Difference between revisions of "Team:Oxford/Human Practices"

 
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<h2>Questionnaires</h2>
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We are continually asking the public's views on our project.
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<a href="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1d6_Ta7tnh90WDFuZ3vngFtzhTIJVluPr_bdv0ZSGaEE/viewform?c=0&w=1">Click here to complete our questionnaire!</a>
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        <ul id="sidebar" class="nav nav-stacked" data-spy="affix" data-offset-top="330">
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                <a href="#2">Introduction</a>
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                <a href="#3">Discourse</a>
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                <a href="#4">Ethics and Safety</a>
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                <a href="#5">Public engagement and education</a>
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                <a href="#6">References</a>
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<h2 class="h2BorderTop">Summer School: Outreach</h2>
 
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<a href="https://oxfordigem2016.wordpress.com/2016/06/28/summer-school-outreach/">Click here to read the blog entry!</a>
 
  
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<div class="pageTitle pageTitlePurple">Human Practices</div>
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On Thursday 23rd June we were invited to speak and run an activity at a science summer school run by Corpus Christi College. Upon arrival we were met by 18 enthusiastic pupils, all considering applying for science courses at Oxford.</p>
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We began with a short presentation discussing the development of synthetic biology, its current applications and uses, the future of the subject, and the iGEM competition itself. Following this, we split the students into 4 groups to run small activities.</p>
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Rosie and Andreas were both running activities related to biobricks and the construction of working parts: Rosie was getting the students to build biological circuits whilst explaining the importance of different regions of different parts, meanwhile, Andreas was getting students to troubleshoot circuits and identify why they may or may not work. Sam was running an activity investigating protein structure using PyMOL to model the proteins and examine their functions. Finally, I was running an activity that aimed to explain PCR and its importance, before getting the students to design primers for a hypothetical gene of interest, and explain why we may want to include sequences relating to restriction enzyme sites, stop codons etc.</p>
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We found that the students were very eager to ask questions and learn more about the subject, particularly those with a greater background in biology. Some of the students were more interested in the physical sciences, and in these cases, we slightly adapted our activities to explain the necessary background information required to appreciate the exercises.</p>
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Overall, we thought the event was a great success and we are excited to continue outreach over the rest of the summer!</p>
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<h2 id="2">Introduction</h2>
  
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<p>Our human practices work began with a public survey to investigate the issues people wanted to be addressed by an interdisciplinary science project. The outcome of this investigation was medicine/therapeutics.</p>
  
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Oxford iGEM will be doing an outreach event locally.
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<img src="https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2016/9/99/T--Oxford--1.1.jpg" width="50%"><figcaption>The outcome of our first survey</figcaption>
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This will take place in <strong>Natural History Museum, Oxford</strong> on <strong>Date TBC</strong>.
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<p>As soon as we made the decision to investigate the use of bacteria as a medical treatment, we knew that we would have to approach human practices in two ways:</p>
  
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<h2 class="h2BorderTop">Wilson's Disease Patient Association Meeting</h2>
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<li style="text-align:left;">Establishing a dialogue with patients and doctors to integrate their requirements into our design.</li>
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Oxford iGEM will be giving a presentation about Wilson's disease, and what we hope to achieve with your project. We will talk to patients with Wilson's disease to gain their perspectives and whether our approach is something they think will be useful to them.
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<li style="text-align:left;">Approaching the general public to address their concerns with synthetic biology and its use to genetically engineer organisms to treat disease, through engagement and education.</li>
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This will take place in <strong>Cambridge</strong> on <strong>Sunday 24th July 2016</strong>.
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<h2 id="3">Discourse</h2>
  
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<p>This page contains a brief overview of our discourse with patients and doctors, for more information on how these discussions impacted the design of our project, please click <a href="https://2016.igem.org/Team:Oxford/HP/Gold">here.</a> </p>
  
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<img src="https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2016/9/92/T--Oxford--discourseFinal.png" width="70%"><figcaption>How we integrated the feedback from patients and experts into the design of our project</figcaption>
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<h2 id="4">Ethics and Safety</h2>
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<p>Having developed our idea to produce a probiotic therapeutic, we wanted to learn more about whether a treatment of this nature could ever actually be approved by the government. To do this, we turned to an expert: Jane Kaye, Professor of Health, Law and Policy, and Director of HeLEX (Centre for Health, Law and Emerging Technologies). She advised us that policy regarding emerging technologies is often linked to public perception, and that in turn, is linked to the safety and ethics research that has been done regarding the technology. </p>
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<p>This conversation led us to strongly consider the safety and ethics of our project, and more widely, the ethics of using any sort of genetically engineered organism to treat human disease. Read more about safety <a href="https://2016.igem.org/Team:Oxford/Safety">here</a>. For more information on our ethics research, including the concerns raised when we discussed the topic with the public, click <a href="https://2016.igem.org/Team:Oxford/HP/Silver">here</a>.</p>
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<h2 id="5">Public Engagement and Education</h2>
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<p>Our potential probiotic therapeutic is not the only genetically engineered probiotic treatment under investigation <sup>(1)(2)</sup>. We believe that treatments of this nature could alter the shape of medicine, and so we were keen to discover and alter public opinion of synthetic biology and the use of genetically engineered bacteria to fight disease. We set out to engage and educate on a local, national and international scale, read about our efforts <a href="https://2016.igem.org/Team:Oxford/HP/Silver">here</a>.</p>
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<h2 id="6">References:</h2>
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(1) Steidler, L. (2003) ‘Genetically engineered probiotics’, Best Practice & Research Clinical Gastroenterology, 17(5), pp. 861–876. doi: 10.1016/s1521-6918(03)00072-6.
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(2) Duan, F.F., Liu, J.H. and March, J.C. (2015) ‘Engineered Commensal bacteria Reprogram intestinal cells into glucose-responsive Insulin-Secreting cells for the treatment of diabetes’, Diabetes, 64(5), pp. 1794–1803. doi: 10.2337/db14-0635.
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Latest revision as of 00:42, 19 October 2016

iGEM Oxford 2016 - Cure for Copper

Human Practices

Introduction

Our human practices work began with a public survey to investigate the issues people wanted to be addressed by an interdisciplinary science project. The outcome of this investigation was medicine/therapeutics.

The outcome of our first survey

As soon as we made the decision to investigate the use of bacteria as a medical treatment, we knew that we would have to approach human practices in two ways:

  • Establishing a dialogue with patients and doctors to integrate their requirements into our design.
  • Approaching the general public to address their concerns with synthetic biology and its use to genetically engineer organisms to treat disease, through engagement and education.

Discourse

This page contains a brief overview of our discourse with patients and doctors, for more information on how these discussions impacted the design of our project, please click here.


How we integrated the feedback from patients and experts into the design of our project


Ethics and Safety

Having developed our idea to produce a probiotic therapeutic, we wanted to learn more about whether a treatment of this nature could ever actually be approved by the government. To do this, we turned to an expert: Jane Kaye, Professor of Health, Law and Policy, and Director of HeLEX (Centre for Health, Law and Emerging Technologies). She advised us that policy regarding emerging technologies is often linked to public perception, and that in turn, is linked to the safety and ethics research that has been done regarding the technology.

This conversation led us to strongly consider the safety and ethics of our project, and more widely, the ethics of using any sort of genetically engineered organism to treat human disease. Read more about safety here. For more information on our ethics research, including the concerns raised when we discussed the topic with the public, click here.

Public Engagement and Education

Our potential probiotic therapeutic is not the only genetically engineered probiotic treatment under investigation (1)(2). We believe that treatments of this nature could alter the shape of medicine, and so we were keen to discover and alter public opinion of synthetic biology and the use of genetically engineered bacteria to fight disease. We set out to engage and educate on a local, national and international scale, read about our efforts here.

References:

  • (1) Steidler, L. (2003) ‘Genetically engineered probiotics’, Best Practice & Research Clinical Gastroenterology, 17(5), pp. 861–876. doi: 10.1016/s1521-6918(03)00072-6.
  • (2) Duan, F.F., Liu, J.H. and March, J.C. (2015) ‘Engineered Commensal bacteria Reprogram intestinal cells into glucose-responsive Insulin-Secreting cells for the treatment of diabetes’, Diabetes, 64(5), pp. 1794–1803. doi: 10.2337/db14-0635.