Difference between revisions of "Team:Freiburg/Human Practices"
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We’ve started by with evaluating the basic knowledge about synthetic biology in general, the people’s opinion on consumption of bacteria and bacterial spores. We launched a survey that reached out for people of all ages and different educational background. | We’ve started by with evaluating the basic knowledge about synthetic biology in general, the people’s opinion on consumption of bacteria and bacterial spores. We launched a survey that reached out for people of all ages and different educational background. | ||
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However, publishing surveys that may include sensitive medical and personal data, requires caution. To formulate the questions for our survey we went to get help from a variety of experts from different scientific backgrounds. We’ve held an interview with a team of pharmacists and asked them for their opinion and some input. | However, publishing surveys that may include sensitive medical and personal data, requires caution. To formulate the questions for our survey we went to get help from a variety of experts from different scientific backgrounds. We’ve held an interview with a team of pharmacists and asked them for their opinion and some input. | ||
| − | <center><img class="something" style="width: | + | <center><img class="something" style="width:60%" src="https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2016/9/94/T--Freiburg--HumanPracticeApotheke.png" > </center> |
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Revision as of 22:35, 18 October 2016
Human practice
Communication is an essential part of human interaction and civilization in general.
Every scientist has the duty to teach, communicate with and support the public, in order to give everyone the chance to learn about new and old scientific breakthroughs.. Without communication the world wouldn’t be the place it is today.
The invention of the internet has made it a lot easier to stay in contact with one another, but it is also a great source of misunderstandings and misleading or simply false information. This is why it is crucial to publish scientific work and make it accessible to the public in an understandable way.
But what can we, a small team of students do? What is achievable? Who can we reach and how can we learn from the people around us?
Thinking of a way on how to reach as many people as possible, we came up with the idea to have an interview on our
university’s radio station
Here, we‘ve talked about iGEM, synthetic biology in general, our team and of course our project. Our goal was to educate fellow university students, who have never heard of iGEM or even synthetic biology what this competition stands for and what we achieved during the course of the last months.
We believe that learning and communication has to be done by both sides. So how could we get in touch with people, who are not involved in our project and benefit from their feedback? What we came up with was a survey. This way we would be able to receive information from a broader audience.
We’ve started by with evaluating the basic knowledge about synthetic biology in general, the people’s opinion on consumption of bacteria and bacterial spores. We launched a survey that reached out for people of all ages and different educational background.
Since the first survey was focusing on synthetic biology and our project in general we also wanted to get in contact with people suffering from ulcerative colitis. Given that, those are the people that we affect with our approach, their opinion was extremely important to us, and we therefore decided to dedicate them an extra survey.
However, publishing surveys that may include sensitive medical and personal data, requires caution. To formulate the questions for our survey we went to get help from a variety of experts from different scientific backgrounds. We’ve held an interview with a team of pharmacists and asked them for their opinion and some input.
Based on these information we conducted a second survey, targeting uc patients directly. We shared this survey on various facebook pages of organisations that are helping patients to cope with their sickness. At this point, we would like to thank everyone who helped us spread our survey and in doing so enabling us to improve our project in ways we couldn’t have done without them.
The aim of our survey was to see what experiences patients actually had, what their age of diagnosis was, how long it took until they were diagnosed with ulcerative colitis, what their first symptoms were and whether they had any side effects resulting from their therapy. Additionally, we presented our idea of targeted drug delivery using bacterial spores to get feedback on how applicable the people suffering from ulcerative colitis actually think it is. To see what insights we gained from the survey and how we integrated it into our project, check out our integrated human practice page.
When it comes to a project like ours, communication is needed with people from all backgrounds. Questions kept floating around in our heads, wishing to be answered. Since we were able to receive feedback from the public and patients one part was still missing- the medical experts. What do experts actually think of our idea? Do they think it’s applicable? Or even realistic? What are their concerns regarding the use of bacterial spores? Do they have any experience with negative side effects of the current medication of ulcerative colitis? To find answers our third survey was designed especially for gastroenterologists, who are treating patients with ulcerative colitis.
