In times of the COVID-19 pandemic human-to-human contact can be described as difficult to nearly impossible to carry out for non-school educational purposes. Defying these limiting circumstances, we developed methods that allowed us to communicate with the general public – by successfully doing all of this online. This way we made sure to remain safe and healthy and do our part to prevent the spread of the virus. We are aware that this digital approach to education is more likely to reach younger audiences, but we tried our best to include a wide range of age groups into our efforts, as described below.
To begin with, we started a survey to understand what kind of image SynBio has in today's society. We shared the survey on several platforms so that people from all walks of life could access the survey. This way we also learned new things by looking at the opinion and knowledge about SynBio within Germany: A major part of the respondents were not a hundred percent sure what to expect when presented with terms like genetically modified organism (GMO) or synthetic biology. Although some people may have concerns regarding implementing GMOs in areas like wastewater treatment, the majority sees a future for the use of GMOs. If you want to find more about the information we gained through the survey, you can visit our Human Practices Page. Based on the survey, we started a livestream with iGEM Kaiserslautern in which we talked about what we learned and drew some attention to the promising world of SynBio. The livestream has given us an opportunity to interact directly with people from all over Germany and establish a dialogue with new communities. In this way we were able to educate about general safety concepts and our kill switch, as well as get invaluable feedback about these topics. We found out that many viewers had a general interest in SynBio, but were lacking any deeper knowledge, which we tried to remedy as best as we could. For example, it wasn’t clear to some of our viewers, that waste water treatment plants are currently not able to filter out certain micropollutant without any problems. We chose German as the language of communication because we wanted to make a difference locally and the attitude towards biotechnology is often based on missing knowledge within Germany.
For the same reason, we also chose a German-language podcast. Using the title "Genomenal – Ein Haufen Zellen redet über Biotech" (Genomenal – a bunch of cells talks about biotech) we address topics such as ethics in biotechnology, legal issues or even iGEM as a competition in itself. We refer to our project as well as to other topics in synthetic biology by discussing the opportunities and above all the risks SynBio offers. It was important for us not only to report on the positive aspects of SynBio, but also to put any negative aspects into the right context. The podcast is published on Spotify because we wanted to create a medium that is easy to use and provides a permanent access even in the future. The podcast thus provides information for all interested parties who may become involved in the world of SynBio. It was important to us to include listener’s feedback and interact with our listeners, which is why we included a way of possible communication by listing our teams mail address in every episode description. Because we wanted to make our work as transparent and accessible for future generations who may want to continue our work or come up with their own podcast, we created a guideline on “how to podcast”, which helps with topics like the selection of technical equipment or how to build up your own RSS-feed.
Science is something for every member of our society, which is why we have thought of a way to give younger people access to SynBio. Together with Aleksa Zečević we programmed a jump-and-run computer game called "The Genomal Adventures of Dr. W" (click here to download) in accordance with our podcast. The main character, a scientist, has to master seven levels in which he is confronted with tasks from everyday laboratory life. In this way, we playfully arouse interest, even among the youngest members of our society.
It was also particularly important for us to appeal to upper school students separately, as they are in a period of life that will have an extreme impact on their later professional life. For this reason, we worked together with the Kurt-Schumacher-School in Karben. We hosted a zoom call with an advanced course in biology at this school in which we introduced biotechnology as a subject of study. We answered questions about our studies, gave tips and tricks that we have collected in our daily study life and introduced iGEM and our project. In this way we paved the way for students to get involved in synthetic biology.
In addition to everything presented above, we have published our own article in the BIO Spektrum, a german, scientific journal. The BIO Spektrum is linked to many German Societys such as the GBM, VAAM, GfG or DPGT and reaches around 15 000 readers monthly. This enabled us to reach out to established scientist or even just people who have a greater interest in SynBio, who we have never thought of contacting by ourselves, but who turned out to help us take our project even further. For example, Prof. Dr. Möller, astromicrobiologist at the German Aerospace Center, has reached out to us as a direct result from publishing in the BIO Spektrum. If you want to find more about this, you can visit out Integrated Human Practices. We talked to him about possible implementation scenarios of our biofilm in aerospace and how we would have to adjust our project to enable the usage e.g. aboard the ISS (international space station).
Our efforts include teaching others about SynBio, but also learning ourselves: scientific knowledge is a valuable good and you don’t need to be a scientist to develop a deeper understanding and begin to shape a world of SynBio. We have built up a system of safe, informative and generations-spanning possibilities to enthuse others for science and establish new opportunities. And all this, despite facing a global pandemic and having restricted possibilities especially in human contact. We still managed to come up with ideas and enjoyed including feedback into our work (for example with our podcast or with other iGEM Team’s we have collaborated with), creating conversations and therefore mutual learning. The projects we built up are a basis for future iGEM generations, who may want to continue our work.

We have led conversations with various stakeholders who were able to stress their doubts and apprehensions about our project, especially regarding safety concerns. Considering that we are working with genetically modified organisms, it was important to ensure the containment of our biofilm system. To seize control over our biofilm, we developed a kill switch system in order to attain a secure use, as Dr. Ulrich Ehlers from the Federal Office for Consumer Protection and Food Safety suggested. For a complete review on the input he gave, please click here.

In the matter of safety and ethics, we also turned to experts in this field like Prof. Dr. Sibylle Gaisser from the department of industrial biotechnology at the Hochschule Ansbach. Following her recommendations, we created a safety form with the goal to prevent a misuse of our biofilm (dual use issue), and also constructed a safety sheet meant for the wastewater treatment employees in order to educate them for their safety. For a more detailed review of Prof. Dr. Gaisser’s input, click here.

With Prof. Dr. Alfred Nordmann and Prof. Dr. Andres Jürgens we investigated the question of how to develop an ethically justifiable project and the steps toward it. We summarized all of our ethical considerations on an extra page, click here.

Dipl. Ing. Udo Bäuerle, an engineer specialized on the planning of WWTPs, elucidated us on the reoccurring problems considering commonly used procedures like ozonolysis and the use of active carbon in wastewater treatment plants – assuring us that a project like ours would be helpful. Click here for more information on him.

Another aspect we focused on, besides safety, was the proper disposal of pharmaceuticals like diclofenac. There would be considerably less water contamination trough drugs if our society was aware of the proper disposal, to begin with. As we were told by Dr. Patrick Schröder from the German Environment Agency, private households are the primary and main source of drugs in wastewater treatment plants. Hence, we went on and translated the key aspects of the flyer regarding proper disposal of pharmaceuticals from the German Federal Agency into English to achieve a sensibility at an international level. We are convinced that this will also enhance the awareness towards other substances such as ibuprofen or hormones like estrogen, which in addition to diclofenac can be dismantled by our laccase. For a complete review of our interview with Dr. Patrick Schröder, please click here. Last but not least, Prof. Dr. Jörg Oehlmann, an aquatic ecotoxicologist from the Goethe University in Frankfurt, also called attention to other degradable substances like 17-alpha-estradiol and bisphenol A - in addition to carbamazepine and the few others, as mentioned before. To read more about his input, click here.

The input we gathered confirmed our initial perception of the danger diclofenac poses to the environment and that there is need of a project like ours. It was also brought to our attention how broad the substrate specificity of the laccases is and that they are also capable of rendering other substances less toxic, like ibuprofen or carbamazepine. Furthermore, Prof. Dr. Susanne Lackner (head of the department of sewage management at the TU Darmstadt) gave us recommendations on the use of biofilm carriers regarding their material and maintenance, plus offering us to send us samples. A bacterial strain of B. subtilis was offered to us as well by courtesy of Prof. Dr. Jörg Stülke. For a complete review of his input, click here. To read more about the input Prof. Dr. Lackner gave us, click here.

Not only did our experts draw attention to other substances we could focus on, but did also confirm some of our approaches, such as the knockout of both sinR and σ^F that regulates the sporulation of B. subtilis. The knockout of both of those genes would eventually make our biofilm more resilient, but would not spare the need of a kill switch. In addition, the abundance of the fusion protein TasA would guarantee an adequate display of our laccases in the biofilm matrix, as it was confirmed by PhD. Yunrong Chai from the Northeastern University in Boston. To read more about his input, click here.

Another highlight during our expert interviews was undeniably our conversation with Prof. Dr. Ralf Möller from the Space Microbiology group at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) in Cologne. He inspired us to broaden our horizon by considering a possible implementation of our biofilm in space. Not only did he confirm our kill switch to be a suitable biocontainment measure but did also draw our attention to the fact that an overexpression of TasA could be utilized for the biomining of rare earth elements in space. This turned out particularly surprising, as it could be applied for asteroid mining in the future. Prof. Dr. Möller also pointed out how promising of an employment our biofilm would be for the wastewater purification in a space station and how it could replace currently existing methods. Thanks to him, we have been encouraged to envision potential applications in space travel. For a more detailed review, click here.

We have managed to reach lots of experts from different fields and departments in order to optimise our project idea and bring it closer to realization and an implementation. Hence, we are immensely grateful to each and every one who has helped and guided us towards the final concept as it is.

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