Human Practices
Science and technology have always been prompted by a desire of solving social issues. Thus, science would be nothing if it doesn’t exist a relationship with people.
How your project affects the world and how the world affects it?
Integrated Human: the key
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.
Thus, the first step was to identify the real-life problems that would be solved with the introduction of Printeria. Once our device values were set, we divided its target application fields into:
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Research groups. Printeria automatizes time-consuming protocols, which are not free of human errors. Consequently, it enhances the intellectual task and eases the experiments standardization and reproducibility.
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Education. With a friendly-user software, Printeria is designed to be an educational tool, as a fully equipped device is introduced inside classrooms without the necessity of high-cost technologies.
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Bio Art. Printeria offers a compact and friendly toolkit to have a complete palette of pigmented bacteria for the bioartist disposal.
We were mainly concerned about how to fulfill the different stakeholders demands. Following our interdisciplinary spirit, we searched for continuos input from professionals with different backgrounds, so we could ensure we were designing a real and useful SynBio device.
In order to get first-hand feedback, our human practices team conducted several interviews with each target group, so that we could realize which where the real user necessities in relation to topics such as software functionalities, external design, DNA parts toolkit and biosafety measurements. In these interviews, we talked with the Spanish microbiologist PhD. Francis Mojica and with several artists, such as the bioartist María Peñil. We also received feedback from an open-talk with high school students, potential users of Printeria. Moreover, our microfluidic system design was thoughtfully implemented with the advice of electronic engineering professionals from the microfluidic market niche, who helped us to ensure a well-design technology.
To know how the feedback receiving was focused and how it was gradually integrated to finally create Printeria as nowadays is, you can further read the Integrated Human page by clicking here.
Is our work good enough for the world?
Public Engagement: communicating is essential
Printeria was born with the aim of knocking down the barriers that prevent people from coming into Synthetic Biology. However, these barriers are not only related with the high-cost technology, but also with the society lack of awareness. The lay-public do not usually know what SynBio and, when having heard about it, several misconceptions are commonly extended.
Thus, we realized it was necessary to encourage a critical thinking atmosphere before integrating Printeria. In this context, our main concern was to introduce an attractive and non-usual approach to become SynBio a closer and familiar concept. To do so, we set the goal of promoting the BioArt field, not only easing the bacterial art production with Printeria, but also and most important introducing this artistic branch to the society. We carried out a Microbial Art workshop with the advices given by experts of the field. We also collaborated with the famous valencian artist José María Yturralde, introducing him to the BioArt and creating one of his most important masterpieces by fusioning the 3D printing technology with the microbial art. On the other hand, several talks were also given to different target groups to divulge SynBio and so fight against common misinformation.
See the full activities carried out in our a Education and Public Engagement page.
Biosafety
Biosafety measurements are completely necessary during any lab research. Moreover, safety considerations in relation to Printeria sterilization and biocontention measurements in regard to GMOs spread is essential if we want to introduce a bio-engineering device as Printeria is in non-scientific places.
You can read the biosafety measurements we have implemented in our product design by going to the Safety page.
Collaborations
Synthetic biology builds are the result of collaborations across many fields, including institutional, industrial, scientific, and technical developments (1). In the same way, sharing and collaborating are some of the core values of the iGEM community. We were delighted to part of this collaborative approach, so you can all read the collaborations we carried out with other iGEM teams by going to our Collaborations page.
References
(1) 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.