Team:CityU HK/Practices

Human Practices - iGEM2015 wiki

Purpose

Over the past few decades, synthetic biology has undoubtedly progressed rapidly to become an essential part of our life. Despite its increasing importance, many have not had the chance to understand it thoroughly, resulting in many misconceptions among the public. Due to unfamiliarity, fear and the lack of knowledge, he society are some major obstacles that deter the advancement of synthetic biology.

CityU iGEM team is part of the rapidly growing iGEM and synthetic biology community. Thus, it is our responsibility to increase the awareness of people to this emerging field and its applications

Our aim for this outreach is to engage and educate our local community. We aim to spread the positive message of synthetic biology to the general public. Through our outreach program, we would like to rectify the public’s misconceptions about the harmfulness of genetically modifies organisms (GMOs) while giving them a positive image of synthetic biology.

In order to accomplish what we have set forth to do, we have seriously considered different approaches through which we can build the bridge between synthetic biology and the society.

What have we accomplished?

  • Made synthetic biology approachable and apprehensible
  • Held exhibition and visits to high schools
  • Engaged the community in the game of synthetic biology

School Visits

 This summer, CityU iGEM team had the opportunity to visit different high schools. Students were engaged in an interactive yet informative module designed by the team in an attempt to increase public awareness about synthetic biology.   

Survey

CityU iGEM team is aware of the controversial nature of our project and concerns people may have with the use of Genetically-Modified Organisms (GMOs). Owing to this, the team has put together a survey to gather the viewpoints from the general public with regards to issues on bioethics and bio-safety etc.

Exhibition

This exhibition was aimed at introducing the public to synthetic biology and its applications. We had many inquisitive visitors to our exhibition. We believe we were able to bring attention to the importance of this rapidly developing area of science.

Social Media

    The Internet is an ideal platform to spread messages around due to its accessibility and convenience. On our page, we have published write-ups which include updates of our project, captivating articles related to synthetic biology, events that were held and our team member profiles.

Game: Build you own Biobrick

We have designed an  interactive game to engage the community  in the world of synthetic biology.The goal of this game is to allow the general public to get a taste of constructing bacteria with desired functions.