Team:Oxford/Human Practices

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Human Practices

An important aspect of synthetic biology is the consideration of how the technology has applications in the context of the wider society. We believed that collaborating with scientists, clinicians, social scientists, patients and the general public was essential to ensuring that our product benefits society. Our approach to human practices involved working with professionals, patients and the public to understand their opinions about various aspects of our project, and using this feedback to alter the design of our project and tailor our educational outreach activities.

The focus of our work on human practices was to integrate four major themes:

- Applied Design

Our approach to applied design involved creating surveys and interviewing patients to analyse the unmet patient needs and the most important issues that require addressing to improve patients’ quality of life. Regular conversations with patients, as well as professionals with knowledge in the law, manufacture and clinical delivery of therapeutics, enabled our design to continually evolve in light of this feedback.

- Public Engagement and Outreach

As a field still in its infancy, public knowledge of synthetic biology is limited and is often viewed with scepticism. As a result, public acceptance of genetically engineered therapeutics will be restricted by public knowledge unless educational resources are provided. The provision of summer school classes, public outreach events, online resources and a long-term public education plan were parts of our public outreach efforts. Our public engagement was integrated with our work covering applied design, since we remained open to feedback and used guidance from the public to shape our product design.

Detailed information about our work centred around each of the four themes can be found on the respective pages of our wiki.

Overview of Human Practices

Our philosophy regarding human practices was to ensure a reciprocal relationship between our team and society, ensuring that we remain open to feedback from the public, patients and professionals. Our human practices work involved the education of the wider public about our project ideas and the broader applications of synthetic biology, as well as discussions and interviews to understand society’s opinions of our project. We acted upon the feedback we received, meaning that our project continually evolved in light of the public’s input. An important focus of our work was to ensure that ‘society’ encompassed the broadest range of individuals, so we engaged with clinicians, researchers, professionals involved in the legal and business side of drug development, patients, students and the lay public.

In this manner, our vision and plans for human practices were altered throughout the course of the project. The timeline below summarises our work for human practices and demonstrates how engaging with different individuals prompted us to take alternative pathways in the project, both in terms of human practices and the design of our therapeutic.

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Section 3

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