Team:Exeter/Human Practices
Introduction
In order to produce a project that was responsible and beneficial to society, it was important to evaluate how our project will affect the world and how the world will affect our project. This required extensive research and outreach to industry professionals, educational providers and academics such as social scientists, marine biologists and molecular biologists. It was vital for the team to communicate with the general public and legal experts to further our understanding of the potential social and political implications of our project and how we can adapt our project to meet these needs. We did this through referring to several frameworks throughout the duration of our project to ensure that we promoted creative innovation alongside public approval and interest.
The Problem
As a team we have a shared passion for the environment. This love for our planet inspired us to think about ways in which we can make positive environmental change. From our initial research, it became clear that one of the largest environmental issues facing our planet is the accumulation of greenhouse gasses (GHGs), responsible for the enhanced greenhouse effect and consequently, global warming. This led us to explore the primary causes of increasing atmospheric CO2 levels so we could investigate ways to combat it. European GHG emissions as a result from industrial practices and products contribute to 9% of total emissions [1]. In the UK, the largest contributor to emissions is CO2. In 1990, CO2 contributed a proportion of 75.0% to the total UK GHG emissions and this has only increased to 80.8% by 2018 [2]. Atmospheric warming from enhanced Carbon Dioxide emissions also presents huge secondary environment impacts including ocean acidification and rising sea levels.
One industrial technique which caught our attention due to its large CO2 emissions was the production of calcium carbonate, a natural mineral that has a wide range of uses in industries such as pharmaceuticals, construction and agriculture. The mineral itself has two forms; group calcium carbonate (GCC), derived from natural limestone and precipitated calcium carbonate (PCC) made by the direct carbonation of hydrated quicklime with CO2. Advantages of PCC are that the resulting product is available in different morphologies and sizes allowing for greater performance in a specific application. Nevertheless, both types have high carbon costs through quarrying and thermal decomposition of calcium carbonate to form quicklime (0.2-0.45 tonnes of CO2 per tonne of quicklime) [3]. Numerous other pollutants such as sulfur/nitrous oxides and carbon monoxides are also released due to the fuel required for thermal decomposition. In 2011 more than 14 million tons of PCC was consumed worldwide with the traditional production methods generating as much or more carbon dioxide than the mineral itself stores. With this in mind, we took to contacting industry representatives to gain a comprehensive overview of the calcium carbonate production technique and the previous or ongoing attempts to make the process greener. This was invaluable in helping to inform the direction of our project, as discussed here.
Our research inspired us to pursue a project with dual purpose. One that not only had environmental benefits through mitigated CO2 emissions compared to traditional production practices but one which also presented humanitarian benefits, allowing custom calcium carbonate shapes to be produced anywhere in the world. Countries that were previously limited in calcium carbonate availability due to geological reserves or issues with mineral import could sustainably produce high quality PCC with a range of potential applications in medical, environmental and cosmetic fields.
Sources
[1] Jozef M. Pacyna, Otto Rentz, D. O. (2009). 2.A.2 Lime production. EMEP/EEA Emission Inventory Guidebook, 1–18.
[2] Eurostat. (2020). Greenhouse gas emission statistics - emission inventories. Eurostat, 63(3), 175–180. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/pdfscache/30599.pdf
[3] BEIS. (2019). 2019 UK greenhouse gas emissions, provisional figures. National Statistics, March, 46. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/790626/2018-provisional-emissions-statistics-report.pdf
Silver Human Practices
The AREA Framework
The AREA framework for responsible innovation was devised by Professor Richard Owen and was foundational to the creation and evolution of our project. This framework has helped shape previous Exeter iGEM projects such as ‘Pili Plus’ in 2017 and ‘Project Perchlorate’ in 2018 contributing to both of the teams’ success in human practices. The motivation of the framework is to promote creative innovation alongside public approval and interest. The idea is to cultivate a dialogue between (in this case) research scientists and the public such that future innovation addresses the needs of the present and the future. It also ensures that research being undertaken is always in the interest of the public and is done in a way that is ethical. It aims to reduce the amount of subjectivity surrounding how to involve the public as part of the innovative process and serve as a guideline to how greater transparency between both sides can turn the process into a collective effort instead. Furthermore, the AREA framework serves as a basic guideline for scientific innovators as to what values they must uphold with their work [4].
How did we use the AREA framework?
Anticipate:
“Science never solves a problem without creating ten more” – George Bernard Shaw
The Anticipate section of the framework involves considering both the intended and non-indented potential impacts of our project on economic, environmental and social fields. Professor Sarah Hartley, an interdisciplinary social scientist, spoke with the team during the early days of the project and helped educate us on the importance of responsible innovation and circular bioeconomies (view notebook entry). She highlighted the importance of considering the wider impacts our project could have on society and why we should make information about our project easily accessible to the communities who might be impacted by our work by giving us case studies to look at and discuss over teams. From her advice we set up social media platforms to reach out to the general public, to gather the perspectives of people with varied backgrounds of scientific knowledge such that we can involve as many people as possible especially when our project is one aiming to have a global impact.
Reflect:
“The task is not so much to see what no one has yet seen but to think what nobody has yet thought about that which everyone sees” – Erwin Schrodinger
Reflecting on the purpose, motivations and potential implications of our project was important to identify areas of ignorance, uncertainties and dilemmas. Through team as well as industry/stakeholder inspired reflection, we were able to narrow down our initial ideas to a single project and ensure that it was still relevant to our chosen environmental issue. This was achieved through a series of brainstorming activities such as the production of an ‘ideas’ presentation to which we pitched our candidate ideas to other iGEM teams through a virtual meet up hosted by University of St Andrews (view notebook entry) as well as at the Coral symposium hosted by UNSW Australia. The experience of our supervisors and previous Exeter iGEMmers also proved invaluable to establishing greater project direction. (view notebook entry)
Engage
“I think it’s so vitally important that all people in this world are involved in the process of discovery” – Mae Jemison
The Engage stage of the framework seeks to identify and converse with stakeholders and industry representatives relevant to our project. Creating this dialogue meant we could use their expertise to adapt our project to the needs and requirements of those who will be affected by its outcomes. Through conversations with Professor Mike Allen, an Associate Professor of Single Cell Genomics (Plymouth Marine Laboratory/ University of Exeter) we discussed who within the industry would be interested in our research and gained wonderful insight into how to build meaningful public relationships (view notebook entry). Engagement: With the help of Dr Rebecca Hooper (view notebook entry), the director of the British Lime Association and Senior Energy and Environment Advisor at MPA, proved instrumental in determining the direction of our project where she informed us about the environmental impacts of producing precipitated calcium carbonate and the future steps the BLA are taking in order to reduce these. A primary focus of our project has been in the realm of public engagement; addressing concerns, gaps in knowledge or misunderstandings they may have had about our project. This was achieved in several ways. Firstly, we created a series of accessible and informative infographic social media posts designed to describe and explain our project to people from a zero-based science background (view notebook entry). Following the release of these we created several surveys in which we asked the general public about their thoughts, concerns and comprehension of what we were doing (view notebook entry: 1, 2). We also hosted a series of online Q&A sessions to engage in real life with our audiences (view notebook entry).
Act:
“Each of us must work for their own improvement and at the same time share a general responsibility for all of humanity” – Marie Curie
The last stage of the framework involved applying and communicating the feedback we received from the public, experts and stakeholders. This stage was critical to establish trust with the public by demonstrating our sincerity to responsible innovation and its positive broader impact on the world. We acted through creating a series of further infographics directly aiming at answering questions raised by the general public in response to our surveys and Q&A sessions (view notebook entry: 1, 2). We created a series of educational webinar lessons to further explain synthetic biology and genetic engineering to young people in which we address several concerns which were raised. Furthermore, following our conversations with experts and stakeholders, we adapted and applied the feedback to our designs. This is illustrated with the change project direction (view notebook entry) from our initial bio-concrete design to a broader calcium carbonate production technique following research into existing bio-concrete strategies and EU GMO construction guidelines.
Sources
[4] Owen, R., Stilgoe, J., Macnaghten, P., Gorman, M., Fisher, E., & Guston, D. (2013). A Framework for Responsible Innovation. Responsible Innovation: Managing the Responsible Emergence of Science and Innovation in Society, 27–50. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118551424.ch2
Engineering Design Process (EDP)
An Engineering Design Process (EDP) cycle was extremely important to our project’s engineering elements as well as to instilling long-term team objectives. This cycle was also used by the 2019 ‘PETexe’ team for the design process of their microfibre filter. The EDP cycle was formulated by NASA in their STEM engagement [5].
How did we use the EDP cycle?
Ask:
“We cannot change what we are not aware of, and once we are aware, we cannot help but change” – Sheryl Sandberg
Through asking questions to academics and field experts such as microbiologists, marine biologists and engineers we gained valuable information that informed the design of our projects genetic, hardware and software components. At the start of our project in April we learnt about the ins and outs of synthetic biology through our online Bootcamp Week. As an interdisciplinary team, this week was essential in getting everyone up to speed and gave us the opportunities to ask our supervisors questions to understand both the possibilities and limitations of our potential project. Later on in the year we reached out to academics with more specialist knowledge relating to our project, including Professor Steve Simpson (a marine biologist who studies the behaviour of fish in coral reefs) and Tim Gordon (a PhD student focusing on marine ecosystems). In these meetings we discussed existing coral reef rehabilitation strategies, their limitations and considerations we should make for the development of our 3D printed coral backbone application (view notebook entry).
Imagine:
“Imagination is more important than knowledge” – Albert Einstein
The imagine section of the cycle involved evaluating our designs in order to identify their successes and problems they present to inform subsequent design iterations (relevant notebook entries between April 22nd and June 10th). At the early stages of formulating our project, we pursued several entrepreneurial avenues we could potentially explore. The three ideas we as a team felt most strongly about were: Desulphurisation, Bioconcrete and Plastic Degradation. At the time of formulating our project aim, there was a lot of uncertainty due to COVID-19 and we were advised by our supervisors to focus on a project which involved more modelling aspects and had greater appeal to the public.
Plan:
“Good fortune is what happens when opportunity meets with planning” – Thomas Edison
Through acknowledging and analysing encountered problems, done during the Imagine stage of the cycle, we could plan a strategy to address that problem in order to devise a solution. This involved identifying what changes to the design we could make that might resolve the issue. For example, an initial idea for the design of the printer was to have a two-chambered printer where one chamber housed the bacteria and the other had a permeable boundary to allow for air to diffuse into, connected by a logic gate. The concept relied on bacterial chemotaxis and was our first attempt at attempting to implement circular bioeconomy in practice - by having two separate chambers, whilst the bacteria in the second chamber were reacting with carbon dioxide, the bacteria in the first were able to remultiply in order to allow for the printer to be in continuous use. Some quite simplistic calculations of the net speed of induced bacterial chemotaxis suggested that though in theory, this seemed like a viable idea, it does not lend itself very well to industry since chemotaxis is quite slow.
Create/Test:
“For me science is not different from art, except in the one small, crucial detail that experiments speak their own truths, not ours” – Nina Fedoroff
Creating and testing are intrinsic parts of the EDP whereby one first creates a prototype which can be later tested in a lab environment. Nevertheless, this was the most challenging part of the EDP to implement in our project due to the uncertainties involved in working in scientific research during COVID-19 and as such having to cope with having limited lab time. Our way of dealing with this has been to make sure that we can test the principles of our concept to test if the experimental outcome lines up with the modelling and theory. This method was especially prevalent when modelling hydrogels. The hydrogel team delved to a deep level in researching hydrogels and as such were able to create a model simulating the diffusion of carbon dioxide into hydrogels. The model validity was tested in a lab environment and the parameters of the model were adjusted accordingly from experimental data.
Improve:
“The biggest room in the world is the room for improvement” – Helmut Schmidt
As with the test part of the EDP, limited lab time really impacted our ability to come back to the lab in order to rerun experiments. Therefore, whenever we had the chance to be in the lab, we would anticipate what and why something would not work and we would use our time in the lab to address this as such, running simultaneous experiments to increase efficiency.
As we attempt to follow in the steps of scientific pioneers, our research led us to the conclusion that these iterative processes underpin the creation of successful technologies. With the help of those around us, each time we repeat the responsible innovation cycle we improve in all aspects of our project, both in regard to humanity and the environment.
Sources
[5] Bieniawski, Z. T., & Bieniawski, Z. T. (2020). Engineering design process. In Design Methodology in Rock Engineering (pp. 31–61).
How is our work good for the world?
One motivation behind our project was to find a way to utilise atmospheric CO2 to make a product of commercial viability. The CO2 problem has been well documented and there is already a global effort to reduce mankind’s carbon footprint. The final outcome of our work will be a method to print calcium carbonate into desired shapes where the process is carbon mitigated. Due to COVID-19 imposed lab restrictions we decided to focus our limited lab time to genetically engineering our bacteria to precipitate calcium carbonate using CO2 as a feedstock. This would be a huge step in the right direction for a future in which industry and the environment can coexist in harmony.
With a carbon neutral (and eventually negative) way of producing calcium carbonate, we will be able to apply our process to a great variety of industries due to the wide commercial use of calcium carbonate. We focused on coral preservation after having a team call with Dr Steve Simpson, a specialist in marine biology, who explained how the current methods of promoting corals to grow in the wild are quite environmentally unfriendly. During our call, we learned that concrete grids are placed on the sea/ocean floor and are used as a frame on which corals can grow. Concrete is a heavy material which is difficult and expensive to transport, emits a large amount of CO2 emissions during production, and furthermore is not a natural material to the marine ecosystem. This inspired us to focus the application of our work on making an alternative frame for corals to grow on. With that, the implications of our work for the world is that we are proposing a more environmentally friendly way of promoting coral rehabilitation in the wild which is not at a detriment to the environment at any stage of the production process.
Our project aims to contribute to the global effort for coral reef preservation. Coral reefs are incredibly important for a wide variety of reasons. An estimated 500 million people around the world depend on coral reefs for fishing and tourism, ranging from large developed countries like Australia to small island nations like Palau. Coral reefs also function as an essential part of the underwater ecosystem, acting as homes and nurseries for 25% of all marine life. Have a look at one of our educational videos to find out more about coral reefs and why they need protecting.
UK statistical analysis
We used data from the UK government about the CO2 emission from the territory of the UK and we analysed the data ourselves though UK and Global CO2 emissions modelling.
Gold (Integrated) Human Practices
In this section we elaborate on the way we’ve integrated the responsible innovation cycles with our interactions with industry experts and academics to inform the direction of CalcifEXE. We also show how our activities with public outreach has helped us make our project driven by the wider community.
Data gathering from the public – surveys
An essential element of responsible innovation is listening to the feedback, and in particular the concerns, of the public. Throughout the process of gathering data from the public, the team has ensured that all the principles and ethical considerations regarding data gathering from human participants have been followed. Since all the data gathering has been conducted on online surveys, the team has worked with our parent institution to corroborate that primary data gathering is being done correctly and ethically. Furthermore, questions in surveys have been made such that they are compliant with data protection legislations.
The main guidelines which we have made use of to inform ourselves what we need to do are:
- UK policy framework for health and social care research
- UK research integrity office code of conduct
- UNESCO code of conduct for social science research
For each survey we began by agreeing on what we wanted to learn from the public, designing the questions with this in mind. We planned the content of the surveys as well as the way we distribute them online by referring to the following priorities:
- Participants need to be given a choice when answering questions and not be obligated to answer if they do not wish to do so
- The questions need to be unbiased and not encourage one answer or another through how they are worded
- The participants' security and confidentiality need to be upheld at all times
In accordance with principle 12 from the UK policy framework for health and social care research, participants need to be given the choice on whether or not to answer a particular question. In the social science research guidelines from UNESCO; guideline 10 states that “the dignity, privacy and interests of informants must be protected at all times”. This involves not including biased or leading questions in surveys such that opinions and views willingly expressed by participants are not coerced (also stated in UNESCO guideline 12). All participant responses remain secure and in confidentiality in accordance to standard 3.7.3 outlined by the UK research integrity office. Integrity, Honesty and Accountability are upheld to great importance during data gathering and no personal information or individual opinions are disclosed in publication and review of the data. At all times, the survey was anonymous.
Because we are trying to diversify our range of participants, background data on who takes part in the survey is very important. The main factor we used in order ascertain the diversity of our participant outreach was the age of participants (this was an optional question to answer).
Being informed about the extent of the outreach of the survey is of utmost importance to any data gathering group. Nevertheless, this must be balanced with UNESCO guideline 10 as already mentioned to respect the privacy of participants and potential participants. In order to stratify our sample public response, we chose to observe the response rate from different age groups. With that in mind, we added a question which asked the anonymous participant for their age group which they can fill out if they so wish. This is of increased interest after reflection on our pilot survey where there was a disproportionate response rate from the 18-24-age group because the survey was primarily shared on social media. We wanted to investigate how a new approach to distributing the survey would affect this covariate.
Introduction to Human practices – Professor Sarah Hartley (16/06/2020)
Professor Sarah Hartley, is an interdisciplinary social scientist, scientist at the University of Exeter. Professor Hartley kindly met with the team through an online meeting in which she highlighted the importance of a circular Bioeconomy, understanding current public attitude to genetic engineering, knowing how to engage with communities and considering the societal impact on project direction.
Furthermore, her knowledge of circular bioeconomics inspired our initial printer design, bringing sustainability to the forefront of our project engineering priorities. When planning our 3-D printer we considered resource-efficiency by making use of the natural chemotaxis (diffusion) of bacteria through a diffusion gradient (see our Model page). Moreover, the printer design is sustainable because once the bacteria have diffused through the chamber and the reaction is induced, the remaining bacteria left in the primary chamber can multiply and the printer becomes primed once again to print. We also discussed the possibility to make our concept resource-efficient with the integration of recycled biomass waste in our production chain. The idea was that after using UV light to neutralise living biomass after its usage in the secondary chamber, this biomass would be used as food for the bacteria in the primary chamber. In theory this appeared to be a great concept, but experience from the 2017 Exeter iGEM team suggested that this would not work in practice.
Professor Hartley drew our attention to how, in the public domain, the discussion of genetic engineering and modification mostly revolves around food. We concluded that with our public outreach work, we were going to talk about the broader applications of genetic engineering and its benefits to society to diversify the conversation.
To truly become a community-driven project, knowledge engagement with communities is essential. However, Professor Hartley brought an article to our attention about genetic engineering for malaria control which gave us a different perspective of how best to involve the public. One of the key points of the article was that the public places greater trust in domestic research and one of the key ways in which to promote genetic engineering around the world is through education and resources. The current co-development approach in sub-Saharan Africa is one where the public does not feel disassociated from the work being done for genetic engineering and researchers thereafter depend on community consent in order to continue their work. Considering the future of CalcifEXE and the application of placing our coral backbones underwater in coral reef restoration areas, we will work with local communities to ensure community values and feedback informs the reef restoration process.
Coral call – Professor Steve Simpson (21/07/2020)
Professor Steve Simpson is a marine biologist and fish ecologist at the University of Exeter, with interests in the behaviour of coral reef fishes, bioacoustics, effects of climate change on marine ecosystems, fisheries, conservation and management. Professor Simpson provided us with a wealth of knowledge on current methods for aiding coral development, a background to corals and how we could optimise our backbone design to support a diverse range of coral reef ecosystem members.
Professor Simpson explained to us that the current methods for aiding coral development in the wild was to place concrete frames onto which corals can attach and grow. He brought to our attention the fact that concrete is not natural to the marine environment and that it is quite expensive to transport due to being heavy. From our research from before the call, we already knew that there is a lot of CO2 as a product of the production of concrete and if we can make the net CO2 output of our process smaller than the current methods, our process would be favourable.
We learnt that corals require specific environmental conditions to grow, which is why restoration of coral reefs can prove difficult; with that our project has additional merit as corals are mainly made up of calcium carbonate. Professor Simpson also explained a process called microskinning, which involves breaking the coral into smaller bits then spreading over a larger premade structure to help them grow faster. He believed that printing these structures using our production method could be used alongside microskinning for coral reef restoration. The structures are large, so we could print smaller pieces in shapes that would allow them to be pieced together. Dr Jamie Craggs is doing work around this idea with 'stickle brick' structures [6].
Another important insight was that the corals have many holes which house small animals. Marine plants also grow on corals, so for the printing process we need to ensure that the printed calcium carbonate is not smooth. After we explained how we intended on using a hydrogel in our printer, Professor Simpson informed us that our hydrogel cannot be one that decomposes into fragments (pseudo plastic) as that can harm the marine wildlife. He suggested that we engineer the hydrogel such that it could act as a food source as well as a structure. Where corals grow, the UV light is high, so if the hydrogel is not consumable by marine life precautions need to be taken to ensure it would not break down.
Following the call with Professor Simpson, we learned from further research that coral reefs can be divided into 3 distinct groups:
- Warm-water coral reefs
- Low light coral reefs (Mesophotic) (40-150m below sea level)
- Cold water coral reefs (2000m< below sea level)
Warm-water coral reefs thrive in warmer conditions and in alkaline conditions. Their rate of calcification is much higher than coral reefs at different sea depths. Alarmingly, there is data to suggest that coupled with human activities such as over-harvesting and polluting, climate change is a leading cause for why some believe that all warm-water coral reefs will be eliminated by 2040-2050.
Although coral reefs make up less than 0.1% of the ocean floor, upwards of 25% marine species depend on the tropical coral reef ecosystems. However, due to climate change, tropical coral reefs have declined by around 50% over the past 30-50 years.
Sources
[6] Project Coral - Horniman Museum and Gardens. (n.d.). (Bieniawski & Bieniawski, 2020; Project Coral - Horniman Museum and Gardens, n.d.)
Science communication call – Tim Gordon (24/07/2020)
Tim Gordon, a PhD student studying the human impacts on natural acoustics in the ocean spoke with the team about our plans for science communication at the University of Exeter.
In regard to social media, Mr Gordon advised us to prioritise making an impact on the people that we connect with. We decided that the content that would be valuable to our audience consists of regular updates of our work alongside educational infographics. Social media was also a means of reaching out to other iGEM teams. By collaborating with more teams, we were able to promote each other’s work on social media (view notebook entry). Mr Gordon also recommended using our audience to gain feedback which could inform our project and the direction of our social media content by using questionnaires (view notebook entry: 1, 2, 3).
Mr Gordon brought to our attention that our audience is primarily one of young people and consequently we will have age bias. Also, we are trying to make our project community-driven, yet much of our audience already belongs to the scientific community. That way it was brought to our attention that our data would not be completely representative of the population.
During data gathering, we also found the problem of missing data. To deal with this we formulated the survey questions such that any missing data that occurs is most likely to be missing completely at random as this ensures there is no bias. We employed the strategy of multiple imputation where we put the survey on multiple online platforms, combining the different sets of data into a more complete result.
We discussed with Mr Gordon the importance of having multiple audiences. He agreed that to reach a diverse audience we need to have a range of strategies to engage different groups of people. With this in mind, our educational videos for sixth form students had a different, less in-depth style compared to our presentations for University students. Our infographics were more simplified, to suit the short form content most suitable for social media. Before our meeting with Mr Gordon we were considering the idea of writing a children’s book. After sharing this idea with him he encouraged us to pursue it, to reach another different audience.
Science communication call – Jenny Rusk (24/07/2020)
We spoke to Ms Jenny Rusk (impact and partnership development officer at the University of Exeter) who advised the team on how to tailor educational videos to specific target audiences. The first thing highlighted to us was that the videos for sixth form students should be as short and concise as possible. She suggested explaining what studying different areas of science can lead to as a career and to get them enthusiastic about the applications of various fields. We acted on her advice by planning our video content to use the interdisciplinary backgrounds of our team to their advantage. Subject specialists are best suited to explaining their area of study as they are naturally enthusiastic about that themselves. The videos also open the opportunity to broaden our public outreach, so we added our team details to them so that viewers have a way to get in touch with any questions they have about the videos or our project.
Project discussion call – Professor Mike Allen (12/08/2020)
During our call with Professor Allen we spoke about how best we can apply our project to Coral preservation . We discussed our current ideas about how to apply our project to coral preservation, building on the advice that we received from other leading academics in the preceding calls. Professor Allen was enthusiastic about our project ambition, motivation and direction. He recommended colleagues of his as well as companies who may be able to help us with the development of the project.
After the team explained how we intended to introduce CARPs (Coral Acid Rich Proteins) to our bacteria (see our design page for more information on CARPs), he recommended that we bring our project to the attention of Protein Technologies ltd.
Professor Allen also spoke to us about the importance of building public relations in order to increase the popularity of our project in the public domain. This is particularly important since interest in industry considers public enthusiasm. We had already started to consideration earlier on in the project timeline, but this discussion highlighted the need for maintaining public relations throughout the project, not just at the start.
Crystal Morphologies and Website Help - Dr Sam Stevens (17/08/2020)
Dr Sam Stevens (University of Exeter) provided the team with advice regarding which method of crystal morphology identification would be best suited to our project. He informed us that in order to confirm that our crystals where either aragonite, calcite or vaterite we would have to use a powder XRD machine, and that while light microscopy was good as an initial confirmation method, we would have to use a more robust technique further down the line. In regard to wiki design and planning, Dr Stevens explained that the best way to go about building a concise but detailed wiki was to start broad, then refine the design and content over time rather than making the wiki concise to begin with. He also stressed the importance of using relevant graphics that are effective in the overall context of the page.
Our project in industry – Dr Rebecca Hooper (21/08/2020)
We spoke with Dr Hooper, the British Lime Association Director and Senior Energy and Environment Advisor at MPA to learn all about the work being done by the BLA (British Limestone Association). The BLA is the overarching body over other companies which are in the Lime and Limestone industry. Dr Hooper informed us of the BCCF (British Calcium Carbonate Foundation) which produces calcium carbonate. Their method involves taking the Lime from the BLA and then carbonating it in order to produce calcium carbonate. The two bodies are looking into ways to reduce emissions and optimise their processes. Dr Hooper told us that currently they are looking to convert to Hydrogen as a fuel source as well as carbon capture methods. To help our understanding, she elaborated on the two different types of limestone that prevail in their industry; Mined Limestone (which is quarried) and Precipitated Limestone. Precipitated limestone is where our project would be most applicable. The market for precipitated limestone is a more specialised market (but more high-value market) because this limestone is of greater purity and is therefore used in toothpaste and cosmetics.
Dr Hooper gave us an introduction to EUETS (European Union Emissions Trading Scheme) which is critical to their industry. Lime is automatically covered by the EUETS. With the combination of the EUETS and the fact that carbonisation occurs over time, the company process is already considered to be balanced (zero carbon emissions). Post Brexit the EUETS will be replaced with the UKCTS (United Kingdom Carbon Trading Scheme). Dr Hooper was very interested in our more immediate carbon capture method as a means for carbon-negative production.
Finally, she told us that all the calcium carbonate which is either refined or used as a raw material is sourced from the UK and that the UK has a very varied geology. Our novel process would be very useful to areas in the world where there is not such a variety of raw materials, because our process is not limited by local geology. It was also mentioned that since the burning of raw materials is obsolete to our Calcium Carbonate production method, other harmful by-products such as Sulphur compounds as well as Nitrous Oxide are not added to the environment.
UNSW Coral Symposium (24/09/2020)
The ‘CalcifEXE’ team presented our project to other iGEM teams and experts as well as over 40 members of the global scientific community as part of the iGEM Coral Symposium (organised by the University of New South Wales iGEM team) on the 24th September at 10am BST/7PM AEST.
As part of this we delivered a 15-minute presentation outlining our project, followed by a question and answer session where we answered many questions from those in attendance. There were questions surrounding the process by which we came up with our idea as well as the impact we think COVID-19 has had on our project. The feedback we received was that attendees were “encouraged” and “amazed” by our project and the innovation behind it. It was incredibly rewarding to share synthetic biology approaches to tackling problems facing coral reefs, and it was encouraging to receive such positive feedback at the end of the event.
