Team:UCopenhagen/Human Practices
Introduction to our Human Practices
In our work with Human Practices we have focused on making safety choices based on feedback from experts, integrating experts advice on protein production for space purposes and exploring the reasons for colonizing Mars by making a report. The report is made in collaboration with the other danish iGEM team coming from the Technical University of Denmark and with the iGEM team coming for the University of Exeter. We have also engaged in skill-sharing between iGEM'ers both with a workshop at the European meet-up and with beginner friendly guides about wikipages, which drew alot of attention to our Medium Blog
Integration of experts’ input on protein choice for space health
We reached out to experts within the field of health in space in order to learn more about the main problems of health in space.
Our findings has greatly impacted the purpose with the project, as it has:
- Helped us understand which problems we can solve and how
- Helped us conclude on a list of proteins that would be ideal for space travel related health issues
You can read more about the experts and our integration of their input here.
Safety choices and expert evaluations
In order to make sure that our system for protein production is safe to use, and in order to carry out our own laboratory work as responsible as possible, we have been in extensive dialogue with safety experts. We have:
- Evaluated the dual-use risk of our system with the Danish Centre for Biosecurity and Biopreparedness
- Implemented needed extra safety precautions including required lab coats, eye, nose and mouth protection and created a buffer zone
- Chosen to work with a non-pathogenic bacterial strain with inducible injectisome
- Worked only with plant- or artificial membranes
- Integrated safety considerations in our choice of user and design of the chamber
You can read more about our work with safety, the Dual-use evaluation from the Danish center biosecurity and biopreparedness and our safety choices based on the feedback here.
Collaboration - Why colonize Mars?
We have collaborated with the other Danish iGEM team from the Technical University of Denmark, Hyphae hackers, and the iGEM team from the University of Exeter, Project perchlorate. Together we have:
- Had an extensive dialogue from early in the process
- Made a interdisciplinary report on Mars colonization in which we together examine the motivations for Mars colonization, and the bioethical concerns of bringing humans to Mars. You can read our report here
We have furthermore collaborated with Hyphae hackers on an event held in the Tycho Brahe Planetarium in Copenhagen. Read about the event here. You can read more about our collaboration with DTU and Exeter here.
Theraputic Proteins
For a lot of people, the phrase theraputic proteins is new and unknown territory. We have written an article introducing the concept and it's historical genisis. You can read the article here
Our product is not the only way of purifying proteins. By speaking with experts we have made an evaluation of how well our system works, compared to other methods. You can read more about this here