Team:Tec-Chihuahua/test
Overview
"Human Practices is the study of how your work affects the world, and how the world affects your work."
— Peter Carr, Director of Judging
Beyond the technical work on the lab, we comprehend our project exists within a world that requires us exploring aspects that involve issues such as ethics, sustainability, safety, legal framework, security, between others. These issues are complex and approached only through our human practices. Being aware of this we engaged with the communities that might be impacted by our work to invite them to shape the course of our investigation.
These social considerations were upfront in our project and integrated with the design and execution of our project, impacting in our Entrepreneurship, Wet lab, and Mathematical model work. We aimed to develop a thoughtful project with inspiring Human Practices for other teams to build upon and come up with new and creative approaches for this section, striving not only to understand how the world affects our project but also aiming to contribute to how synthetic biology is understood and practiced around the world.
Social Science Research Description
Since our Human practices involved interacting with communities to understand the social concern we are addressing, it was essential for us to approach these communities correctly by getting informed on our institution and national guidelines. This way we were able to conduct our social science research respectfully and always looking after the well-being of our cooperators.
The Mexican National Guidelines for integration and operation of the Research Ethics Committee (REC) declare the inclusion of ethical aspects as a quality indicator in social science research. The development of a bioethic culture is favorable to guarantee individual and social well-being since the discipline promotes the concepts of equity, solidarity, quality, principles of benefit, no maleficence, as well as the protection of human rights.1
Human subjects research entails risks; this makes it necessary to guarantee ethically acceptable conditions in the production of knowledge, considering that the legal framework is not sufficient to elucidate or resolve conflicts of a moral or ethical nature that arise in scientific activity.1
To protect our contributor’s human rights, respect their dignity and privacy, avoid any form of discrimination as well as ensure their integrity and wellness, we took into consideration the universally recognized ethical standards which are principles of benefit, no maleficence, justice and respect for autonomy.
We also made sure our procedures where according to the Mexican Federal Law on Protection of Personal Data Held by Individuals (2). First of all, we sought a pre-approval letter from our institution for doing social science research in accordance to their ethics code and values and under the stipulated in the annexed letter, we also requested a consent letter filled up by our participants where they accept we share their information on our webpage and in the Giant Jamboree's presentation. Trough this letter they also recognize our behavior and procedures were done according to the iGEM values.
References
- Ruiz de Chávez, M. (2016). Guía Nacional para la integración y el funcionamiento de los Comités de Ética en investigación. 5th ed. México: Secretaría de Salud, Comisión Nacional de Bioética.http://www.diputados.gob.mx/LeyesBiblio/pdf/LFPDPPP.pdf
Silver Human Practices
From the first time you set foot outside the laboratory and leave scientific articles aside to interact with people related to your project, you begin to realize how crucial human practices are.
Human practices allowed us to investigate and validate the purpose, design, scope, and execution of our project. Is our product suitable for beekeepers to use? Will it disturb the innocuousness of honey? Is it capable of counteracting more diseases? Is it permissible before the law? These are some of the questions that were answered throughout our human practices chronology; we were driven to think, reflect, and act on it as our integrated human practices.
Beekeepers, beekeeping societies, international organisms, government representatives, and researchers were all essential for fortifying our research.
Beekeepers
The world of beekeeping is much more than what appears in texts; no research could have compared being in the field with a beekeeper sharing knowledge, getting to know his community and their needs. Our main reasons for approaching them were to be informed about Beekeeping in their region, their opinion on our project and validate technical aspects of it. We wanted to choose with their help, the optimal application method for our product into the beehives, investigate the presence of American foulbrood and European foulbrood in their regions or countries as well as current existing treatments, their benefits, and risks.
April 28th
Cuauhtémoc, Chihuahua
Meeting with Mr. Guillermo Rodríguez
June 15th
Santiago de Querétaro City
Meeting with Engineer Alejandro Bianchi
September 22nd
Province of Melipilla
Videocall with Bryan Saavedra
May 26th
Delicias, Chihuahua
Meeting with Ing. Manuel Ramírez Salcido
July 16th
Castellón, Valencia
Valencian beekeeper interview
April 28th
Meeting with Mr. Guillermo Rodríguez
Viana and Ana Laura had the opportunity to travel to Cuauhtémoc, a city specialized in fruit growing; production and exportation of apples, peaches, strawberries, walnuts, among many others.1 Thanks to Viana, who is native from this city, we were able to get to contact this beekeeper. Mr. Rodríguez is the president of the association of beekeepers in the city and we saw an enormous opportunity in talking to him. This was our very first direct approach with the beekeeper’s community! We were very excited to start getting to know them. What would they think about our ideas? Would they be interested in our
project? How many things would they have to tell us? Our project was about to begin its transformation path.
This enriching talk lasted approximately 1 hour 15 minutes and different topics were discussed. We learned many general characteristics of bees' lives thanks to the great experience of the beekeeper: The different varieties of bees that exist, specific tasks of each type of bee and the joint work bees and beekeepers do to ensure pollination.
Regarding the existing methods against Foulbrood, Mr. Rodríguez mentioned how SAGARPA (National Secretary of Agriculture, Livestock, Rural Development, Fishing, and Food) does not allow the usage of chemical contaminants in beehives because wastes may end up in honey flows. Mr. Rodríguez mentioned how beekeepers sometimes use extracts of rosemary or oregano against Foulbrood, but it is always difficult for them to know what dose to add and ensure it is adequate for fighting the diseases and at the same time does not destabilize the hive. On another hand, he mentioned that the method of burning beehives results very expensive for them. Currently, in Cuauhtémoc, there is almost no presence of American Foulbrood, since, in the past, many sick hives were exposed to this burning method, then the disease decreased. On the other hand, European foulbrood is most commonly found in Cuauhtemoc.
The beekeeper emphasized how a natural product against Foulbrood is needed, so there are not left residues in the honey and he also highlighted how beekeeping varies around the world and sometimes there are specific necessities for each region.
Thanks to the sharing we made with the beekeeper of our project, he was able to have a new panorama of beekeeping, and how emerging technologies, in this case, synthetic biology, can accurately respond to specific problematics and can relegate past methods that imply many setbacks.
Mr. Rodríguez kindly invited us to present our project with the Cuauhtémoc beekeepers association and commented us about M.C. Alejandro Romo who has done different investigations on the diseases and who we would talk with later in this story.
Getting to know real experiences of the treatment methods used against our interest diseases helped us to better measure the severity of the problem and the obstacles with which beekeepers have to fight to keep their bees’ welfare.
References
- Soto, A. (2017). Cuauhtémoc, región en crecimiento económico. Retrieved from http://referente.mx/@Almer/cuauhtemoc-region-en-crecimiento-economico
- Image retrieved from: Visita Chihuahua. (2018). Chihuahua y sus alrededores. http://www.visita-chihuahua.com/index.php/2015-05-06-09-42-18
May 26th
Meeting with Ing. Manuel Ramírez Salcido
Key team members related to the development of the mathematical model, human practices, legal management, and wet lab traveled southeast from our city to visit Salcido apiaries in Delicias; a municipality that bases its economy fundamentally on the food industry. Since we arrived with Mr. Ramírez, it was amazing how the discussion flowed and flowed, getting a meeting that end-up lasting approximately 3 hours; all were valuable minutes that taught us many relevant aspects for the development of our project.
First, Mr. Ramírez covered the topic of the importance of bees, emphasizing how they have always been considered an essential factor for environmental health and he even showed us a funny cucumber that had not been correctly pollinated; it was very small and thin.
Bee diseases were our next topic. He commented how Foulbrood presence
isn’t that strong in Mexico, however, in Europe and in the USA, this is not the case. Mr. Ramírez took advantage and included implications of other frequent bee diseases like Nosema and Varroa in the conversation. He mentioned a very important point that we had previously started to notice: Most of the serious problems in bees caused by viruses or bacteria, are not correctly detected or even known. As Mr. Rodríguez had previously commented, Mr. Ramírez mentioned how different extracts of plants are used against diseases in bees, in this case, mint and grapefruit were the examples. On another hand it was mentioned how antibiotics are not an option at all for treatment, since the European Union does not accept them, neither does accept the presence of transgenics in the honey; there are rigorous studies exercised and if there is something wrong the EU may return an entire shipment of honey back to the remitter. We discussed the issue of innocuity of honey by highlighting that when there is a new product added to the hive, it should not generate any residue at all or change the expected properties from the consumer.
After talking about our project, a question arose in Mr. Ramírez, an issue that would be asked many times since that day and that we would do everything possible to solve and validate: Our product would actually pass from the food that the nurse bee ingest all through its system until reaching the larva by means of the royal jelly? And regarding the method of application, (initially consisting in applying the final product in the bee bread), Mr. Ramírez explained to us how this bee bread is created, and the fermentation process it goes through in the bee cell.
We also had the great opportunity of listening to some of the concerns Mr. Ramírez has as a beekeeper: He thinks the beekeeping area could be greatly impulsed by receiving more support from governmental institutions and he perceives that the validation of honey innocuousness here in Mexico results complicated as there are not enough tools to endorse the required diagnostics. On another hand, he mentioned how there are no young people able to continue with the job of the current farmers, and this is an alarming situation that requires a prompt resolution.
Mr. Ramírez gave us a lot of priceless information that was essential for the development of our whole project. He was the first to comment us about the beekeeping congress that would take place in the city of Delicias in the coming months, and which we would have the great privilege to attend, he told us that by means of the different sites where he frequently researches information he had noticed another iGEM team that was working with bees, for the month of September we could establish a collaboration with this team (consult collaborations for more information) and on this same point of the media, Mr. Ramírez explained to us how he always tried to receive literature to focus and inform himself, he mentioned the magazine “Bee Culture”, where we successfully managed to make a publication about our project and synthetic biology regarding beekeeping (a href="https://2018.igem.org/Team:Tec-Chihuahua/Public_Engagement">consult public engagement for more information).
He also shared with us the contacts of highly recommended specialists with whom we could consult about our product and with which we would have contact later: Juan Diego Pérez de la Rosa, Efraín Rocha, Felipe Esquivel Díaz.
We were able to share a new perspective on beekeeping in relation to synthetic biology with Mr. Ramírez by explaining him our project, the beekeeper mentioned how he was more than willing to help us, and he even shared some honey and bee bread with us! This meeting was an invaluable experience for us!
Bee Bread
References
- Image retrieved from: Administración. (2018). ¡Conócenos! http://municipiodelicias.com/
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