Team:Peshawar/HP/Gold

Human Practices Gold - iGEM Peshawar 2016

Human Practices Gold

We started out with a simple idea — to see how a cutting edge technology, like our SynBio product, will affect a third–world society like ours and how that society, will in return affect our product, and the nascent field of SynBio itself. To this end, we initially designed a survey to acquire data about the general opinion of the public. After a thorough response and data analysis, we figured out that the general population was quite receptive to the idea of a bacterial strip test, albeit they were still unsure if the bacteria on the strip could spread into the environment and cause problems.

To counter their concerns, we designed a 'killbox' plan that will be used to 'sterilize' the strip after usage. We also wrote a policy paper for the development of the field of Synthetic Biology in Pakistan. We took this to our government.

Killbox design

Our product was intended to be in the form of a strip. We introduced a kill–switch to our product design so as to have a control over horizontal gene transfer. Our new design, incorporates a box having two sections: one section in which the strip having the engineered–bacteria will be placed in the nutrient media, whereas in the other section we will have bacterial–killers.

The strip can be used several times until the media gets expired. The twister in the middle can help breaking the wall in between them, degrading the engineered bacteria.

Policy paper for the government

To promote synthetic biology in Pakistan, we wrote a detailed policy paper to the government in which we gave them short term, medium term, and long term recommendations on how to do it exactly. You can find the full policy paper here.