Team:Freiburg/PaP/TheatreProject
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The theater project: Re-engineering life
Where does life begin? Do we feel like working with living creatures when handling bacterial cell cultures? Where is the difference between natural and artificial?
These were some of the questions we were faced with when agreeing to contribute to the Freiburg participation in an Europe-wide theater project in the framework of SYNENERGENE called “Re-engineering life or Do we want to be unlimited”. The aim of this european teamwork was to initiate a discussion about the risks and benefits of synthetic biology. The project was organized by a group of humanities students collaborating with directors and researchers from the University of Freiburg.
New aspects of all days work
We were four iGEM members in the first discussion they invited us to. And we were really surprised to get to know a group of students who was not only interested in scientific facts and in our participation in iGEM but also in our personal attitude towards ethical implications of science. From the questions and answers asked and given it was obvious that both groups came from totally different backgrounds. So it was all the more exciting to explain ones own thoughts in a language understandable for all of us. Our former concern that we would be confronted with deep distrust towards synthetic biology soon vanished and instead we were able to have an open discussion with the other students.
Communicating science
The project culminated in a week-end of theatre and public talks all dedicated to synthetic biology and its impact on society.
We were invited to take part in a speed-dating like disccusion with interested visitors. As part of so-called „expert-teams“ we had members of our iGEM team at several tables during this speed-dating discussion. For approximately one hour visitors could switch between the different tables and speak with experts from biology, philosophy, art, theology and politics. Every eight minutes a gong announced the next round, that means we had eight minutes to discuss our project and synthetic biology in general with a group of three to five interested visitors. During these conversations we usually got a really good feedback concerning our diaCHIP even if some people did not approve of synthetic biology and genetic engineering in general. But the idea of our project and the possibility of a chip that could detect hundreds of diseases in one measurement sounded like a really good idea to many visitors.
After this round of discussions a panel discussion (?) with Prof. Dr. Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent (Philosophy, Université Paris Sorbonne) and Prof. Dr. Alfred Nordmann (Philosophy, TU Darmstadt) followed, that gave a quite interesting insight into synthetic biology from a philosophical point of view. During this event we met not only visitors but also some members of the iGEM teams Tübingen and Darmstadt, with whom we passed an interesting evening.