Human Practices

OVERVIEW

Synthetic biology isn’t easy to explain to non-scientists. But explaining CRISPR-Cas9 is way harder. Not only because those matters are complex, but also because we still don’t know precisely the consequences of such technologies. If CRISPR-Cas 9 is undoubtedly a revolution, the seism affects other fields, interconnected with science (ethics or law as an example).

As our project use CRISPR-Cas9 we looked for its potential huge consequences. It seemed important for us to collect the opinion of both scientists and non scientists. As we worked on CRISPR-Cas9, we discovered how overwhelming it could be, and ask ourselves how we could imagine a responsible way to work with this technology.

Thus, we tried to find an answer in the concept of responsible research and innovation (RRI). We believe that this concept could help iGEM teams to think about responsability in their project. Considering our project on CRISPR-Cas9, we believed the concept could give us the good questions we should ask ourselves to build a responsible project. As their is no general responsible rules than can be applied to all project we developed a RRI test : this test works as a feed-back for each iGEM projects, in order to improve the responsability in the long term.

A feed-back on the responsability in a project on CRISPR-Cas9 can give a personal experience about the problematics the project met, and a quick overview on how we could deal with them.

See the RRI test : (insérer lien)

Respond : (typeform)

I/ Reflexivity

When we chose our project we had different options. We chose to take a fundamental project, riskier but more original.

Stakeholders were essential to help us build our project. They helped us to focus on many points and to put the project in perspective. We thus met many scientists, but also jurists and public.

Was our project needed ? We thought about the different applications of the project. It was not an easy task because the project is a fundamental one. We were guided by a publication of Olivier Espeli “From structure to function of bacterial chromosomes : evolutionary perspectives and ideas for new experiments”, which said a tool like ours would be useful for scientists (FEBS Letters, 2015). We find that our tool would be useful for biologists because of its simplicity, but also in health. This tool could indeed help to diagnose genetic diseases.

The impacts of our project were difficult to define, because it was a project fundamental biology : we didn’t know how it could be used. But the impacts of a responsible project can’t be only transferred to the user and his use in a environnemental or health context  ; science itself must be responsible.

With this reflexion came the main question the RRI test asked us : how RRI could apply to fundamental research, such as our project on CRISPR-Cas9 ? The societal goal doesn’t seem to exist. However, building a responsible research is in itself a societal goal : having a more responsible science is undoubtedly a benefit for the society. The stakeholders of a fundamental project are the ones whose voices are interesting and necessary on science. In other words, the stakeholders are less identified. On our focus on CRISPR-Cas9 we felt necessary to gather stakeholders and tried to draw with them the future of a responsible use on this technology.

II/ Anticipation

The more we knew about CRISPR-Cas9, the more we realised we didn’t know much on this technology and its impacts. The difficult anticipation in the scientific field transferred our questions on the human practice, and we try to learn from stakeholders what the burning issues can be on CRISPR-Cas9, and tried to get people know more about it.

III/ Inclusiveness/Deliberation

As our project was in the field of synthetic biology, we had a strong concern about inclusiveness. We met a lot of stakeholders and public. In our case of fundamental research we defined the stakeholders as scientists using CRISPR-Cas9 and counselors in industrial property.

VULGARISATION : A KEY CONCERN

As we believe scientific vulgarisation is a key concern in synthetic biology and especially for CRISPR-Cas9, we lead several actions of vulgarisation.

During a vox pop we saw that people were mostly unaware of synthetic biology itself. We thus tried to meet public, to discuss with us of synthetic biology, CRISPR and our project. (link of the vox pop ?)

We met students during an exposition in the Nanterre University, but also during the Festival Vivant, opened to everyone and an exposition at the Pays de Limours.

What did we learn of this experiments ? Most of the people we met trust scientist to be responsible in their use, and doesn’t feel legitimate to bring a critic on a subject they don’t master.

MEETING STAKEHOLDERS

CONFERENCE : THE SOCIETAL ISSUES OF CRISPR-CAS9

Because we had a strong concern both on vulgarisation and meeting stakeholders, we hold a conference in our university, in front of students, with two researchers, Jean Denis Faure, a researcher and teacher using CRISPR-Cas9 on plants, and Pierre Walrafen a scientific with a cellular biochemistry and patent engineer.

We tried with our guests to think about the societal issues of CRISPR-Cas9, for the ethics, the law and the economy. The ethical problems CRISPR-Cas9 is bringing are huge, and for most of them, unknown. The ethical problems comes with what is done with the technology : therapeutical applications ex vivo or for genetical diseases, or applications on embryos and germ cells. The ethical problems comes along with the question of transhumanism. The issues are rising because of the simplicity of CRISPR-Cas9, authorizing a wider scientific audience to edit the genome.

About the legal framework, our speakers made a comparison between the European legal framework, the process based evaluation, and the product based evaluation, and how the patentability was in Europe restrained by a principle of public order.

iGEM MEET-UPS

We attend to two iGEM meet-ups, an European one, and an other, gathering the Parisian teams. We were part of the organisation of the Parisian meet-up.

This meet-ups helps us in two ways. First it was a great opportunity to have a feed-back from our peers. Then, we met there other teams working with CRISPR-Cas9, and lead collaborations with them.

IV/ Responsiveness

What did we learn ?

Leading a project on fundamental biology involves to work a lot with stakeholders. In a RRI vision, a fundamental project is an opportunity to think about the responsability of science, in our case CRISPR-Cas9.

The we saw that the potentiality of CRISPR-Cas9 was huge. This leads to two things :

it’s very difficult to define precisely what could be the impacts, thus a harder work must be furnished on the subject.

vulgarisation for the public is a key issue.

CRISPR-Cas9 is easy to use, even by students and has big consequences. We should define the purposes with more rigor and strengthen the safety part.

Using CRISPR-Cas9 requires to know about the gene before we can mutate its functions. This requires to work on genes we already know about or to have a strong research on the gene.

In the ethical field we should always balance the advantages and the disadvantage. Even if it seems obvious, it is fundamental to do this and to present the balance to the public opinion.

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 <a href="https://2016.igem.org/Human_Practices">Human Practices Hub</a>.