Team:IISc-Bangalore/Human Practices
Integrated Human Practices
This section summarizes how we were reflective, responsible and responsive throughout our iGEM project. It elaborates the human-centred design cycle that we followed throughout our iGEM journey, how we identified and reached out to stakeholders and integrated their suggestions into our project. It also lays out a set of specific 'actionables' that future iGEM teams can focus on while undertaking their IHP (Integrated Human Practices) journey.
Overview
CellOPHane aims to tackle the burgeoning menace of organophosphate pollution, which has an adverse impact on our ecosystem and the health of all living beings. The use of pesticides was introduced in India during the 1960s, and these are today used on a large scale. Pesticides are a hallmark feature of Indian agriculture. Since India's Green Revolution, the consumption of pesticides in India has increased several hundred folds, from 154 MT (Metric Tonnes) in 1954 to 88,000 MT in 2000-2001. According to the latest official reports, the net consumption of chemical pesticides in India amounts to 3,05,605 MT from 2016 to 2021. As much as 72.41% of the consumption is in seven states (most of which are the "agricultural hotspots" of the nation), while all the other 21 states and 8 union territories contribute to only 27.59%.
The Use of organophosphates as pesticides came about as an alternative to chlorinated hydrocarbons due to their high degradability. Although these xenobiotics degrade under natural conditions, their residues have been detected in soil, sediments, and water due to their non-regulated usage practice, often at levels higher than their LD50 values. The over-reliance on pesticides has not only threatened our environment, but contamination by organophosphate residues has been detected in many agricultural products like tea, sugars, vegetables, and fruits throughout India. The Poison Information Centre in National Institute of Occupational Health, Ahmedabad, reported that organophosphates were responsible for the maximum cases of poisoning (73%) among all agricultural pesticides in India. Although organophosphate toxicity has been exceedingly alarming in India, mainstream media reporting of its impacts has remained surprisingly low.
Project CellOPHane was aimed at addressing this void in efforts to tackle organophosphate pollution by creating a novel, modular and eco-friendly filter for the bioremediation of organophosphates. Like most scientific ventures, the project is meaningful only in an appropriate social context. Keeping this in mind throughout our project cycle, we have been focussed on engaging with all possible stakeholders of the project to understand their perspectives and incorporate required changes into our project both from technical and mechanistic angles. The foundations of a well-planned and implementable iGEM project lie in a human-centred design. Team iGEM IISc-Bangalore has tried to do just that - keep society at the heart of Project CellOPHane.
The HP cycle
To fully understand the problem and subsequently design a plan to address it, our team utilized a human-centred design process enunciated by iGEM Calgary 2019, which leads to integration with key stakeholders and end users throughout the project lifecycle. To do this, with each new idea, we iteratively cycled through the HP pathway which involves the following steps:
- Understand the Problem
- Ideate
- Design a Solution
- Evaluate and Iterate
Not only did we try to incorporate these broad themes into our project, but we also went about categorizing each of them into concrete actionables, which collectively could serve as an HP 'toolkit' for all future iGEM teams. The inspiration for these specific 'actionables' came from integrating the HP efforts put in by multiple iGEM teams in the past and adding the 'cherry on the cake' with our own novelties.
Evaluation of our project's core values and closing the loop
Communicating with our stakeholders helped us identify and prioritise the main values we needed to incorporate into our solution. These values, from highest priority to lowest priority, defined our solution as one that:
- (1) produce detectable reduction of organophosphate load at reduced concentration
- (2) involves respectfully engaging with those impacted
- (3) is safe for surrounding ecosystems and people
- (4) is easy to use
- (5) is financially viable, affordable and scalable.
In order to close the loop and make sure our solution aligns with stakeholder needs, we made sure to evaluate our project in light of these values at each step of its development.
To align with the most prioritised value, we have undertaken extensive literature review in our choice of parts and constructs, and have tried to construct mathematical models for the same. We have also engaged with the ones most impacted by this burgeoning pollution, who would be the end-users of our product. We have made sure that the method advocated by us is as safe as possible for surrounding environment by taking care of biodegradability of the filter base (bacterial cellulose sheet) and addressing relevant biosafety concerns. Our filter prototype aims ultimately to be easy to use, by requiring the users to do nothing but fit it at an appropriate location. The remainder of the filter is successfully blackboxed. We are also in the process of contacting the relevant experts in economic analyses to perform an exhaustive cost-benefit analysis of our project to ensure affordability and scalability.
We have tried to adapt the human-centred project design to the extent as possible. In doing so, we have also tried to leave behind a toolkit for future iGEM teams, with some definite actionables in every stage of the project design:
| Understand the problem | Ideate | Design a solution | Evaulate and iterate |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Stay in touch with the realities of the day and the needs and aspirations of the community
around you through the media of newspapers, television, etc.
Draw inspiration from previous iGEM teams Conduct extensive literature review Try to streamline your brainstorming process to a single impactful problem Once a rough idea of the problem is ready, think about the possible stakeholders of your project. |
Ask yourselves: "Is synthetic biology a good solution?"
Try to understand and appreciate the core values of your project and prioritise them according to your aspirations. Rethink about and revise the list of stakeholders identified during the last stage of the project design cycle. |
Based on your identification of stakeholders, consult experts in academia to ascertain their
opinion about the application of SynBio to the problem at hand
Engage with those affected by the problem. Engage respectfully. Prepare a stakeholder map/stakeholder matrix to prioritise the stakeholders identified by you till now. Perform a SWOT Analysis of your project and ask for stakeholders' opinions on your analysis during every interaction. Meet the "key players" according to the stakeholder map and seek their opinions about the proposed solution. Ascertain the feasibility of every solution by talking to experts in that field. |
Continue meeting stakeholder for opinion on your project design.
Understand better the needs of the key players and make appropriate amendments to your initial plan. Try to integrate their opinions into your project. Not every opinion is implementable in the short span of time you will have. In case you have implemented some opinions preferentially, try to rationalize your preferences. |
These actionable have been our experiences while progressing through the HP journey. Since there can be no specific tailor made way to go about HP, this is bound to vary from team to team. We would urge future teams to make modifications to this list and feel free to adapt these to their own projects. An immensely useful tool in this regard can be the iGEMer's Guide to the Future. This would indeed help in achieving the "waterfall model of project development"
In general, a SynBio project has five primary dimensions - Public, Education, Industry, Entrepreneur and Meetup (with stakeholders). Team iGEM IISc-Bangalore has sought to touch upon all these five aspects of our project.
We began our IHP journey with an exploration into the complex and dynamic relationship between people and science. To our team, combatting organophosphate toxicity provided the perfect nexus between science and society. We wanted to make a difference in the lives of people in the community around us and give back to the society. This disconnect was one which was characterised by an underlying degree of public fear surrounding interventions by synthetic biology and genetic engineering. Therefore, it was important in our project that we took action to close the loop between this obvious disconnect between science and society. It was one of our project's aims to encourage bilateral conversations, in the spirit of real and meaningful scientific and social collaboration. This is the symbiosis between science and society that we aspired to achieve. We have not only undertaken a dialogue with all stakeholders, but with the general public at large and tried to further the interests of the SynBio community by producing quality educational resource materials. Our project has shown us the power of science communication and education in closing the loop between science and society. Through our human-centred project design, we have come to the conclusion that a SynBio project at the science-society interface can impact the lives of the affected positively and might be a step forward to change the public perception about SynBio.
References
- https://live.flatland.agency/12290417/rathenau-igem/ Accessed on 19 October 2021.
- https://www.stakeholdermap.com/ Accessed on 03 January 2021.
- http://ppqs.gov.in/statistical-database Accessed on 15 October 2021
- Kumar, S., Kaushik, G. & Villarreal-Chiu, J.F. Scenario of organophosphate pollution and toxicity in India: A review. Environ Sci Pollut Res 23, 9480-9491 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-016-6294-0
- https://2019.igem.org/Team:Tunghai_TAPG/Human_Practices/Overview Accessed on 16 October 2021.
- https://2019.igem.org/Team:Calgary/Human_Practices Accessed on 17 October 2021.
- https://www.cseindia.org/page/aboutus Accessed on 17 October 2021
- https://cdn.cseindia.org/attachments/0.51403600_1499070710_Delhi_uploadfinal_sn.pdf Accessed on 15 October 2021
- https://www.cseindia.org/analysis-of-blood-samples-7543 Accessed on 17 October 2021