Human Practices Projects of CryptoGErM
Beyond the lab… To the understanding of the world
How CryptoGERM was shaped for our Human Practices? How did we integrate the results of the small projects of our HP into the project?
We invite you to discover the answer to those questions!
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Originally our idea was to send exclusively the key encrypted in bacteria, and once the receiver decrypted the key he could use it to access to the sensitive information previously stored in internet. However, immediately we figured out a drawback; if the information is already digitally accesible, it might be target of leaking. So we decided to send both, the original message encrypted and the key in the same package using the DNA of bacteria.
With that idea in mind, we contacted the Cyber Security Centre from the Ministry of Security and Justice from the Netherlands, institution in charge of the cyber security in our country, to know what would be possible drawbacks of our idea, and what are the real challenges that they have to face in the field of encryption. This Institution made comments on our project, they told us that generally when a system is intended for the sending rather than just storing it, two questions are important:
The first one, what do we do with key and how we keep it safe?
This question changed deeply our project; the National Institution told us that when the message and the key are sent together in the same package the probability that the information is intercepted and decrypted is really high, therefore it must be ensured that either, the key, the message or both are safe and cannot be accessed easily if the package is intercepted. To overcome that, we propose the idea of using of biological security layers to provide an extra lock to access to the information; you and your receiver agreed on a biological key beforehand. This biological lock comprises the proper germination conditions for the key spores. A wrong treatment will cause the loss of the desired DNA sequence and therefore the message cannot be read anymore. Only with the biological key, the right treatment of the spores, the DNA of the Bacillus subtilis culture can be harvested and the genome will be sequenced
The second question that the experts face when sending encrypted information is that how do we ensure that the information is securely decrypted?
By thinking in this problem, we came out with a simple solution. We sent our spores with the message and the key together with a huge amount of decoys. If the information is intercepted and sequenced, they will find the DNA of the decoys, and since they are in a higher proportion than the correct bacteria, the message will get lost. We added a resistance to the bacteria with the message and the key to a photo switchable antibiotic, then the receiver has to irradiate the sample with the correct wavelength number to active the antibiotic.
After shaping our project based on the real challenges faced by the experts, we realized that not only governments could use our system, also private companies could be interested in using our system. But, which requirements? Would private companies or institutions be interested in our project? Would be able to adapt our system to the conditions required for real users? Is it our system better in comparison with current technologies for the storing and sending of information? To answer this we interview a potential user, the Groningen Archives; they store the entire historical information related with the province of Groningen in the Netherlands. As a result of this interview, we learned that paper (it is often the medium used for the storing of historical information) requires specific conditions that sometimes are not suitable for long-term storing, because they consume resources. In addition to that, paper it is a suitable for information storage just for a couple of hundred of years. Actually, this Institution has been prepared for the change from physical to digital storing for the last years.
We learned also that a system intended for the long-term storing of information must be ensure its storability and accessibility, i. e. he nature of the medium used for the storing does not matter as long as it is insured that the stored information is completely preserved. He told us that DNA is a considerable option if the information does not though mutations.
So here, we found another problem: how we could be sure that the DNA would not suffer mutations or that the potential mutations? For that, our expert colleagues from Artificial Intelligence and after this interview, we realized how important a is to know the probability of mutation in the DNA of the spores of Bacillus subtilis, for that we applied Modeling by estimating the number of bases expected to mutate during the whole process from the insertion to the reading. In addition to that, we explore the literature to for the costs and fidelity of the sequencing of DNA associated with the reading of our project.
Additionally, we started a survey to know what is the current perception of the society about the storing and sending of information. We found out that our survey respondents send sensitive information through digital means but they do not trust it, because they feel their information is not secure. Our survey respondents also agree that a system for the storing and sending of information could be used by them for the storing of sensitive information that has not to be necessarily accessed immediately. Based on those results, we can trust that our system could be use also by general public. However, as a result of this survey we also found out that an important fraction of our survey respondents do not actually what bacteria are. So we dedicated our Education and Outreach sections to reach as much general public as possible to promote concepts of synthetic biology and our project.
Legal
Once the system fulfilled the requirements from experts, users and society; the next step was to explore the shipping of our spores containing the encrypted information.
For that, we contacted the iGEM Team from Eindhoven to collaborate with us by decrypting our message… The bacteria would be sent to the iGEM Team by post.
The idea of our system is that the encrypted information contained on bacteria can be shipped freely around the world. So, the next important step for the Human Practices and was to look for the national and international legislations that regulate the sending of GMOs. This is crucial for our project, because we cannot send the spores of Bacillus subtilis without following regulations because it might be that we put in the risk the environment or society. Since the legislations were really extensive, we contacted the for guidance in the Dutch Regulations for the sending of modified bacteria. We read all those regulations to find out what is the correct way for the sending of GMOs using conventional methods, such as post. We found out that the GMOs received a classification according to its nature, focusing on the fact if the GMOs pretending to be sent meet the definition of infectious substances; in our case, the spores are not within the concept of infectious substance and they are assigned to the labelling UN3245. Besides that, we found out that for the shipping of GMOs we must use packings with strict specifications. We discussed explicitly this in our legal section of Human Practices.
The next step was looking for international regulations for the shipping of GMOs, because the perspectives of our system is the free shipping of encrypted information in our system around the world. We consulted the Cartagena Protocol. However, we realized that the International shipping of GMOs is regulated from different legislations depending on the country that is intended for the access of the GMOs. We consulted the three more important guidelines and regulations for the sending to America, Europe and Asia of our system. We followed a strict protocol for the sending of our spores to our Dutch iGEM Collaborators obeying the national and international recommendations.
Future scenarios</h3>
Finally, we decided to explore different aspects of our project and the repercussions of its introduction as a daily-used system in the near and long future. These scenarios were based on current evidence. For example, we manage to encrypted text in the DNA of the bacteria, however, just this year came out that images were also successfully stored in DNA; with this precedent, it seems viable that in a couple of years movies might be also stores in DNA. Besides that, we also created fictional and hypothetical scenarios resulting from the applications of our system, e. g. once our system is introduced, it would be possible to store huge amounts of data in the DNA of bacteria, therefore it seems possible in a long future movies can be stored as well within bacteria.
Educational and Outreach
One of our survey results motivated the Educational Part. One of our purposes was to make general audience and students get in touch with synthetic biology and our project
In collaboration with one of our sponsors, we received in our laboratory 9 High School students who developed lab work for their High School Thesis. We were their mentor and we advised them doing experiments in the CryptoGERM laboratory. We were excited because we contributed to the academic formation of this new generation of scientists; highly motivated students that showed the high potential of the students in our country. These students came from different cities in the Netherlands to work with us. This shows that our project has impacted deeply the academic formation of young students.
Besides that we received over 150 students from different Dutch High Schools; we gave a lecture in synthetic biology and our project to these motivated students, and after that we made Bio-ART with them; they came to the laboratory with us to paint with bacteria, to show them how funny science is.
For the outreaching, we reached local audience in the North part of the Netherlands where local newspapers made articles about our project, we also reach a national audience when the Dutch National News Agency made an article and a video about our project. This raised the interest of our the country to the project! Besides that we attended different conferences around the Netherlands; the most significative one correspond to our participation in the European Campus Party where we gave a workshops haring our knowledge with European students.
