Concordia's MicroGladiator project was developed as the microbial analogue to TV's Robot Wars/Battle Bots with the intent of providing a novel and exciting way for the public to engage with new biotechnologies. Interviews with the public helped us to better understand how people would react to, and want to interact with our project. We made the design choice to eliminate including any heritable weapons (with potentially unintended dangers) in our MicroGladiator toolkit and focus on nanoparticle-conjugates. Our nanoparticle-cell designs were then based off suggestions from our public interviews. From our early stages, we also examined the ethics in battling living microbes as entertainment. Because nanoparticles pose their own risks, we initiated a discussion with our institution on safe nanomaterial handling and created an SOP endorsed for potential institution-wide adoption. We followed up by writing an approachable mini-review on the environmental impact of nanomaterials, including those used in our project.
