Team:UNebraska-Lincoln/Human Practices
Human Practices
As with most great scientific achievements, the advancement of synthetic biology has been met with both healthy skepticism and unhealthy fear. Many people are opposed to the modification of living systems through artificial means, despite the wide range of applications for these technologies. According to the Pew Research Center, only 37% of Americans believe it is safe to consume genetically modified foods, perhaps the most prominent application of synthetic biology and it is met with even more distrust in Europe. For this reason, most of our human practices outreach events were organized with the goal of public education in mind. Synthetic biology has the potential to transform agriculture and many fields beyond it, including medicine, energy, and materials and we hope that its progress will not be impeded by misinformation and unfounded levels of fear.
In July, we attended the Heartland Synthetic Biology meetup hosted by Missouri University of Science and Technology. Together with three other teams, we co-hosted a public forum where we discussed the advantages and disadvantages of current and future applications of synthetic biology, such as drought and cold-resistant crops and mosquitoes to combat malaria and zika virus. We also held an educational event for children where we taught them about DNA, applications of GMOs, and how synthetic biology is influencing the world around us. These events allowed us to discuss the safety concerns that come with genetic engineering and helped us gauge the public opinion of synthetic biology.
Back in Nebraska, we hosted a similar kids’ event at a local museum. Morril Hall Natural History Museum, a Smithsonian affiliate, hosted a "Museum Day Live!" where admission was free and there were many interactive activities for people of all ages. We set up the same ""Building with Biology" benches that we used in the public event in Missouri. Again, we encountered the public stigma against genetic engineering, but were able to enlighten those we talked to about the beneficial applications of synthetic biology. We also met with several local companies to discuss our project and received feedback on our work. Through these meetings, we were able to hold rational discussions on the benefits of GMOs while also learning something ourselves. Although the general distrust of synthetic biology is inconvenient at its best, there ARE valid concerns surrounding their implementation, particularly with projects such as our own which would involve the eventual release of a modified strain of bacteria into the ecosystem.
We were able to incorporate input from these experiences into our project:
These aspects of our project served the dual benefit of improving our design by forcing us to think critically about the mechanisms and environment of our project and allowing us to connect with and respond to the public in order to educate them and respond to their concerns.
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