Team:Valencia UPV/Human Practices
Human Practices
Science and technology have always been prompted by a desire of solving social issues. Therefore, 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?
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 affects the world and how the world affects it. Thus, we first decided to analyze Printeria main applications among society, which finally were clasificated as:
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Research groups. Printeria automatizes time-consuming protocols, so enhancing the intellectual task and increasing the experiments reproducibility
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Education. With a friendly-user software, Printeria is also 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.
During the design phase our product, we had many questions about how to fulfill the different stakeholders demands . In order to get first-hand answers, our human practices team conducted several interviews with each target group, so 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 bioartists such as María Peñil. We also received feedback from an open-talk with high schools last year students. Moreover, microfluidic system experimental design was thoughtfully implemented with the advice of electronic engineering professionals from the microfluidic market niche. You can see our complete Integrated Human page by clicking here
Is our work responsible and good enough for the world?
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 promote a critical thinking atmosphere before integrating Printeria. In this context, one of our main concerns was to introduce an artistic approach to become SynBio a closer and familiar concept. This included a Bio Art workshop and a collaboration with the famous valencian artist José María Yturralde. Moreover, several talks were given to different target groups to divulgate SynBio and so fight against misinformation. See the full activities carried out in our a href="http://mariapenilcobo.com/bioart">Education and Public Engagement 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.
Biosafety
Biosafety measurements are completely necessary during any lab research, like the one carried out by our team. Moreover, safety considerations in relation to Printeria sterilization and biocontention measurements is essential if we want to introduce a bio-engineering device as Printeria is in non-scientific places. You can read our safety practices and the safety considerations we have established in regard to our device by going to the Safety page/a>.