—Investigative Report on Public Awareness of Uranium Pollution, Biological Materials and Synthetic Biology
Uranium, a radioactive heavy metal element, poses a threat to both the environment and human health. A person could be exposed to uranium by inhaling dust in the air or by ingesting contaminated water and food, and such exposure could sharply increase the risk of various diseases including cancer. Uranium pollution has become more commonplace due to nuclear accidents, uranium mining, the deployment of depleted uranium weapons and so on. However, the existing methods for remediation are still less than satisfactory. This is why we are trying to construct a novel functional biological polymer network for uranium removal using the methods of synthetic biology. In addition to the necessary design and experiments, we wanted to know whether the populace in China has a correct understanding of uranium pollution, as well as investigate their awareness and acceptance of biological polymer network and synthetic biology, in order to round up this project completely. Thus we designed a questionnaire and analyzed the findings as presented in this report.
Objective
To investigate the current status of awareness about uranium pollution, biological materials and synthetic biology among Chinese people so as to provide scientific data to guide future science popularization and education efforts.
Subjects
939 Chinese respondents filled in an online questionnaire from August 24th to September 2nd 2016
Methods
939 Chinese respondents were investigated by random sampling in an online survey from August 24th to September 2nd 2016 (10 days in total). The anonymous questionnaire was of our own design. The data were collected and analyzed using SOJUMP online.
Gender and age structure
A total of 939 filled questionnaires were collected in this investigation. Most of the population was among the 15-30 and 30-50 years old age groups, respectively accounting for 58.9% and 30.8% of the total. The respondents were 50.4% male and 49.6% female. The age and gender composition of the sample was thus somewhat different from the national population. This is perhaps expected for online surveys, which generally tend to skew towards younger and better-educated respondents.
Regional distribution
Among the 939 respondents, 799 were from urban areas, accounting for 85%, and 140 were from rural areas, accounting for 14.9% of the total.
Education level
In the survey population, the educational background of the majority was undergraduate degree or above, accounting for 76.8% of all respondents.
Most of the 939 respondents (79.5%) were well aware of the dangers uranium pollution could pose to human health. However, the detailed awareness of the types of harms and the mechanisms involved was much less developed, with only 36.4% answering the related questions correctly. More than half of the respondents were aware that it depends on the concentration whether and how much uranium will be harmful to health, but few of them knew exactly the upper acceptable concentration of uranium in water, at only 18.7%. On the other hand, the awareness about the sources of uranium pollution was as high as 73.6%. Nevertheless, as for the knowledge about the distribution of uranium in specific materials and feasible solutions for uranium pollution, the results were barely satisfactory, with awareness rates of just 8% and 23.1%, respectively. Almost no one was aware that uranium also exists in bananas, which indicates that the populace may lack in awareness and actions regarding prevention of exposure.
Judging by the data, the majority of Chinese people only have a qualitative knowledge about uranium but lack systematic or quantitative insights. Their awareness of remediation approaches could also be improved.
The majority of respondents have a clear understanding about biological materials and proteins. In detail, the awareness rate of biological material was 77.3% and each of its advantages except “High strength” was recognized by more than half of the respondents. 76.8% agreed that protein materials belong to biological functional materials and the majority of people held a positive attitude towards the potential of protein materials to deal with uranium pollution, accounting for 65.9%. Among the advantages of protein materials given as options, “High biological activity” and “Biodegradability” were supported by the largest share of the respondents, accounting for 74% and 86%, respectively. It is noteworthy that “Good biocompatibility” was chosen as an advantage of biomaterials by the largest share of respondents, accounting for 86.4% of the total.
Among the 939 respondents, 77.3% had heard of synthetic biology and the majority of them knew about specific terms in the field of synthetic biology such as " Transgenesis", "Clone” and " Gene therapy". The awareness rates for these terms were 96.6%, 95.4% and 88.4%, respectively. The familiarity with the term “iGEM” was relatively low, at 34.2%, but was much higher than last year, when it was 3.6% according to the investigation report of the 2015 Peking iGEM team.It indicates that participating in iGEM had an influence on improving awareness levels to a significant degree. The channel through which most respondents heard of these terms was the network itself, accounting for 76.7%.
As for the attitudes towards synthetic biology, most of the respondents appear to be rational. 91.8% of the population held the idea that synthetic biology had both advantages and disadvantages. About 77% of the population are optimistic about the suitability of methods of synthetic biology to deal with uranium pollution, and up to 91% of them support adopting these methods for a trial. The biggest reason why people are willing to try is the perception of this technology as “eco-friendlier” (90% of population chose this answer). On the other hand, the respondents who are not willing to use these kinds of methods mainly worry about the risks it may carry (54.8% of population believe this point), or thing think that the effectiveness may not be as good as with established methods (46.4% of the population).
According to this investigation, we recognized that the majority of Chinese people only have a basic and qualitative understanding of the issues surrounding uranium, and their knowledge is largely not systematic or quantitative. Additionally, their awareness of remediation approaches also could be improved. The majority of respondents had a clear understanding about biological materials and protein materials, along with their main advantages. As for synthetic biology, the awareness was higher than expected and most of the population held a rather rational attitude. We are pleased to find that most of them are optimistic about the potential of synthetic biology in pollution treatment. It is a remarkable fact that Chinese people seem to focus more and more on environmental issues and lay their hopes in synthetic biology.
For science popularization and education, especially regarding the aspects of uranium pollution and synthetic biology, there still is a long way to go. On the one hand it is necessary to strengthen the popularization of knowledge about uranium pollution and the relevant remediation methods in the public, especially regarding in-depth and systematic knowledge. On the other hand, we must still work harder to increase the popularity of synthetic biology and attempt to shape a more positive and realistic image of it, especially regarding it being more than just eco-friendly. It is the iGEMers duty to devote ourselves to the popularization and perfection of synthetic biology.
