Team:UCL/amandeep/Human Practices
The experts
We have been talking to researchers that are in the ageing field
Religion, Synthetic Biology and Ageing
We have been talking to religious leaders and religious members of the public to find out what they they think about our project and synthetic biology and to find an answer to whether religion actually acts as a barrier to the development of synthetic biology.
Public Engagement/General Public
We also wanted to find out what the general public think of our project and synthetic biology. We conducted surveys, went to the streets of London and many more activities in order to get a well rounded view.
Education/Outreach
As a response to our survey which showed that more then 3/4 of the sample wished that they had learnt about synthetic biology at school, we wanted to reach out to as many age groups as possible and run several different educational workshops
Law and regulation in London
We have been talking to members of parliament, UCL political societies and London assembly members to get a view of our project from a law point of view. Will our ideas be accepted into society and will people in London want this?
Ageing and art
Sue and Diane art group
Our iGEM blog
We also wanted the general public to know about our project and iGEM so we decided to make a blog highlighting our general experiences as we go along this iGEM journey! We are also working on posting some tips for future GEM teams, based on what we are learning as we go through the process.
The Blog link: http://ucligem2016.wix.com/ucligem2016
Our App
As mobile phones are becoming increasing part of our lives, we thought that developing an app may be a great way to get more people more aware of synthetic biology. We have decided to create a game that works by getting users to create certain biobricks, where the gene of interest will only complete the biobrick if the plasmid backbone is cut with the correct restriction enzymes. We want to make it as user friendly as possible and we are hoping to integrate our project and iGEM into the app as well.
Press release
We were able make more people aware of our project by getting our project advertised through the UCL website (Biochemical engineering News section). We are also working on getting the project advertised on the UCL newsletter (myUCL).
Also follow our vlog where we upload fun videos of the team members and vlog throughout our iGEM journey
iGEM teams are leading in the area of Human Practices because they conduct their projects within a social/environmental context, to better understand issues that might influence the design and use of their technologies.
Teams work with students and advisors from the humanities and social sciences to explore topics concerning ethical, legal, social, economic, safety or security issues related to their work. Consideration of these Human Practices is crucial for building safe and sustainable projects that serve the public interest.
For more information, please see the Human Practices Hub.
Note
You must fill out this page in order to be considered for all awards for Human Practices:
- Human Practices silver medal criterion
- Human Practices gold medal criterion
- Best Integrated Human Practices award
- Best Education and Public Engagement award
Some Human Practices topic areas
- Philosophy
- Public Engagement / Dialogue
- Education
- Product Design
- Scale-Up and Deployment Issues
- Environmental Impact
- Ethics
- Safety
- Security
- Public Policy
- Law and Regulation
- Risk Assessment
What should we write about on this page?
On this page, you should write about the Human Practices topics you considered in your project, and document any special activities you did (such as visiting experts, talking to lawmakers, or doing public engagement).
