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Revision as of 12:53, 15 October 2016
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Hi everyone!! This is the page for our Human Practices that we have done throughout the summer. Aligned with the requirement for iGEM competition, We were always approaching different society and company to get them in recognising our project and aiming to get suggestion or critism on our project. This allowed us to have a clearer picture in the point of view of the public. We categorised each of the activities that we have to 4 different groups. - Charities, Industries, Outreach and Interview. Click on one of the 4 wheels below to find out more!
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Timeline
This was the team’s first outreach event! We set up a stall during British Science Week hosted by Manchester (The City of Science 2016). We introduced the concept of using synthetic biology in chemical production to pupils and asked for their opinions on the matter. The general feedback led us to believe that our AlcoPatch has the potential of being accepted by the public despite having to genetically modify bacteria.
At the Microbiology Society’s AGM, we presented the preliminary research we had done into our project. We received feedback from the scientific community on how we can improve our concept design (link) of our product, which led to the development of our pilot study (link).
We spoke to Mr.David Lloyd, the CEO of a Canada-based biosensor company, FREDsense.
While he thought that our AlcoPatch might be useful for reducing drink driving (link -police), he raised concerns about public acceptance of our GMO-based product. The cell-free mechanism (link), however, may be more acceptable for the public.
We presented our poster at the Euroscience Open Forum where we gained interest from global researchers and deliberated the experience of working in a multi-disciplinary team. From our discussions, we realised that we had difficulties communicating between the disciplines of our members. So in order for us to better understand one another, we took part in a crash-course in ensemble modelling (link).
Having spoken on the phone to Manchester Evening News, they were very interested in the implications of our AlcoPatch. They decided to publish articles about our project in their paper - twice!
We presented our project to representatives from the charity. They suggested that our AlcoPatch would be more effective at raising awareness of alcohol consumption than preventing it. They proposed that cell-free mechanism(link) would be more practical as it may have longer shelf life, cheaper production costs (link -modelling) and only use substances extracted from GMO cells.
In order to get funding, we pitched our project to the manager of IB Carb, a networking agency for glyco-scientists. After further talks with IB Carb, we managed to secure the funding for our project - one step closer to the Giant Jamboree!
We set up a crowdfunding page on experiment.com(link -crowdfunding page), here we reached out to our friends and family asking them to contribute towards our £3000 goal. We also created a video which complemented the information we uploaded regarding our project.
After publicising the AlcoPatch through Manchester Evening News, Heart FM heard about our project and invited us to speak on their national radio show!
We attended an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting where we facilitated a discussion about excessive drinking. After that discussion we gained insight into the motivations behind excessive drinking which influenced our approach towards advertising the AlcoPatch.
We spoke to Ms Shepard, the Network Manager of NPronet, which is a funded network in biotechnology and bioenergy. We reviewed our project and she highlighted the importance of starting the wet lab work early, in order to complete our project on time.
We spoke to Lynn Shephard (Director) and Dr. Henery (Enterprise Academic Lecturer) of Manchester Enterprise Centre. They educated us in the potential business aspect of our project. They also gave us a few pointers on the entrepreneurship that is needed to produce our AlcoPatch in a real-world context. This led our team to model the cost-effectiveness of our proposed prototype.
We deliberated our project with Dr. Flannelly (Network Manager) and Prof. Dickinson (Co-Director) from BioProNet, a network in the field of bioprocessing and biologics . They found our project interesting and how the AlcoPatch could be useful to students like us. However, they raised concerns with the usage of mildly carcinogenic ABTS dye in our Cell-Free system. It was suggested that we find suitable alternatives to reduce risks to our potential consumers.
We spoke to a local Police Community Support Officer (P.C.S.O.) in the area. We asked them for their opinion on how our patch might be of use to the Greater Manchester police force. They gave us some insightful knowledge into the use of breathalysers as well as it's limitations with comparison to the potentials of our AlcoPatch.
UKMeetup
This was the team’s chance to meet other like-minded students and share our project experiences we have had during the summer. We gained valuable feedback from other iGEM teams as well as discussing our project with researchers. We also discussed about the societal impacts of scientific research regarding our project.
A representative from our team spoke to Kelly O’Brien, the Head of Department for Drug Support for Children. She gave us insightful knowledge and feedback on our project relevance to patients with an array of alcohol related issues. She explained that our AlcoPatch would not be beneficial to patients with alcoholism. However, if a prototype were to be made, disseminating the AlcoPatch to the public would enable us to gauge it's effectiveness in educating the public on their intoxication levels.
We met with Andrea Vero, an IP lawyer from Ward Hadaway law firm, to discuss how to protect the research of our project. We also discussed the potential for patenting our Alcopatch in the future. Ward Hadaway put us in contact with a patent attorney from Venner Shipley to further discuss the matter.
We met with Matthew Handley, a patent attorney at Venner Shipley, to discuss if our product was suitable for patenting. We deliberated whether it would be realistic to patent our project based on the information we have already disclosed to the public domain.
We spoke to Mr Wojcik, Chief Technology Officer and Vice President of Engineering, at SCRAM Systems (an ethanol biosensor company) in the US. He informed us about how their devices function, and how American policies have shaped the needs of law enforcement with regards to alcohol consumption. He educated us on the factors behind the demand for a product like our AlcoPatch and the marketability of our product in America.
We met with Carley, one of the owners of the family run business Brightside Brewery. She offered her views on how students perceive the AlcoPatch and highlighted the possible applications of our patch in the National Health Service (NHS). It was brought to attention that breweries in the UK would have no use for our AlcoPatch. However, she suggested that bars and pubs would be interested in our product.
We spoke with Dr.Mukherjee, a Consultant Psychiatrist from the Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders Clinic (FASD), about our project. We discussed the relevance of the AlcoPatch with reference to his area of work, Foetal Alcohol Syndrome. It was concluded that the AlcoPatch would not be beneficial to this syndrome.
