Team:Tuebingen/Human Practises
Human Practises
Just Why?- Manu
Introduction
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Integrated Human Practises
Public Engagement
One of our main focuses for this years project was to increase our public outreach significantly compared to the previous years regarding our social media performance as well as the organisation and attendance of events on a local level, all over germany and also europe, and getting in touch with scientists and politicians.
In order to induce interest in iGEM and differentiated interchange about synthetic biology among students, we gathered at the local Ract festival, which is hosted in Tübingen every year with about 30,000 visitors. Since it is a mostly political festival for students it was a great opportunity for us to inform and enlighten the visitors and change the general perception about synthetic biology and genetic engineering.
We addressed people of all ages. To introduce kids to biology and raise their interest we build a parcour that abstractedly symbolised the shuttle mechanism of the botulinum toxin into neurons. It turned out to be a huge attraction.
To reach out to adults we passed out flyers for our upcoming public debate and postcards of previous iGEM projects. Additionally, we were happy to answer questions and offer new insights. We were pleasantly surprised how many people sympathised with our believes and the potential of synthetic biology. Nonetheless, we had some negative encounters with opponents of genetic engineering. We hope that we at least encouraged them to reevaluate their opinion. All in all it was a great success.
Following to the Ract festival we organised a public debate that took place in our university. This event was organised in collaboration with Streitkultur e.V., the debating club of our university. It was a public debate about gene editing on embryos which is a highly controversial topic in today’s society. We had two mixed teams, each with one iGEM member and one member of Streitkultur e.V. that represented the advocates and opponents of gene editing.
After an introductional plea of both sides the audience had the opportunity to ask questions and take part in the debate. They were very inquisitive and we had a lively debate in a friendly and respectful atmosphere.
It was a great opportunity for our team members to improve soft skills concerning confrontations with opposing opinions and how to handle them.
The debate served the purpose of making the subject of gene editing accessible to other students, clarify open questions and create an active exchange of opinions.
This idea is to be further pursued, as one member of the debating club wants to call more attention to the debate of gene editing inside the youth organisation of one of the large German parties (Social Democratic Party, SPD).
In recent years, the relationship to the next generation of scientists has always been an important aspect of our public relations work in our team.
Therefore, we continued our past successes this year and invited six high school students with their teachers and a father to our laboratory.
We showed them standard methods of molecular biology, embedded in the background, to detect Bt corn in corn products they had brought with them.
First, the DNA was isolated, purified and amplified with primers from Bt gene primers. The PCR products were then analysed in an agarose gel and the results discussed.
Such experiments are an important part of the curriculum of secondary schools, as the equipment is usually not available on site.
We deepen the current curriculum content, which is practically applied and thus no longer remains abstract. We overcome fears of contact with stigmatized genetic engineering.
In addition, our invitation offers teachers a platform for further training in advanced teaching techniques that are up-to-date and applicable.
The feedback on our test day was overwhelmingly positive, so we will continue to implement this format in future iGEM years.
Our aim was not only to raise attention for synthetic biology and iGEM among people but also to connect with politicians in order to address the controversy of gene editing in the public.
We met Tübingens mayor Boris Palmer with whom we had a lively and interesting discussion about gene editing and its image in politics. Apart from that we interviewed him and asked him questions concerning that topic, which you can find above on this wiki page.
To see how we could possibly expand our project to the future, we organised a visit to Boehringer-Ingelheim which is one of the world’s top 20 pharmaceutical companies with expertise in diseases of the central nervous system, among others. We wanted to see how drugs are developed and produced and communicate with leading experts. Unfortunately, it was only possible to arrange a visit at the beginning of the next year.