Team:TU Kaiserslautern/Human Practices
Human Practices
An international health crisis forced us all to reshape our everyday lives, safety demanding the real become digital. We had to rethink and found solutions to reach a wider audience via digital events. Three livestreams and a podcast are the result, which we both began independently and formed collaborations on with other iGEM teams to support our communities. We performed surveys to gage the current opinions of micropollutants and GMOs and presented our project in various newspapers to better understand and promote awareness in the public.
Integrated Human Practice
During the course of our project, we proactively reached out to experts to help shape our experimental design and understand how to best implement our model in the real world. We chose experts in science, law, and engineering, both in the academic and industrial fields to create a well-rounded collection of advice and information. With all the following experts, we offered each team we collaborated with the chance to send in questions during our interviews, which you will find linked in the below sections, alongside key quotes, recommendations, important details and records of our interviews.
Experimental Design Experts
In this section you will find experts who helped us improve the design of our experiments through advice and information.
Dr. Dietmar Schlosser
Group Leader Environmental Mycology at the Department of Environmental Microbiology, Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research - UFZ Expertise: LaccasesFind them here: https://www.ufz.de/index.php?de=39080Helped us with: Advice on different algae laccases, optimal growth conditions and lab advice.
Dr. Dietmar Schlosser
Implementation Experts
In the following section you will find the experts who helped us understand the organization of the wastewater treatment system, explained the hurtles of real-world implementation for our project and advised us how to overcome these limitations through future work and data collection. Find our plan for implementation here .
Dr. Ulrich Ehlers
Head of Unit 403 Deliberate Release and Placing on the Market of Genetic Engineering department of the Federal Office of Consumer Protection and Food Safety (BVL) Expertise: Genetic engineering regulations in GermanyFind them here: https://www.bvl.bund.de/EN/Tasks/06_Genetic_engineering/genetic_engineering_node.html
Dr. Ulrich Ehlers
Manager of tectra and Division manager of wastewater treatment and water quality at Technical University of Kaiserslautern Expertise: Engineering and wastewater managementFind them here: https://www.bauing.uni-kl.de/en/wir/team/leadership/dr-ing-henning-knerr/
Dr.-Ing. Henning Knerr
Village of Archbold Wastewater Superintendent Expertise: American Wastewater Treatment PlantFind them here: http://archbold.com/wastewater/
Mike Short
Human Practice Experts
In the following section you will find the experts who helped us with human practice and educating the masses. With interviews, tours, and panel discussions to encourage discussion, we used these resources to help inform both our local community in Kaiserslautern and those around the world. Find more details on education page and the Livestream below.
Dan Avers
Village of Archbold Water Distribution Chief Expertise: American Water Treatment PlantFind them here: http://archbold.com/water/
Dan Avers
Environmental Risk Assessment of Pharmaceuticals in German Environment Agency (UBA), EDA-EMERGE Advisory Board Member Expertise: German micropollutants and environmental effectsFind them here: https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/themen/chemikalien/arzneimittel
Dr. Gerd Maack
Livestreams
Livestream 1 In the first live stream, we wanted to give everyone the opportunity to get into our project and the related subject area. That is why we have explained our project in a simple way so that everyone can understand it. Link to our first Livestream As you can see the interview is shortened. If you are interested in learning more, you can find it at our integrated human practices page.
Viewers responded well, stating 'the game at the end was so funny,' 'the interview is so interesting, where can I watch the complete interview' and even asked further questions over how to properly separate their rubbish. An example was asked if it is okay to throw the leftover medicines into the bin, as the person had been advised by a pharmacist to do so. We explained that most medicines can be thrown into the bin and just only special medications have to be brought back to the pharmacist, however not every pharmacist can collect these at all locations. So this shows us that our community recognized the waste problem in the environment and saw the importance of our project. Livestream 2 In the second livestream we focused more on genetic engineering. In order to keep in touch with experts for micropollutants and wastewater treatment, we interviewed an employee of the Federal Environment Agency of Dessau-Roßlau. This time, we had a great discussion with Dr. Gerd Maack who answered our questions.We also informed our viewers about the basics of biotechnology and plasmids and why they are key to our work. Livestream 3 and podcast Our final livestream and podcast were performed in cooperation with other teams to both reach out to the greater German community and bring a more personal conversation over synthetic biology to the people. Read more about it on our collaboration page.
Survey
Awareness is a critical component to tackle a global problem, because if the public isn't aware of the problem, if they do not see or recognize it as such, there is no way to begin finding solutions. The need to educate the population is great one. It was important for us to see how great the knowledge gap over micropollutant pollution and genetic engineering in society is. So we created a survey over these topics. We spread it over our social media accounts (ie. Instagram, Twitter and Whatsapp) to reach as many persons as possible, yet still remain safely COVID19 compliant (n = 153).
The survey demonstrated that the problem of micropollutant pollution is viewed as a low risk that (depending on the person) may or may not need more attention. Most of the participants were aware of the micropollutant load in sewage and would like to see more focus on the problem (Fig. 3). They also want a solution to the problem through more efficient cleaning processes of micropollutants from wastewater (Fig. 4).
On the other hand, most participants are not familiar with genetic engineering. Nearly everyone had heard or read about it previously (Fig. 5), however it can be assumed that knowledge is limited to the information disseminated by the media and that only the most media-present applications are in the public consciousness. This means that since genetic engineering is becoming more and more prevalent method, broader society must be given as much detailed knowledge as possible to assess opportunities and risks into perspective to form a well informed opinion.
Despite the half-knowledge of the participants, opportunities for genetic engineering are seen in almost all areas and especially in medicine (Fig. 7). However, it is very important for the participants to first examine any genetic changes through long-term studies for negative effects on the environment or human health. The GMOs should not be released into the environment and should be strictly controlled. In addition, the participants see ethical issues as a potential problem (Answers to Fig. 8).
The risks of our project are not rated as high as long as the entire process are well controlled and tested, and the genetically modified green algae do not end up in the environment (Answers to Fig. 9).
Question 1: Gender
Fig. 1: Gender of the participants in percentage. From the participants that indicated their gender, an equal amount of men and women participated.
Fig. 2: Age of the participants in percentage. Most of the participants that indicated their age were between 21 and 30 years old. This could be biased due to sharing the survey on social media.
Fig. 3: Assessed risk of micropollutant pollution in percentage. About a half of the participants assess micropollutant pollution as a risk which needs more attention. This demonstrates that the problem is largely known. PDF Answers: click here
Fig. 4: The need for a process of cleaning up micropollutants in percentage. About half of the participants require a process to clean up micro-pollutants.
Fig. 5: Self-assessment of prior knowledge of genetic engineering in percentage. Almost half of the participants have heard of or read about it. Almost 19 % are familiar with genetic engineering and work in this sector as shown in the answers. PDF Answers: click here
Fig. 6: Opinion on the question whether genetic engineering should be used more in different areas. Most of the participants have the opinion to use genetic engineering as a methodology in some areas for faster progress. Almost 18 % say, that genetic engineering should only be used in exceptions. Against that 17 % see genetic engineering methodology that should be introduced in all areas possible. As the answers show, participants care a lot about controlled and well tested use.PDF Answers: click here
Fig. 7: Fields where participants see potential advantages of genetic engineering in percentage. The participants see advantages in nearly every area, especially in medicine and environmental issues. PDF Answers: click here
Fig. 8: Risks of genetic engineering. Almost 45 % of participants commented this question. Most see ethical problems or fear an uncontrolled spread of GMOs, which will have a negative impact on the environment or human health. PDF Answers: click here
Fig. 9: Risks participants fear if we add enzymes produced by green algae to the water on the sewage treatment plant to purify micropollutants after the completion of our project. Almost 39 % of the participants answered this question. Most don´t see much risks if we first make sure the GMOs won´t come in contact with the environment. PDF Answers: click here
Public Relations
Our first newspaper article was published in May in the 'Rheinpfalz'. The interview with Benjamin Ginkel was conducted with Emily Becker, Nicolas Freche and Helena Schäfer and published in the district Kaiserslautern. Because of Barbara Scheifele, it was also possible to publish the article in the ‘Rheinpfalz’ in the district Kusel. It was an overview of the background, the goal, and the organization of our project. We also advertised our first donation livestream there. To read the full article click here
We were invited to make a contribution to the journal ‘BIOspektrum’. For this, Helena Schäfer wrote a text about the prevailing environmental problem, on which we based our project, about the background and goals of our project and the methods that we use to realize the project. The whole thing was published in an iGEM collection page in edition 05/20 of the journal ‘Biospectrum’ organized by Dr. Claudia Ludy. To read the full article click here
Julia Reichelt from the journal 'Unispectrum' interviewed Linda Müller and Helena Schäfer about our project and published it their page on 20.08.2020. It was about the background, goal and realization of the project, as well as the personal approach to various topics and developments throughout. The interview was also used as a basis to apply for the 'Molecular Biology' course for the winter semester 2020/21. To read the full article click here
