Team:NDNF China/Human Practices
Preliminary Findings
We designed a number of human practice events to generated positive feedback on the establishment of our project and prompted optimization of it.
Public Survey
Through questionnaires, we realized that people lack understanding of biosafety laws, distrust of synthetic biology products.
Goal
The goal of the project(this suevey) is to help synthetic biology get out of the laboratory and make important contributions in practical applications. First, we analyzed the limitations of synthetic biology in daily life through questionnaires and public surveys.
Our survey included 15 multiple choice questions, which were designed to measure the public's knowledge on synthetic biology and their opinion concerning bio-products in general and our products in specific.
Conclusion
1. The general public has limited knowledge on biosafety, and many——over 97%——are willing to increase their knowledge of biosafty through social media.
2. Besides, the general public have a relatively low proportion of awaring the law relavent to biosafty, which conducted by the government.
3. Still, a certain percentage of people(around 25%) do not trust synthetic products. Through a comprehensive view on knowledge level of laws and trust on synthetic biology, we conclued that with the increasing understanding of protecting law, public likely to gain trust amoung gene edited products.
We further inferred that the unknown was a source of fear and were inspired to do education to help public to build their awareness of biosafty laws.
With the same pace on experiments research, we had responsibility of popularization of biosafty law and enhanced trust on synthetic biology amoung public, and thus promote synthetic biology applications beyond the laboratory, letting engineered microbes say hi to the world. Conclusively, we were determined to use HP promotions to aid in social applications.
Advice for Our Project
Besides, we learned about the development history, application prospects and key challenges of synthetic biology through expert interviews.
Fankang Meng： PhD in Synthetic Biology at Imperial College London, United Kingdom
Our tutor Fankang Meng provided us with valuable knowledge based on his own first-hand experiences making bio-products. After a 30 minute long conversation, we gained a considerable amount of knowledge on synthetic biology on the field. We learned that contamination and possible escape are the key factors in the application of synthetic biology, providing us with a potential focus in later development of our program.
With the survey and interviewing with biologists, we determined the central topic of our project and the essential problem we need to solve.
Project Design
We discussed the design ideas of the project with a number of experts: After completing the initial Proposal, we communicated with a number of experts and got tangible feedback.
Exchanging emails with authors who develop technologies related to our program: During project design and experiment, we encountered many problems. We solved these problems through emails, etc., and received effective suggestions and feedback
Tzu-Chieh Tang
Synthetic Biology Group, Research Laboratory of Electronics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA
Department of Biological Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA
Eléonore Tham
Synthetic Biology Group, Research Laboratory of Electronics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA
Xinyue Liu
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA
Project Application
Law
At present, the attention of all sectors of society to biosafety is gradually increasing, so we tried to produce our biosafety law proposal. This action not only conformed to the international views, but also contributed our own strength to biosafety as high school students. At the same time, our project is closely related to biosafety. We aim to prevent the escape of microorganisms and improve current tracing system through our product, providing safer material for synthetic biology.
Through reviewing related data and closely studying the Tianjin Biosecurity Guideline for Codes of Conduct for Scientists recently developed by Tianjin University, we have come to the realization that it is necessary to help the public regain trust and hope in biotech driven applications by providing sources to relevant knowledge while also enhancing current biosafety regulations.
What we do
Based on the above considerations, we have proposed the following suggestions aiming to further perfect some aspects of the current biosafety legislation (of China). Despite being high school students, we still hope we can be involved in aiding current regulations to keep pace with frontlines of biotechnological development.
Through the process of polishing our proposal, we interviewed a few experts in biosafety field, who offered us precious and effective advice.
For more details please click the button belowPublic Engagement
CCiC
On Oct.27, our team participated in the CCIC for IGEM teams in China. During the event, we shared our project and experiences in human practice with other teams. Moreover, we are able to communicate with professionals working in related sectors and gain their help in future programs.
Popularization at schools
As our survey shows, the general public lacks knowledge on synthetic biology. As a key future consumer and producer in synthetic biology, students, especially high school students, are obligated to learn more about bio-safety. Thus we planned an online class and several off-line programs at local high schools. The program contains two lectures and one orientation. These programs mainly focus on the current status of synthetic biology, codes including the crucial Tianjin guidelines,and solvencies for problems the industry is facing. After our lecture, a vast majority of students felt that they have gained a considerable amount knowledge on biosafety, and many believed that they will be willing to use these bio-products once they are proven safe.
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