Difference between revisions of "Team:TU Darmstadt/Education"

Latest revision as of 17:49, 26 October 2020

Introduction Survey Podcast Minigame BIOspektrum magazine article Livestream School Visit

Biotechnology - What is it and what does it mean?

These questions are probably asked by many, especially younger people. But even older age groups might find themselves in unprecedented circumstances when they are presented with terms such as enzyme, gene or plasmid. Keeping this in mind, we have made it our task to evoke some long overdue change in this respect. For this, we developed several projects that all contribute to a better understanding of synthetic biology (SynBio). Admittedly, science communication is not only a topic in SynBio, but of all other sciences as well, but we decided to lay our focus on what we know best.

We tried to reach the widest possible audience with our projects. In order to achieve this, first of all we had to gain an overview of the already existing knowledge in the minds of the broad masses which we managed to accomplish by an online survey with 292 participants. We have also taken up this issue in a livestream on social media which we carried out together with the iGEM Team Kaiserslautern, in order to publicly provide further information about topics of synthetic biology for those interested.

We also created a podcast called "Genomenal" which is aimed at people of all ages who would like to learn more about biotechnology and iGEM. "Genomenal" can be found on Spotify, our university website and on our wiki. We have also thought of something for the younger part of society. Together with Aleksa Zecevic, we have developed a minigame called "The Genomenal Adventures of Dr. W", which introduces biological practices in a playful and amusing way.

Last but not least, we also wanted to explicitly address students in the upper grades who might be thinking about a future career pathway in biology.Therefore, we have worked together with the Kurt-Schumacher-Schule in Karben. For this school, we hosted a zoom call in which we introduced the topic of iGEM to an advanced course for biology. We reported about our experiences and gave tips regarding our studies of biology and chemistry with the hope to enthuse them for scientifical studies.

Our Survey – the basis for our Science Communication

We wanted to find out the reasons for concerns regarding synthetic biology and GMOs, because we think that many of these are based on lacking knowledge. Therefore, we created a survey and reached almost 300 people. What does the public know about synthetic biology? Do they have a clue what is behind this term? What advantages and, more importantly, what risks do they think of when they hear this term?

Besides that, we were curious how the public estimates the problem of micropollutants in our waters and what they think of our solution. By doing this survey we also tried to reach awareness for these topics into people’s daily lives.

Results:

While about 80 percent can imagine what a genetically modified organism is, only 53 percent have an idea what synthetic biology is. When asked if they have ever been in contact with a GMO before, almost one quarter answered that they don’t know. We specified the question by asking if they had ever consumed something that was produced by using GMOs. The number of participants who were not sure about that was not much lower. As these numbers are quite high and regarding that the 292 people we reached are no perfectly representative sample, there is a task we get from our survey. One part of our project involved science communication. We aimed to reach more people not related to our university or scientific work. We focused on projects like our podcast "Genomenal" and our minigame "Genomenal Adventures of Dr.W" to reach as many people as possible.

At least 90 percent of all participants told us that they definitely see a threat in the wastewater pollution by pharmaceutical residues. By asking if they think it’s alright to bring a GMO into a wastewater treatment plant, we found that about 70 percent have concerns regarding this idea or at least would not agree completely. Following this question, we asked these participants the same question but under the condition that our GMO will leave the waste water treatment plant under no circumstances. By this addition we were able to lower the disagreement. Only 45 percent of the interviewees still had concerns.

In the end of our survey we asked them about advantages they see in synthetic biology. About 80 percent of the participants told us that they see future applications especially in environmental protection and medicine. Since there was also the option ‘in none of these areas’ this result leaves us in a positive mood!

Our Podcast Genomenal

Creating a Podcast

Due to the Covid 19 pandemic, we were limited in our ability to conduct science communication by directly talking to people. In the last couple of years, podcasts have become more popular and are above all a medium to reach a wide range of audiences. Consequently, we decided to create a podcast early on in our project.

Furthermore, we chose the podcast as a way to familiarize people with the topics of genetic engineering and biotechnology, especially those who are not yet familiar with them or have many unanswered questions and/or concerns.
Primarily, our goal was to reach the audience that would profit most from the information provided by the podcast. During our research, we stumbled upon a study that shows exactly which group is most relevant to us: Namely the German population as a whole.

The Nature Consciousness Study appears every two years and presents public opinion of the German population towards nature and genetic engineering (especially in the segment agriculture). In the field of genetic engineering, a clear majority of those surveyed in 2019, namely 95 percent, believe that possible effects on nature should be investigated and 81 percent are in favor of a ban on genetically modified organisms in agriculture. 63 percent are concerned that the consequences of new genetic engineering processes cannot be predicted. It is said that this the percentages and thus the mindset have been about the same since the surveys began^[1].

It was especially important for us to reach the German population with our podcast, as they obviously have some concerns about genetic engineering in general. This is also the reason why the podcast is only available in German. Although some German listeners would have probably listened to an English podcast and the episodes could have additionally been heard by people speaking other languages, we wanted to make it as accessible as possible for Germans specifically to get to the mentioned information.

We also decided to use Spotify as a platform for our podcast. As an addendum to the website of our university, all episodes are available on Spotify. Besides the opportunity to reach more people with this platform, Spotify enables us to get information about our listeners.

Each of our podcast episodes consists of a conversation between two members of our or other iGEM teams and the constellation changes with each episode. In this way, you not only experience different types of discussion, but at the same time also get to know some members of our team.

We apologize in advance for all those who still would have liked to listen to our podcast. We have summarized the content of each episode in English, so that you can have a look at the topics that are discussed and what the key aspects of each episode are.

Episodes Themes and why we chose them

The series of episodes that make up our podcast covers a wide range of themes in biotechnology and genetic engineering. The idea is to provide an overview of the various fields of biotechnology and in this way, to introduce the listener to the most important topics briefly and concisely. After an introduction episode we started with the legal framework of genetic engineering, followed by episodes about the different colors of biotechnology. The iGEM competition itself as well as our project are presented in further episodes. Furthermore, we talked about ethics and responsible research and even produced one episode about the CRISPR technology.

We have chosen these topics because they give a good overview of biotechnology, genetic engineering and all the areas related to these themes. Concerns that are often expressed by study participants and interviewees find a place in the podcast episodes, where they are addressed, discussed and in most cases clarified. This way, a person who starts the series of episodes with little to no previous knowledge of the topics can then explain and understand these subjects to a greater extent afterwards.
Links to the episodes can be found underneath the corresponding episode descriptions.

Episode 1: Introducing our podcast

The first episode of our podcast “Genomenal” set the base for our science series on biotechnology. We created this podcast in terms of science communication with the goal to help anyone outside the biotechnology community understand all the perks and versatilities of this field. The first episode serves as an introduction to the origin of this project and its background. Our first two speakers offer a first glimpse of the topic of biotechnology – trying to explain basic terms such as “genes”, “genome” and “enzyme” understandably.

Following topics like the colors of biotechnology or an eventual episode on iGEM are mentioned to encourage the audience to keep listening to the series. In hopes of achieving that goal, the first episode leaves an open end, with topics left for further discussion.

Click here to listen to this episode.

Episode 2: Genetic engineering and genetically engineered organisms - What is the law saying?

In the second episode of our educational podcast "Genomenal" we deal with the legal framework and laws that play an important role in the field of genetic engineering.

At the beginning, we repeat some analogies and terms from the first episode, e.g. "genome" or "gene". This helps to keep the audience interested at the beginning of the series despite the many difficult technical terms. By the example of insulin, we explain the transmission of genetic information between different organisms. In the past, this hormone was extracted from the pancreas of pigs to treat diabetes. Nowadays, insulin is produced with genetically modified organisms (GMOs) by providing the necessary "blueprints" needed to produce the substance^[2].

Furthermore, we present the safety levels for biolaboratories in detail and we also chat about our own experiences. The levels range from S1 to S4 and depend on the risk to humans and the environment posed by the organisms being worked with in the respective laboratory. Yoghurt bacteria are an example of level S1, Ebola viruses are found in S4 laboratories^[3]. Next, we address the German Genetic Engineering Act and the legal framework conditions, e.g. for the release of genetically modified organisms, which in most cases are plants^[3]. In principle, only one GMO plant is approved in the EU, namely MON810 corn, and only a few countries actually cultivate it. In Germany, there have been no more releases since 2012 and cultivation is generally prohibited today. Interestingly enough, 50 plants are approved for import into Germany^[4].

Finally, we talk about food labelling, what the "without genetic engineering" seal actually means and why "with genetic engineering" stickers are not common in German or other supermarkets around the world.

Click here to listen to this episode.

Episode 3: Enzymes in laundry powder and genetically modified potatoes - What are white and green biotechnology?

In the third episode of our podcast we are talking about white and green biotechnology. After a general explanation about the various notations with colors for the different areas of biotechnology, we are addressing white biotechnology in detail.

This field deals with the industrial production of chemicals and components with optimized enzymes, cells and microorganisms^[5]. The aim of white biotechnology is to generate new and sustainable production processes^[6]. As an example, we explain how enzymes for washing agents are being produced using microorganisms by supplying them with genetic information via plasmid transfer^[7]. Afterwards, we move on to green biotechnology which is roughly about plants and how to optimize them^[8]. Already in the 20th century people started to breed plants with the favored characteristics, like big size or sweet fruits. Nowadays there are way more possibilities to optimize plants and modify their genomes^[9]. As an example, we introduce the amflora potato in which the production of amylose is genetically knocked out and only amylopectin starch is produced^[10]. This engineered potato species was developed by BASF and grown in Germany between 2010 and 2012^[10]. Furthermore, we are talking about the MON810-corn produced by Monsanto 1998^[11]. The genome of this corn is modified so that the plant is producing a Bt-toxin which is toxic to certain insects^[11].

In the end, we are answering some more questions about green biotechnology, for example, if genetically modified plants could interbreed with other plants or if they could have an impact on bees.

Click here to listen to this episode.

Episode 4: Artificial hearts and less animal experiments - What does red biotechnology mean for the future?

This episode is a continuation of the third episode, which was about green and white biotechnology^[12].

Red biotechnology deals with medical issues and specifically focusses on the detection and treatment of abounding diseases^[13]. We aimed to give the audience a better understanding of this topic by mentioning diabetes as an exemplary disease. To demonstrate the benefits of red biotechnology, we talk about how insulin can be produced by microorganisms rather than using a porcine or bovine pancreas^[14]. This way, we want to convey the perks biotechnology brings not only to humans but also to animals. Following this topic, we talk about how it has already been achieved to engineer a beating rat heart^[15] and that this field is called tissue engineering. Thereby, we can show how much potential lies in this area and that it would eventually spare the need of organ transplants.

We also talk about Dolly^[16], the first successfully cloned animal, to mention that progress has already been made in this field. In this regard, we also try to acknowledge the ethical dilemma that inevitably accompanies this topic – using it to promote our upcoming episode on ethics. Once more, we leave the end rather open for discussion to encourage our audience to keep listening to our podcast.

Click here to listen to this episode.

Episode 5 & 6: What is iGEM (in Darmstadt)? The iGEM Summer, The Giant Jamboree & Judging

As we often talk about iGEM, especially at the TU Darmstadt, we decided to make two podcast episodes on this topic. These episodes are meant for people wanting to learn more about this competition and potential new iGEMers at our university.

In the 5th episode our speakers offer insight into an iGEM year – from finding team members to the exciting lab work and personal experiences. In the 6th episode they talk about everything concerning meetups, judging, and the Giant Jamboree.

Click here to listen to episode 5 and episode 6.

Episode 7: Our project

This episode was created in the course of our collaboration with the iGEM team Aachen. As we did already collaborate through our iJET project we wanted to give Aachen the opportunity, to present their project in our podcast. We are explaining both of our projects in an easy and understandable way and are talking about what we have done this year.
Click here to listen to this episode.

Episode 8: Responsible Research – When is a project ethically justifiable?

In this episode of our podcast, we focus on the topics ethics and responsibility related to science and research projects. Therefore, we talked with several experts and integrated some of their statements into this episode.

After the usual introduction, we start with a clip of Prof. Dr. Alfred Nordmann, a professor of philosophy at our university. He explains how the term “ethics” can be understood and what ethics means for research. First of all, ethics is a broad term that includes many aspects and values. There is no longer a checklist that researchers can use to decide whether their project is ethically responsible or not. Nowadays, this is way more complex and the important part is to get in touch with all different stakeholders and groups that could be affected by a project. This includes talking to people and facing possible questions. A newer term for this process is “Responsible Research and Innovation” or short RRI. In the following we talked about how we have implemented RRI in our project by going through different aspects, mention some of the experts we interviewed and explain how we tried to improve our project as much as possible.

We played another clip, this time of Prof. Dr. Andreas Jürgens of the Department of Biology, also from our university. He gave us some input about risk evaluation and worst-case scenarios, which is why we discussed what could happen if our genetically modified organism would leave the wastewater treatment plant and what we are doing to avoid this and to minimize the risk. For that, you can take a look at our Safety Page.

In the end, we also talked about why it is important to include the society and how we try to reach many people with Science Communication. Of course, there are still open questions, like who should pay for additional costs for the wastewater treatment that would occur due to the implementation of our project. We hope that with this episode we could give the listeners an idea of responsible research and inspire them to think about it themselves.

See our subpage Responsible Research to learn more about our process in this area.

Click here to listen to this episode.

Episode 9: CRISPR

In the 9th episode of Genomenal, we talked about a more challenging but very topical subject: the CRISPR-Cas system . As the developer Emanuell Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna were recently awarded with the Nobel Prize in Chemistry , we could not be more excited to talk about the properties and revolutionary aspects of this system^[17].

Originally, the CRISPR-Cas system is used by bacteria to protect themselves against phages. It is able to recognize and cut DNAin a sequence-specific manner, thereby rendering it harmless. In synthetic biology, the system can be used to perform targeted gene editing. For example, genes can be switched off or completely new genes can be inserted into organisms^[18].

An exciting application is the so-called SHERLOCK test system. Here a special Cas protein, namely Cas13a, is used. This can be designed to detect single-stranded RNA sequences, such as the genome of SARS-CoV-2. If such RNA is present in the sample to be tested, Cas13a is activated and cuts all RNA. A sample is then prepared with a reporter RNA. If there is SARS-CoV-2 RNA in the sample, Cas13a is activated and cuts all RNA, including the reporter RNA. This can then be detected by fluorescence or a lateral flow assay, similar to a pregnancy test^[19].

For interested reader:
The Nobel Prize youtube video
How does CRISPR Cas9 work? Click on launch interactive!
How does GeCKO (Genome-scale CRISPR Knock-Out) work?
How does SHERLOCK and Cas13a work? YouTube video

Click here to listen to this episode.

Look forward to more exciting episodes in the future! According to the current status, we would like to continue the podcast and highlight and discuss further topics of biotechnology and, of course, present them in an understandable way for the audience.

Minigame

Everyone loves video games. This also applies to us, so we were pretty excited when we found someone who could program us a little game. Our goal was to explain and illustrate methods used in a biology laboratory within this minigame, so everyone can learn something new, while playing our game.

Due to the limited time and capacity of our team we had to keep the game simple. We decided on doing a side-scroller known from games like “Super Mario”. Our main character should of course be a motivated biotechnologist, who needs to complete several tasks in different levels. After many hours of designing levels and pictograms "The Genomenal Adventures of Dr. W” was born.

Story of the minigame

„The Genomal Adventures of Dr. W” tells the tale of the scientist Dr. W. He walks through various levels trying to solve a mission. Each level represents a biological lab procedure, such as gel electrophoresis, Gibson Assembly and – last but not least – one level representing our project idea.

The game starts with a basic level in which the player needs to collect his equipment, pipettes and tubes, among a few other things. The more levels you play through, the more things you have to gather and the more dangers you encounter. Danger itself is presented in many ways - as fire, a pit in the ground, a poisonous cloud or a puddle which the player needs to overcome. This way, we convey all the difficulties one might face in the lab. Your work does not always pan out as planned. One does not always know which path to choose and this is what this game stands for. Not only does it represent the steps our iGEM team has taken whilst the development of our project idea but should also enthuse others for the field of science in a fun and amusing way.

If you are interested in giving it a try, click here to download the game. It is a ZIP file you have to unpack. Afterwards, you have to click on the application "GENOMENAL ADVENTURES OF DR. W" to install and start the game. If you want to download the latest version, look here.

BIOspektrum magazine article

An important aspect of our work in the field of Human Practices is to bring our project to the attention of as many people as possible. Therefore, we used the opportunity offered by the magazine BIOspektrum to publish an article about our work. BIOspektrum is a scientific journal for molecular life sciences and reaches 13,000 people interested in the latest developments in molecular biology and biotechnology every month. The publication of an article about our project enabled us to reach a greater audience. This was evident when Ralf Möller from the Deutsche Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e. V. (German Aerospace Center) contacted us, as he became aware of our project through BIOspektrum. Our article was published in the 5th issue of 2020 which was released in September.

Livestream with Kaiserslautern

When we found out that the iGEM Team Kaiserslautern also tries to filter pollutants from wastewater treatment plants (WWTP) by using laccases, we saw a direct opportunity for cooperation.
Kaiserslautern found a perfect way to present our projects in times of the COVID-19 pandemic: If we can't present them on site, then we'll just do it online! At this point, the Kaiserslautern iGEM team had already made several live streams on the video streaming platform Twitch and invited us to do a joined stream. On the 31th of July we went live on Twitch with Kaiserslautern and drew some attention to the promising world of synthetic biology.
We presented our project ideas and explained our different approaches, as well as our motivation. With our video about biosafety, we educated about general safety concepts and introduced our kill switch. These concepts are crucial to make sure our genetically modified organism (GMO) will not leave the WWTP. We did also talk about our survey and interacted with the viewers. Most of them were generally interested in synthetic biology, but did not have deeper knowledge.

In conclusion, the livestream was a lot of fun and raised awareness for the field of synthetic biology as well as the various safety concepts in this field. In addition, it was a good opportunity to share our project idea with interested people from various backgrounds and raised awareness on the dangers of micropollutants in the wastewater.

School Visit

Getting in contact with students at school was not that easy this year. To respect the restrictions due to Covid-19, we organized an online meeting using the platform Zoom. 24 students of the advanced biology course in senior year at the school Kurt-Schumacher-Schule in Karben attended this call. After an introduction to Synthetic Biology and the iGEM competition, we presented our project and explained some basic strategies in genetic engineering. Furthermore, we let them know more about our studies and gave the students the opportunity to ask questions concerning scientifical studies. Our goal was to enthuse as well as motivate these students for Synthetic Biology and science in general. The amount of questions and feedback were proof enough, that we succeeded in reaching at least some of the participants and making this experience a positive and treasurable project stage.

References

[1] Naturbewusstsein 2019, Bevölkerungsumfrage zu Natur und biologischer Vielfalt, Bundesministerium für Umwelt, Naturschutz und nukleare Sicherheit, 1. Auflage, August 2020 [2] https://flexikon.doccheck.com/de/Insulin, accessed on September 20th 2020