Team:Valencia UPV/Human Practices
Human Practices
Science and technology have always been prompted by a desire of solving social issues. Thus, 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?
Feedback receiving: the key to the success
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 affect the world and how the world affects it.
As a result, our first step was to identify the real-life problems that could be solved with Printeria and so classify its application fields. To do so, we decied to employ the MIT market segmentation table. Using it we analyzed Printeria potential users in accordance with our project values.
You can read the resulting market segmentation analysis and how it helped us to focus our initial approach by clicking here:
As a result, Printeria main applications fields can be summarized as:
Education. With a friendly-user software, Printeria is designed to be an educational tool. |
| Research groups. Printeria automatizes time-consuming protocols, enhancing the intellectual task and easing experiments reproducibility. |
Bio Art. Printeria offers a compact and friendly toolkit for the bioartist entire disposal. |
Thus, our main concern was how to fulfill the different stakeholders demands. Following our interdisciplinary spirit, we searched for continuos input from professionals with different backgrounds, so we could ensure we were designing a useful synbio device.
Expert dialogue
As a sum-up, we decided to conduct interviews with experts from the research and bioart worlds, in order to realize which were the real user necessities in regard to software functionalities, external design and safety measurements. In the same way, our microfluidic system was thoughtfully developed with the advice of electronic engineering professionals.
You can all read the interviews and viewpoints gathered by going to the expert dialogue section
Unexperted feedback. Kano model
We also received feedback from an open-talk with high school students. However, we realized such a great amount of information needed to be classificated previously to its integration.
As a result, we decided to employ the Kano model, a theory for product development and customer satisfaction, whose implementation could also be useful for future iGEM teams.
As it is one of the vertebral axis of our the Integrated Human approach, what it is, how it is carried out and the conclusions obtained with its use are thoroughly detailed in the specific Kano model section.
Thus, to know how the feedback receiving was carried out and how it was integrated to finally create Printeria as nowadays is, you can further read our Integrated_Human page.
Is your work good enough for the world?
Printeria: introducing SynBio to the world
Printeria was born with the aim of breaking 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.
Thus, we decided it was completely necessary to encourage a willing atmosphere in which Printeria could be introduced to the non-research world.
But, how to do so?
While developing our project, we had the opportunity to explore the vast applications of the BioArt. Then, we realized we had there an attractive way to introduce SynBio to the world: promoting the BioArt and so using an non-usual approach to get to the public. Moreover, we always conceibed Printeria as an educational tool for the next generations raising.
As a result, we decided to exemplificate Printeria possible both artistic and educational applications with artist advice and high schools students participation. On the other hand, several open-talks were given to fight against common synbio misinformation.
To know more about our Social outreach, see our Education and Public Engagement web page.
Is your work safe enough for the world?
Biosafety
Safety considerations in relation to Printeria sterilization and biocontention measurements are essential if we want to introduce a bio-engineering device as Printeria is in non-scientific places.
Thus, we realized we had to ensure Printeria safety design. To do so, you can read the safety measurements we have implemented into Printeria by going to our Safety page.
Collaborating is sharing
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 have made with other iGEM teams by going to our Collaborations page.
References
(1) Committee on Science, Technology, and Law; Policy and Global Affairs; Board on Life Sciences; Division on Earth and Life Sciences; National Academy of Engineering; National Research Council. Positioning Synthetic Biology to Meet the Challenges of the 21st Century: Summary Report of a Six Academies Symposium Series. Washington (DC): National Academies Press (US); 2013 Aug 5. 2, Synthetic Biology: Science and Technology for the New Millennium.