We wanted to connect with the older community that can’t always attend our in house public forums. These individuals are still an important part of the wider community; they vote and have an impact on the integration of synthetic biology projects. Additionally, as bioengineering becomes more prominent in the medical field, many of these older individuals would benefit from synthetic biology treatments.

To ensure our program fit the needs of this community we connected with Patee Ramsey: the WindsorMeade lifestyle coordinator, Laura Mullen: the Williamsburg Landing Manager of Activities and Melissa Degaraff: the Administrative Coordinator Christopher Wren Association. With each of these individuals we discussed the interests of their communities, the appropriate length of a program and the background knowledge participants would be bringing into the program. This solidified our goal of creating an interactive program which allowed participants to develop their own opinions about synthetic biology based on current applications and techniques in the science. We decided to leave the bulk of the hour program for conversations and questions, including several scenarios for the groups to talk through. Knowing the background of our community also helped us prepare for the kinds of questions we would be asked during the presentation. Particularly with Williamsburg Landing we were informed many of the residents had strong memories of the Cold War which influence their perceptions of advancements in science. Knowing this helped us better prepare for potential questions.

These conversations also helped us to evaluate the most effective way to connect with the retirement community. In person conversations were the best way to create meaningful relationships and facilitate the most learning. However, it would be logistically challenging to coordinate the residents visiting us on campus, so we arranged to visit them in their community buildings. A special consideration for this community is their age and how it impacts their hearing; it was important for our team to arrange for microphones and practice speaking very clearly so we could be heard and understood.

When we created our program we wanted to put synthetic biology into a meaningful context for the participants so that they could understand the potential impacts this science might have on their lives. To do this, we presented scenarios adapted from a Building with Biology event. These scenarios were centered around medical uses for synthetic biology and encouraged participants to think about the scientific and ethical implications of the work.

On September 10th we presented to 22 of the residents at WinsorMeade and on September 17th we presented to 25 of the residents of Williamsburg Landing. These visits were one hour, giving 25 minutes for our formal presentations and 35 minutes for discussion. The participants were eager to ask questions and share their own opinions about synthetic biology. We had a diverse array of perspectives which made for an engaging high energy forum. We are scheduled to give a 2 hour presentation for the Christopher Wren Association in Spring.

These events were an amazing hit with the residents! Both of our nursing home visits surpassed their scheduled time because residents chose to stay after the program to ask additional questions and continue the conversation. At Windsormeade in particular several participants had done reading prior to the event and came with specific stories to share and questions to ask based on their readings! One of our favorite comments made during the event was from woman from Williamsburg Landing who shared:

Conversations ranged from the threats of bioengineered weapons, to the potential to cure disease. We discussed the scientific feasibility as well as the ethical implications of a variety of synthetic biology applications. At the end of the event the activities coordinator from Windsormeade shared her feedback via email: