Difference between revisions of "Team:Paris Saclay/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)

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.

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 Human Practices Hub.