Revision as of 04:10, 17 October 2018

Public Engagement

GMO Discussion Packet

View our discussion packet <a href="https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2018/a/ae/T--Virginia--2018_Discussion_Packet_Print1.pdf" target="_blank">here!</a>

<figure>

   <img src="" alt="PublicForum">
   <figcaption> Figure 1: Our flyer for our public forum. (Design by Dylan Culfogienis) </figcaption>

</figure>

There were two things that inspired us to develop this forum discussion packet: a company that rejected us and a public forum that we participated in.

While trying to reach out to some bio-manufacturing companies for potential collaborations, a company turned us down and said they did not want to be associated with “genetic engineered bacteria”. We followed up with them and found out that the only reason they tried so hard to get non-GMO certified and emphasized that was because of “customer reasons”, as customers prefer “non-GMO” products. We were surprised that some consumers chose non-GMO over GMO products even when they did not know the difference.

The second thing that inspired us was going to the public forum <a href="http://www.nisenet.org/catalog/editing-our-evolution-rewriting-human-genome-forum">Editing Our Evolution: Rewriting the Human Genome</a>. This public forum was part of the Building with Biology initiative, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), and hosted by Charlottesville Open Bio Labs. Our team participated in the forum discussion and we were inspired by the scenarios we discussed during the event. We realized that a forum was an effective way of letting people express their opinions on certain topics while learning information from participating scientists.

Inspired by these two events, our team decided to make a discussion packet on the topic of GMO products. We chose scenarios that invovled everyday products, so that it was more relevant to everyone's day to day experience and could spark more discussion. Topics include synthetic leather, genetically modified corn, cultured meat, and controversy surrounding GMOs.

After developing the discussion packet, our team members came together with our advisor, Professor Kozminski, and some members of the non-scientific community to have a run through of the discussion scenarios.

<figure>

   <img src="" alt="PublicForum">
   <figcaption>Figure 2: Our team member Nir enthusiastically discussing lab-grown meat.</figcaption>

</figure>

<figure>

   <img src="" alt="PublicForum">
   <figcaption>Figure 3: Members of the community actively engaging in discussion about GMOs. </figcaption>

</figure>

Attendees at the run through gave us some insights on what people’s perspectives on GMO products were. Many people's perceptions on GMO products are influenced by their families, especially if they came from a family that heavily emphasized “organic” and “non-GMO” products.

While discussing microbial leather, an interesting question was brought up. Since the materials that are involved in leather production are mostly byproducts of the livestock industry, will the mass production of microbial leather lead to a waste of all these byproducts that are currently being put to use?

The discussion on genetically modified corn brought up some concerns that people had about GMOs. Do GMO products really have a correlation with allergies? Does GMO corn deplete the nutrients in the soil more quickly than non-GMO corn?

During the discussion on cultured meat, some self-identified vegetarians had a difficult time deciding whether lab grown meat is considered “vegetarian”, because the production of lab grown meat still involves taking a sample of cells from a real animal. “This is just really weird, I can’t imagine having meat that is produced in this way put into my burger!” was also a comment from someone who is non-vegetarian. During the run through, many people said that they did not feel knowledgable about GMO products, and it led to their fear of it. Some also thought that there should be more policies and regulations regarding GMO products.

The discussion on GMO products covered the fields of science, technology, politics, ethics, economics, and even religion. Because many customers have an inherent fear of GMOs, we realized that they are constantly trying to get more information about GMO-related products. When marketing GMO products, we should avoid words like, "refined" and "synthetic", as it has a negative connotation in consumers' minds.

After the run through, we fixed and improved parts in the discussion packet by adding supplemental information about gene editing of GMOs and making some of the questions more specific. We envision this packet as a ready-to-use discussion packet for public forums, and hope that future teams may put it into use.

Pizza and Pipettes (Seminar)

<figure>

   <img src="" alt="PAP">
   <figcaption> Figure 4: Students working through the PurSolutions module and learning how to use a micropipette! </figcaption>

</figure>

<figure>

   <img src="" alt="SummerCamp2">
   <figcaption> Figure 5: Nick explaning the basics of using a pipette. </figcaption>

</figure>

<figure>

   <img src="" alt="SummerCamp2">
   <figcaption> Figure 6: Ryan leading a discussion on synthetic biology and the module.</figcaption>

</figure>

Besides doing research, another important mission of iGEM is to inform the public about the emerging field of synthetic biology. Since the University of Virginia (UVA) does not have a department dedicated to synthetic biology, many UVA students do not even know what it is. In order to expose more students to the field, the 2018 Virginia iGEM team hosted a seminar, "Pizza and Pipettes", for UVA students.

For the seminar, we collaborated with PurSolutions by using the <a href="http://puresoluble.com/self-assembly" target="_blank">self-assembly module</a> that they developed. Participants learned about self-assembly through hands-on wetlab experience using tubulin to build the world's smallest tubes! This gave them a better sense of how protein engineering works and allowed them to think about questions like, "What would happen if we modified DNA?"

The event covered a variety of topics in molecular biology and connected them with synthetic biology. Participants brainstormed world problems that could be solved with synthetic biology. They came up with problems like air pollution, microplastic, and even world hunger.

Synthetic Biology Summer Camp

<figure>

   <img src="" alt="SummerCamp1">
   <figcaption>Figure 7:  Some team members posing with Shaun Moshasha, CEO of Open BioLabs.  </figcaption>

</figure>

<figure>

   <img src="" alt="SummerCamp2">
   <figcaption> Figure 8: Joseph and Kevin discussing world problems related to sythetic biology. (Photo taken by Angela Yi) </figcaption>

</figure>

We attended the Kids College summer camp held at Charlottesville Albemarle Technical Education Center (CATEC) “Manipulating Life Itself & Human Cyborg” in collaboration with Charlottesville Open Bio Lab. The students of the summer camp were age 12 to 16.

We helped them run and understand the gels, discussed our iGEM project, and brainstormed what kind of world problems they could solve with synthetic biology. Here's some of the ideas they came up with:

• Microplastics in ocean: Put dormant bacteria into plastic that becomes active through contact with salt water. The bacteria will then degrade the plastic.

• Cleaner air: Put a plant on top of a bird and collect all the CO2 in the air.

• Mad science: Combine the DNA of a rhino, cat, and jellyfish to make a glowing unicorn cat.

The students came up with many interesting project ideas related to synthetic biology; it was definitely a huge success for students in the community to explore the field of synthetic biology!

Activities Fair

<figure>

   <img src="" alt="SummerCamp1">
   <figcaption>Figure 9: Grace flyering for iGEM at the University of Virginia Activities Fair!  </figcaption>

</figure>

On August 27, 2018 we made fliers and a trifold for the annual University of Virginia Activities Fair. Over 450 student organizations, ranging from Salsa Dancing to iGEM participated in the activities fair. We had members of our team hand out flyers and give out our team pins and stickers as well.

Over 200 people expressed interest and joined our email listserv and will hopefully apply to be a member next year's Virginia iGEM team!