Team:UNebraska-Lincoln/Integrated Practices
Integrated Human Practices
Since the inception of our project, we have aimed to provide a solution for the management of the nitrogen cycle that is both scientifically feasible and safe. To accomplish this, we designed and installed a novel kill switch mechanism that leads to the death of the cells once the nitrate concentration is sufficiently reduced. Over the summer, our team met with scientists from local biotech companies as well as other iGEM teams to discuss both the scientific and safety aspects our project design. The feedback we received made us become more mindful of the safety issues associated with the release of genetically modified organisms and we began to take a more interdisciplinary approach to our project, considering it in the context of the real world. We developed safety cases, a method that is currently used to gauge the safety of critical software systems in computer science, to simulate the consequences of releasing our engineered microorganisms into the environment and determine the parameters we should try to meet to improve our design.
It is an exciting time for the field of Synthetic Biology. Improvements in computational modeling, cost-effectiveness, performance, and efficiency of molecular biology techniques such as synthesis and sequencing of nucleic acids have contributed to rapid advancements in the field. This vast expansion in opportunity is on track to continue for the foreseeable future. In fact, synthetic biology has now reached the commercial stage. According to a report by Allied Market Research, the global synthetic biology market is forecast to reach $38.7 billion by 2020, which is a growth of about 44.2% from 2013 to 2020 (R. Singh) These advancements have been met with opposition, however. Public opinion of genetically modified organisms has not improved, even as our understanding of synthetic biology has increased. Our team has become very concerned with safety within synthetic biology, as biosafety concerns are one key restraining factor for growth of the field. It is our hope that by demonstrating that genetically modified organisms are safe, we can help improve public perception of them. Initially, the creation of transgenic organisms was simply a way of expanding the realm of what is possible, the organisms created had no functional value. Today, more than 40 years later, synthetic biology solutions to real world problems are clearly possible and the practicality of implementing such solutions is becoming more evident. Because the field is maturing, it is imperative that those involved in synthetic biology have a sense of responsibility regarding safety and environmental implications of the organisms they create. Introduction:
We propose the adaptation of safety assurance cases, which are already used extensively in computer science, as a mechanism of addressing the safety and environmental concerns of using engineered microorganisms outside of the lab. We envision this highly interdisciplinary application as a powerful platform to be used extensively in synthetic biology. It is also our hope that public opposition to genetically modified organisms, which has long been a barrier to their implementation in the real world, will be improved through the use of safety assurance cases because they demonstrate the critical thinking that has gone into the creation of these systems as well as the mechanisms in place to prevent unintended effects related to their release.
Our team has developed a safety case for our kill switch to increase our awareness of our project’s impact on the environment and to begin addressing these concerns. Furthermore, our team has outlined foundational information on safety cases and developed our vision for integrating this tool into the iGEM competition and the field of synthetic biology as a whole.
Singh, Ranjan. "Synthetic Biology : Global Opportunity Analysis and Forecast - 2013 - 2020." Allied Market Research. N.p., May 2014. Web. 19 Oct. 2016.
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