Team:Korea U Seoul/HP/Gold

Social Activity

Introduction


In Korea, many biologically-related affairs occurred like the cases above. Many interpretation can exists, explaining the reason behind the cause of the affairs, but we thought of 2 major reasons.


  • Lack of measures and laws related to biotechnology
  • Lack of Korean society’s interest to biotechnology

We, as IGEMers, thought of solutions to solve these problems.


Seminar on Strategy for
National Defense Against Biothreat

Objective

The seminar insisting the policy motion covering the preparation for potential threat of biotechnology was held in the Republic of Korean Parliamentarian Society. Korea_U_Seoul participated this seminar, and could gain new insights on how bio-related-technologies can be misused threatfully.



Points we discovered through participation

  • As a policy maker, even elder statesmen of the National Assembly were not informed about the mechanism of bio-terrorism and the spread of infectious diseases.
  • Despite the political status of divided country in the middle of ceasefire, Korea is not enough prepared for biological threats.

    This seminar was executed with the purpose of improving above mentioned problems.

 

Korea U Seoul’s direction of activity set-up

    The difference exists between domestic and overseas bio-management system.
  • As the first step of solving these problems, we searched on research management system / bio-management system related to bioethics and research ethics.
  • Second, by hearing advises of experts from each field and gathering them, we desired to make a source book which can be used as a reference in policy making
  • Third, we tried to contact the policy manager to deliver our opinion on this project
  • Fourth, we desired the positive change in Korea’s biotechnology / synthetic biology management policy

We proceeded through the first step, but failed in hearing advises from experts, so we revised our plan.


Reason of failure

  • Limitation of professionalism – the fact that we were new to this field
  • Lack of awareness and interest of specialists
  • Communication problems with specialists


BUT, we refused to give up. We came up with plan B.

In order to provide an efficient system, active discussion among general public is necessary. Therefore, Korea_U_Seoul decided to set our sights on bringing about public concern and discussion on ongoing matters synthetic biology / biotechnology is facing.

Communication



As a first step of being a synthetic biologist who directly communicates with society rather than merely researching in a laboratory, we tried to interact with general public by educating and publicizing on synthetic biology.

In order to accomplish above mentioned objective, we selected the theme of ethical issues synthetic biology / biotechnology is currently facing.


Open Seminar

The target was the general public who are interested in synthetic biology / biotechnology. The open seminar was an opportunity to directly communicate about iGEM and many other projects on synthetic biology, including the ethical issues.


Activities

  • 1st week : Introducing synthetic biology / iGEM / Korea_U_Seoul
  • 2nd week: Case study of technology and research on synthetic biology
  • 3rd week: Introducing the previous iGEM projects
  • 4th week: Ethical / Social difficulties synthetic biology / biotechnology is facing

Results

  • Number of participants: about 40 people in average each for 4 weeks
  • Survey research: Since it was the first time for us to hold a seminar, we progressed a survey for further improvements

Participant's Comments

I was interested in ethics. It was very satisfying because I could discuss lots of topics and share thoughts.

I understand that DIY bio is very good, but we need regulations about Bio crackers as well as Bio hackers first.

Through seminar, I could think about the two topics about biological ethics. It refeshed my thoughts I had when I do experiments in school, and I could get more acquaintances which scientists and teachers need to know.

I have heard about Synthetic biology before, but through this semina I could fully understand this study. Also, discsussions were so instructive for me. It was such a good experience. Thanks.

Good job.

I was sorry that discussion session was so short.

  


Associated BioConference

Purpose

In order to academically communicate with other biology-major undergraduates of Korea and make synthetic biology more widely known, we Korea U Seoul joined Associated BioConference consisting of YBSF of Yonsei University, LEBEN of Sogang University, HOLIC of Hanyang Universitiy, and LALS of Korea University. By actively participating and leading the Associated BioConference, we could not only explain the concept of synthetic biology, but explain the ethical issues following with the development of synthetic biology and possible solution to the issues.


Activities

  • Education about synthetic biology
    • Even biology major students couldn’t confidently define synthetic biology
    • As result of our introductory presentation to synthetic biology, we provoked interest and deliver knowledge of synthetic biology.
  • Academic interaction with other biology-major undergraduate every month
    • Associated BioConference acted as a group that can share insights and knowledge with other biology major students around Korea.
  • Discussion about research ethics and bioethics
    • Aside from academic topics usually discussed at the Associated BioConference, we raised question about ethics (both research ethics and bioethics). We discussed about role of synthetic biologists and biologists dealing with the above issues, and shared individual insights. By the thorough discussion, we had a chance to expand our thought and knowledge about ethical issues in biology, especially in synthetic biology’s field.

Interview on Participants

Media


We worked in online to provoke interest in field of synthetic biology and our team’s project in Korea.


Interview with Science Dong-A

    Activity

    • Science Dong-A, is most popular and prominent science magazine in Korea (ranked No.9 in all magazine published in Korea, and No.1 science magazine category)
    • Science Dong-A is actively used by middle and high school all around Korea as a material for science education in class for gifted students. Our team’s project was introduced thoroughly, and we expect synthetic biology to be more discussed in real classroom.
    • After the interview with Science Dong-A, numerous inquiries were made about synthetic biology and iGEM competition.



Korea U Seoul’s Facebook page

We created our team’s Facebook page and
  • Posted our activity such as SWEET conference, Green Campus event
  • Shared knowledges and information to save the environment
  • Posted about our team’s seminar and educational programs.

Results

  • More than 9100 hits! (9185)
  • 16 posts
  • 106 comments
  • 161 likes (215 likes in some post)

Volunteering-Certified Club



Korea U Seoul extensively worked in promoting environmental, and biological insights to students by activities such as open seminar and Green Campus Event. These work was acknowledged by Korea University Social Service Organization (KUSSO, http://kusso.korea.ac.kr) and we are being funded by the organization. This funding is unique, since we are the only funded club with the category of academic association (Korea University association of Synthetic Biology) in Korea University. We plan to hold a synthetic biology seminar for newly recruited member of our team after 2016 iGEM.

Translating Ethics-related Report



In order to promote a bioethics related awareness to researchers and bio-industrialists, we thought that relevant information such as professional reports from bioethics leading countries should be well translated and distributed, with increased accessibility.

Accordingly, Korea_U_Seoul decided to translate an U.S. presidential report , which covers from general concept of synthetic biology and its emerging concerns, to 18 major recommendations of the presidential commission. This original text was published in 2010, and has been the fundamental guideline to science policy makers, bio-industrialists, researchers, and every people interested and related to synthetic biology in the U.S.

For the clear translation, we first standardized frequently used terminology that might be misinterpreted depending on the translator. After all, we started to translate the report from English to Korean. Since the report was covering ethical issues which might be sensitive in some circumstances, we tried to be clear and objective making sure that no personal opinion or nuance was added while translating it. The translation has ended including the final process of second-check and peer editing, and the translation was secondary elaborated to the PDF file format. Sample pages are uploaded below, and you can download the full text here.


Our next year’s goal is to find the way to efficiently distribute this material: both to industrial site where most of the huge scale decisions and discussions are made, and educational site where students and researchers learn and establish the direction of the academic field.