>
+<p>In EU there are strict rules for food that are genetically engineered. For example does all food that in some way has been modified have to be labeled. This is partly because of the risk of non-modified food could be “contaminated” whit modified food (Ahmed, 2002) and partly because of the big concern from the public (Nicolia, Manzo, Veronesi, & Rosellini, 2013). It has been shown that genetically engineered crops are safe to use and aren’t harmful to human, and lower the amount of chemicals that are used on the fields. Even so there are only three crops with genetically modifications that are allowed in the EU (Nicolia, Manzo, Veronesi, & Rosellini, 2013). This can bee compared to the US where they already 15 years ago had 60% of all produced food contained some kind of modification (Ahmed, 2002).</p>
+<p>We can see in our survey that the public were significantly less in favor of GMO compared to academics. We believe that one reason for the publics mistrust in GMO-products and research is based on lack of knowledge. People don’t like things they don’t know anything about, and that is one reason to why it is important to start talking about these things in school. Education is often the best way to give people a correct way of the situation and to make them see the possibilities with the technology. There has been made a lot of studies among high school students about their knowledge for biotechnology and what they think about GMO. It seems like the majority of high school student around the world does not know what biotechnology is, but they are in general at least a bit optimistic about GMO as long as it does not involve animals (Usak, Erdogan, Prokop, & Ozel, 2009). There is also a survey that shows that people in the US don’t see the different between genetically engineered food and food that contains DNA ( Lusk & Murray , 2015). We decided to do something about that lack of knowledge and got in contact with high schools around Gothenburg. </p>
+<p>One ethical problem that is directly connected to our project is that we are constructing a yeast strain that is more resistant than a natural one. This means that if it got out in the wild, the yeast could be hard to get rid of and could compete with the natural organisms. We have taken that in consideration and have in addition to the repair-system created a Safety Switch that is glucose dependent and will be added together with the yeast for as long as it is kept in a lab environment and are not fully tested and safe to use in production. This safety switch will kill the cell if it doesn’t have constant access to glucose. </p>
+<p>The other part of the system, the detection is basically a way for the yeast strain to sense other organisms. This could potentially develop to a sort of communication system between different species. This does already exist among some kind of bacteria, viruses etc that acts as parasites and manipulate their hosts to act in their favor (Esteban & Holloway, 2015). This kind of organisms are really dangerous to other living species and we do not want to create an yeast that in some way could develop in to something more than just a marker. </p>
+<p>References Lusk, J., & Murray , S. (2015). Food Demand Survey. Department of Agricultural economics, 2(9).
+Ahmed, F. (2002). Detection of genetically modified organisms in foods. Trends in Biotechnology, 20(5).
+Esteban, D., & Holloway, K. (2015). Mad dogs, vampires and zombie ants: A multidiciplinary approach to teaching neuroscience, behaviour and microbiology. The Journal of Undergraduate Neuroscience Ed.
+Nicolia, A., Manzo, A., Veronesi, F., & Rosellini, D. (2013). An overview of the last 10 years of genetically engineered crop safety. Informa healthcare.
+Solli, A., Bach, F., & Åkerman, B. (2014). Learning to argue as a biotechnologist: disprivileging opposition to genetically modified food. Cult Stud of Sci Educ.
+Usak, M., Erdogan, M., Prokop, P., & Ozel, M. (2009). High School and University Students’ Knowledge and Attitudes Regarding Biotechnology. Biochemistry and Molecular Biology education, 37(2).

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Revision as of 00:28, 17 September 2015

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Ethics