Team:Valencia UPV/Human Practices
Introduction
Science and technology have always been prompted by a desire of solving social issues. Thus, science would be nothing if it does not exist a relationship with people.
In this page we are going to show how we have faced integrated practices and we will give an answer these questions:
How your project affects the world and how the world affects it?
Is your work good enough for the world?
Integrated Human Practices
Feedback receiving: the key to the success
When creating a new scientific device, the existence of political, economic and social frameworks leads into the necessity of an in-depth analysis of how your creation would affect the world and how the world affects it.
As a result, our first step was to identify the real-life problems that could be solved with Printeria and so classify its application fields. To do so, we decided to employ a tip given by Israel (researcher at UPV) the MIT market segmentation table . This table allows you to classify all users you think your product could be interesting to buy on the basis of several questions. Using it we analyzed Printeria potential users in accordance with our project values.
You can read the resulting market segmentation analysis and how it helped us to focus our initial approach by clicking here:
As a result, Printeria main applications fields can be summarized as:
Education
With a friendly-user software, Printeria is designed to be an educational tool
Research groups
Printeria automatizes protocols, and enhances the experiments reproducibility.
Bioartists
Printeria offers a compact and friendly toolkit for the bioartist entire disposalThus, our main concern was how to fulfill the different stakeholder demands. Following our interdisciplinary spirit, we searched for continuos input from professionals with different backgrounds and non professionals, so we could ensure we were designing a useful synbio device.
This year we have decided to divide Integrated human in three parts:
Kano model
An engineering way to integrate feedback.
Expert dialoge
How experts point of view changed the way we did Printeria.
Safety desing
How safety specifications changed Printeria
Kano Model
Kano model is a methodology, which supports the development of products taking into account the needs of the customer. It helps you to understand the importance of functions or features to a customer[1]. We have used it to improve Printeria and we want it to be a guide for future iGEM teams, thats why we are going to present our work as an example of using it.
Kano model is made up of three stages:
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Pick up the user's voice
In this phase you have to present your project to an audience and then ask them for criticisms or suggestions. We did it in the Mustang Art Gallery (MAG) in Elche (Alicante). After showing them Printeria we gathered all the students and teachers and we asked them for demands, improvements or criticisms.
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Create your paired questions quiz
With those demands that we will call necessities you have to make a questionaire based on paired questions. This questions have the next grammar: ¿How do you feel if (a necessity exists on your device)? and ¿How do you feel if (that necessity did not exist on your device)? As you can observe, it is the same necessity but expressed positively or negatively. Check out our questionnaire to see an example:
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Classify your demands
Once you have all the answers, you have to complete a series of tables to conclude if that necessity is really important or not. If it is, you should include it in your design because that will increase the satisfaction rate of the user. If it is not, do not waste time and money implementing something no one will appreciate!
Study case: Kano model in Printeria
When using the Kano model you can easily combine public engagement with integrated human. Taking advantage of the fact that we went to MAG (Mustang Art Gallery) in Elche (Alicante) to present our project in front of students and teachers, we decided to demand feedback. The most important necessities were included in the questionnaire we described above, and then we sent it to the students and teachers who filled it. The questionnaire and the results are available by clicking in the button "questionnaire".
Once we had the answers (more than 20 to be representative), we filled the different tables which compose Kano model to obtain the results. Here you can download the document with the tables and what is most important, the conclusions we extracted from them:
Overall conclusions
Last but not least, a table summarizing why Kano model is important and should be implemented in future iGEM projects.
Table 1. Conclusions of Kano model use in Printeria.
| Kano model results conclusions |
|---|
Kano model is an strong tool to include feedback in your project |
Kano model rank needs by customer/user satisfaction |
Kano model prevents wasting money and time implementing unnecessary needs |
Kano model allows you to combine public engagement and integrated practices |
Kano model allows you to explain why something was designed or not |
Expert feedback
A very good way to enrich the project through feedback is to do so by consulting experts in the field of study as has been done previously in iGEM. Their opinion is really relevant because of the reputation that precedes them, and that adds value to the product/project.
That is why we have decided to contact renowned artists and sciencists from the world of bioart and biotecnology to present them our project and seek advice. Next section describes who we have reached out and how their opinions have changed Printeria.
María Peñil & Mehmet Berkmen
Image 1. Maria Peñil and Mehmet Berkmen in Boston NEB laboratories.
María Peñil Cobo is a Spanish mixed media artist born in San Vicente de la Barquera. She studied fine arts and has a master in art education. To do her masterpieces she works with natural media like bacteria.
Dr. Mehmet Berkmen is a Turkish-born international microbiologist. Nowadays he is a Senior sciencist at NEB working on genetically engineering bacteria to produce proteins.
As you can see above María Peñil and Mehmet Berkmen are coworkers in NEB Biolabs Boston. Together, they are dedicated to making bioart with bacteria grown in agar, which fascinated us. They are what printeria represents, art and science connected, so we wanted to contact them and expose our project as well as ask for advice. The results of the interview can be seen in this document:
Interview conclusions were:
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It is difficult for artists to get in touch with scientists. Maria and Memo met by coincidence.
In this aspect, Printeria could help to approach artists to scientists.
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Presevation of bioart plates is one of the biggest problems. The best way to preserve them is leaving the plates in the fridge. But using epoxy or other resins can help preservation.
We leave them on the fridge and we are trying to fix them by using transparent nail polish.
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Consider working by layers when working with different types of bacteria. The slow growers should go first and after growing them, fast growers should be added.
As we are only working with E. coli, we are having no problems. But this piece of advice should be taken into account if Printeria ends up using other different chassis than just E. coli strains.
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They don’t create their own GM microorganisms, so they think Printeria could be a useful machine to do so. Memo encourages us to write a manuscript out of this, even if the machine does not totally work. This could make people start using it so that Printeria could evolve.
The idea of doing a manuscript caught our eyes and we are planning to do so. It also made us think about creating the ‘Printeria user manual’ as well as an activity booklet for the user to learn even more about SynBio.
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Do not only focus on creating colourful bacteria but on stand-alone scent pathways.
We achieved to create mint scented E.coli but we will continue doing some research in stand-alone scent pathways.
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For doing bioart, just try different techniques: using glass beads, pipetting liquid cultures, using sowing handles.
We knew nothing about bioart and, thanks to Maria and Memo, we started developing our skills to quickly learn the basics about this type of art. We used the pipetting method to create Yturralde’s living art and the sowing handles for creating Printeria’s logo and for letting students create their own masterpieces in MAG.
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Memo thinks Printeria is a nice multidisciplinary project. He encourages us to show who we are, and the way we learnt to speak a common language in which biotechnologists, engineers, designers and informatics, understood each other.
It is very important for people to know that Printeria is more than just a biotechnological project. It is a machine in which lots of different disciplines worked together with a single goal. And this piece of advice really helped us while creating our poster and while planning our Giant Jamboree’s presentation.
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It could be graeat for people to touch Printeria. Take it to Boston and try to do a live performance during the Jamboree. This will influence the judges a lot.
Printeria was built to be as easy as a lego toy, so that anyone can assemble it. This fact will make Printeria perfect to travel to Boston and, of course, to perform public demonstrations there.
Francis Mojica
Image 2.Francisco Mojica and Carolina in Mojica's house (Elche).
Dr. Francisco Juan Martínez Mojica is a microbiologist, researcher and professor at the University of Alicante. He is the discoverer of the CRISPR/Cas9 systems whose application would later be researched by Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna among others.
In Spain, he is one of the most reputable researchers and as such, his opinion and advice are worth their price in gold. Mojica accepted our invitation for a personal interview in which we would present the project and ask him for advice. The interview was carried out by Carolina Ropero, member of the Printeria team. In the following button you will be able to read the whole interview:
Interview conclusions were:
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Mojica agrees that with the automation which Printeria offers the experimental error can be reduced. However, he warned us about the importance of being aware of the decisions to make, even if a device such Printeria is able to do all the process by itself.
To avoid the user lack of awareness, we decided to develop a Simulation tool, so the user could simulate the experiments in silico. Thus, this functionality provides the user with a quantitative, mathematical description to ensure the rational decision making.
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He believes that, from the education point of view, the automation is detrimental to the observation. He also pointed out the necessity of training the teaching stuff, as they are not often used to SynBio.
In order to ensure the students understanding of the biology that is behind each step, we decided to develop a Printeria basic user-guide. Moreover, we implemented recipes in our software tool. Recipes are already pre-defined experiments that include an easy ID name such as “pink colour”, so in this way the most basic user can understand what he/she is printing and so the biological reason of the final result.
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Biosafety measures are completely necessary to ensure Printeria introduction in non-scientific environments.
We realized it was necessary to improve our safety measurements. Mojica advised us the use of UV light filters as bacterial-killer, which were positively integrated into Printeria final design.
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He advised us to be aware about the vocabulary used to divulgue science, as it needs to be technically correct but close and safe enough for the lay public to listen to you.
This, along with the bioartist expert feedback, gave us the idea to use a non-usual approach to divulgue SynBio into the lay-public. As a consequence, Printeria promotion among society was carried out by including the BioArt as the main attraction to get to the public.
José María Yturralde
Image 3.Yturralde (center) with Priteria team.
Yturralde has a bachelor's degree and a PhD in fine arts awarded by the Polytechnic University of Valencia (UPV). Furthermore he has been researcher in the MIT among other great things. Between 1968 and 1973 he developed his work "Impossible figures". These figures are really interesting because they show us how our space perception works, they seem coherent at first glance but when you observe them in more detail you see there are inconsistent details.
To prove Printeria's power in bioart we decided to do one of those figures which you can see above and an interview to get some expert feedback from him. Here you can see the full interview we did:
Interview conclusions were:
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They way we have to bring Printeria to the market
Yturralde said that there is something really important in art and it is the creative process. He recommended us not to show the product (draws in petri plates) but show the creative process. This way we will catch the artist attention. In this line, we consider to do several promotional videos with the process to show them in future art gallery expositions like Hangar Gallery in Barcelona or E planetari de Castelló where we will go after the jamboree to present our project.
Furthermore, he told us that we had to sell the idea of an art that evolves with time because Printeria is not only makes art, it makes life, science and evolution.
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Where will Printeria have a great impact?
Yturralde recommends the US to launch such innovative projects. The fact is that it is not without reason, as in Spain there have been many television media and laboratories that have ignored us. Therefore, if we continue with the project after iGEM, we will direct all our efforts abroad, it is decided!
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Printeria, the near future
When we asked him about improvements of printeria, he said: " It is not what is missing is what is going to come". He encoraged us to continue with Printeria because we will be the start of a new and revolutionary way of expression.
Ryan Fobel
Ryan Fobel is CEO of Sci-Bots located in Toronto (Canada). He has a PhD in medical biophysics.
We e-mailed Ryan to get in contact with a company that actually does Digital Microfluidics. We learned a lot from the variables involved into this technology. Our final design was heavily influenced by our conversation via Skype with him. We even got the chance of using some of the Digital Microfluidics Chips that Sci-Bots uses for their machine.
Highlights of design changes:
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Pad distance: It is really important that pads have the shortest distance between them as possible. On our early tests we used around 6 mils of separation between pads. He really advised us to use 4 mils pad separation, and this was implemented on the final PCB for the experimentation surface.
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Surface coating: This is the hardest part to get right. We learned that currently is better to reapply the coating everytime we do a reaction on the surface. To solve this we got inspired on the design by OpenDrop of using disposable surfaces that are held on top of the PCB. We used that concept on the final design of our machine.
Ana & Miriam
Image 7. Skype with Miriam (left) and Ana (right)
Ana Pastor and Miriam are two Spanish artists from Alicante, who are really interested in combining science and art in their artwork pieces. Ana creates her pieces of art by using her own blood, either lyophilized or even painting with it, while Miriam is working with urban vegetation. So, what will they think about Printeria? Will they find Printeria useful?
Interview conclusions were:
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Science and art should start walking in the same pathway. It is very important for all different disciplines to start hybridizing. Scientists should count a little bit more one creative people to give a fresh and a different point of view.
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Ana is always into trying new things so she would love to use Printeria for exploring the idea of working with microorganisms.
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Printeria should think about working out of the petri dish. Not just using colourful bacteria for painting but trying to mix them with different compounds. Or even, in the future, for synthesizing fibres or even textiles out of bacteria.
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Printeria could be sold not as a product for our daily lives but for science schools or even to institutions that do fab lab. So, if anyone wants to use Printeria for an art project, you just go to some of these institutions, you pay a fee and you can use it for a given amount of time.
Safety by design
Paris-Bettencourt 2012 team was right when they said in their page "How safe is safe enough?": “Biosafety is an exciting design challenge, an essential enabling technology for synthetic biology, and a fundamental ethical obligation of all bioengineers”.
This sentence describes perfectly what we did with Printeria. Printeria was designed to ensure safety for all audiences, to be safe enough for the world. In the next table you can see different safety problems we saw with our instructors help, and how we solved them.
Table 2. Safety problems solved in the design of Printeria.
Safety Problem |
Solution |
|---|---|
Sterilization of the PCB |
How do we clean the PCB without damaging the metalic and plastic components? Well, we decided to do what Francisco Mojica recomended to us which is more or less what flow cabins do. We decided to use UV led lights. Furthermore we have programmed an especial reaction that use little droplets with HCl and ethanol to clean and ensure we have perfectly sterilized the PCB. |
Sterilization of the microfluidic tubes |
The reaction fluid is going to pass through microfluidic tubes and it will contaminate them, to reverse this situation we will use the same special program wich usses droplets with ethanol and HCl. |
Protection of the user |
We want the user to see what is happening inside Printeria but also we want them to be protected if something wrong happens inside. Thats why we thought that a metacrilate box that cover the machines would be a nice option. Besides, it is useful to pin up the elements which will be part of Printera. |
Overheating of the PCB |
As the PCB has a cold and a hot zone, it is necessary to evacuate the heat generated. The hot zone can achieve more than 80º degrees and can be a potential danger. A resistance is responsible of heating and a peltier plate is responsible of chilling. Peltier effect is based in a semiconductor metal where you apply a potential difference. Then, you create a hot part and a cold one in that semiconductor. We use the cold part to extract the energy and stabilize the temperature via conduction of the PCB's hot zone. |
Ventilation |
The peltier plate is responsible of chilling the PCB but ¿How do we evacuate all the energy generated? Well, the answer is simple, Printeria just needed ventilation holes and watercooling to do it. Watercooling is based in the higher thermal capacity of fluids (water in this case) to absorb energy. Water is pumped through microfluidic tubes to reach the peltier and chill it. |
Electroporator |
This device is capable to reach high voltages, so if you require one of these in your design first of all, ensure no one can harm himself/herself. This is the reason why we designed our own electroporator in a dedicated and compacted printed circuit to isolate it from any exposure. It can reach until 1600V, which is not a joke. |
Tips |
Tips which go in the revolver wheel are disposable to ensure the purity of each reaction. |
Futher information: safety.
References
1. TERNINKO, J. (1997). Step-by-Step QFD, Customer-Driven Product Design, Second edition. USA: St . Lucie Press.
2. Olson,D. (2014) “Kano Model Priorization”
3. Youtube, “Aplicación del modelo Kano-Caso práctico Excel” on Youtube
4. María Peñil & Mehmet Berkmen, “Bacterial Art”
5.Committee on Science, Technology, and Law; Policy and Global Affairs; Board on Life Sciences; Division on Earth and Life Sciences; National Academy of Engineering; National Research Council. Positioning Synthetic Biology to Meet the Challenges of the 21st Century: Summary Report of a Six Academies Symposium Series. Washington (DC): National Academies Press (US); 2013 Aug 5. 2, Synthetic Biology: Science and Technology for the New Millennium. [Consulted: 10/8/2018]