Team:ZJU-China/HP/Silver
Overview
We are very concerned about the topics about public engagement and safety problem (about the transportation of biological products) in synthetic biology.
Before we take up the challenge to address these topics, the identification of them are discussed in detail. We’ve considered the reason why the public need to engage in science, and what role they should play. In order to contribute to the popularization of synthetic biology, we also try to give some possible solutions, and try to apply them into reality. As for the safety problem, status quo of it is carefully investigated from as many aspects as possible. We give our own perception of it, and also try to give some suggestions.
Public engagement
We have to admit that a similar concept in biology field, transgene, has been doubted since it came into being, and the idea of synthetic biology is heard much less, which make the public much easier to misunderstand it. Apparently, synthetic biology will not “save the world”, but it has great potential to make it a better one. As iGEMers, we hope to contribute to expand the public understanding of synthetic biology, so that to save the potential from the public’s misunderstanding. From another aspect, burying ourselves in the lab is not a sensible idea, so we need the voices outside lab to help us to know what we have been engaged in better. So we organized some activities concerned public engagement to interact with people. To our satisfactory, we got positive feedbacks and were inspired in a way.
What role should the public play in science? We have been thinking about these since the beginning of our project. In China, people are familiar with the heated debate between the media people and the biologists about transgene. We wonder if synthetic biology will become the next topic? We consider the correct knowledge is the first thing that the public should have, for misunderstanding may lead to fear and rejection. And then they could engage in the process by giving suggestions from their aspect.
So we attended STEM festival in Suzhou. STEM is a concept of education that advocates students learning like scientists and engineers, which fits well with the aspects of synthetic biology in a way.
We set up a stall in the exhibition hall with XJTLU. We have a poster to introduce the idea of synthetic biology and our team. What attracted people most was the room escape computer game. It made up a story in our lab, in which you have to find all the clues to decode the cipher in order to escape the room, and the key is the principle of our biological cipher machine. Since room escape is a popular game in China, we think fusing it with some basic knowledge in synthetic biology will make it easier to be taken. And it is welcomed!
Those who came to the festival were mostly general public who were interested in science. We met a teacher who are fascinated by our idea and synthetic biology, and asked us to talk to his students about these. There were young people attracted by our computer game. However, they were baffled by the new idea it conveyed and eager to learn more about the knowledge behind it. Once curiosity was stimulated, learning efficiency doubles, which fited in exactly with our wishes. We were very pleased to see that we can make a difference.
We also went to the Wuhan science & technology museum. We set up our showcase in the information exhibition hall, which is a hall set up for people to learn more about how information processes. And this is exactly the problem we are dealing with! And our showcase can provide a biological aspect of information processing, which enriched the knowledge of the hall.
Here we played a decryption game with children using candies, which helped them to understand what we have been doing in a funny way. A video which told a story based on synthetic biology was also played beside the game area. Many kids were attracted by it and asked us to explain the details of it.
We find it is a good way to introduce new idea to the public by integrating it with other funny things. It is obvious to see that the computer game and the interesting video conveyed the idea of synthetic biology do work in the process of public engagement. And it is better to set up our showcase at places that people would like to go at weekends, which allow us to attract more people’s attention, and make them feel that science can be part of their life.
The improvement of public engagement still have a long way to go, and we believe that our mode can be helpful. The gap between labs and public is not so difficult to bridge, since we find most people are more than willing to engage in it, which is really encouraging.
Our Doubt
During the summer vacation, due to G20 Summit in Hangzhou, our team had to carry some of our experimental materials away from our own lab, and shared the lab with other teams in China. In the train station, we passed the safety inspection successfully without any inquiry or check.
One thing should be clarified first, at here the biological products mean the products we use for our biological experiment in the lab. And we carried them in tightly closed containers, with no chance flowing into the outside environment. The transportation was rather safe.
Here are what we carried during the two journeys.
Obviously, there was not any disease producing bacteria. And everything we carried was harmless. However, the detection for biological products arose our interest. Since synthetic biology is playing a more and more important role in the world, we do hope that everything it brought is advantageous. However, the transportation safety of biological products should be paid equal attention, in case of they become the new danger one day. We wonder if there is any measure in China to supervise the transportation of biological products now.
