Human Practices

Silver Criteria

Human Practices Silver Page

We identified the sustainability of antibiotics as an important issue to address. This is primarily due to the health benefits they present when used effectively, however it is now becoming more apparent to the general public that they are being abused.

To investigate this use, we consulted the Review on Antimicrobial Resistance (2016) commissioned by the UK Government and the World Health Organisation’s Antimicrobial Resistance: Global Report on Surveillance (2014). We found that the overuse of antibiotic has become widespread throughout the world, particularly in antibiotics.

To address the preservation of antibiotics for future use, we devised a new method for treating bacterial infections in animals, which would greatly reduce the need for antibiotics in agriculture. We showed the plausibility of this new method via our Proof of Concept.

We identified public concerns over the safety of GMOs in the environment via our survey with 50% of respondents unaware GMOs must satisfy safety requirements before use and a further 12% of those who were aware of the requirements still considered GMOs unsafe.

To investigate these concerns, we consulted European legislation on the safety of GMOs and what requirements must be satisfied before they can be approved. To address these concerns, we ensured our bacteria could satisfy the requirements of GMOs. Further educating the public on the extensive safety requirements were found to increase the response to GMOs.

We identified ethical concerns from the public via our survey and our visit to the Glasgow Science Centre where we displayed our project and hosted interactive experiments for children.

To further investigate these concerns, we hosted a joint debate with the Edinburgh Undergraduate iGEM team where our respective University Debating Unions tackled the issues of developing GMOs. We found the largest concerns were related to crops, and how large corporations who could develop GM seeds would hold them ransom for inflated prices to make large profits.

There were no ways to address these concerns at the debate, however the winning argument was that ethical concerns over profitability of GMOs do not outweigh the number of lives saved due to the improved performance in agriculture. Secondly, we addressed ethical concerns by explaining the benefits of GMOs to parents and teachers at the science centre and we found that most people objected to GMOs due to a lack of knowledge. We provided information to the people we spoke to and informed them of where to get more information to educate themselves.