Team:Aix-Marseille/Human Practices
Since the very beginning of our project, we have thought a great deal about the Human Practices. In order to make our project as useful as possible we discussed with many people: with bed bug detection and eradication specialists; with entomologists; and with the general public. In this way, we tried to design our project and develop our scientific approach, to be as acceptable and applicable as possible.
We had to imagine our project in its environmental and social context in order to meet the needs of the public and replace currently used insecticides. The current solutions to bed bug infestations using insecticides are very harmful at different levels. First, broad-spectrum insecticides can, unfortunately, kill beneficial insects such as bees, but also bedbugs develop resistance to insecticides and so these solutions become inefficient requiring higher and higher doses of chemicals.
We tried to develop a novel green and ethical solution for our project. Moreover, public opinion convinced us not to use GMOs in our trap. All of these investigations suggested that a modified fungus in the environment would probably be acceptable neither to the legislative authorities nor to consumers. So Human Practices influenced all our project modifying our initial plan and led us to find alternative solutions.
Surveys
When we started the project, we did not know the relationship between the general public and bed bugs. How did they feel about this problem? What were they prepared to use in their homes? and what was their opinion about GMO's?
We also wanted to gain knowledge about the needs of people with infested homes. To improve our understanding, we decided to perform several surveys which we thought was the most appropriate method. In our first surveys, we focused on the general public's opinion. We asked about: the issues caused by bed bugs, the kind of solutions they needed, and their opinions on GMO's. Thanks to these surveys, we determined that the current solution, insecticides, is seen as a source of pollution. Besides this, many people reported a lack of efficiency, with the rapid return of bed bugs. Another information we obtained was a trap was better perceived as a solution than indiscriminately spreading insecticidal products (for example fungi). We observed that a small majority of those questioned 51.9% were against using OGM's in their homes, even if it could rid them of bed bugs. In light of these opinions, we choose to design a trap without including GMOs. More info...
Interviews
To understand the feasibility of our project it was essential to have the opinions of professionals in the domain. Then we contacted several specialists of bed bugs field in order to discuss the implementation of our project. We met Mr. Gremaud who works on bed bugs detection using dogs, he thought our idea was interesting and appropriate. We also consulted an entomologist, expert on bed bugs: Mr. Berenger. He confirmed that in his opinion pheromone-based traps offered the best solutions in the struggle against bed bugs. He also helped us to understand trap development and explained the steps necessary to optimize our trap. At a different level, consulted Mr. Moncler, an entrepreneurship consultant, who gave us advice on how to develop our project as a company. These consultations all helped us develop a better project. More info...
Testimonies
Thanks to a successful media publicity campaign, we had a great opportunity to get testimony from people who have suffered from bed bug infestations. Indeed, we were very surprised by the great interest the publicity generated, showing us the degree of suffering endured by people facing bed bug infestations. In particular, the various testimonies we collected allowed us to obtain more information about infestation time and affected areas. Based on these observations we targeted and modelized affected area in order to design the most efficient trap. More info...
Public Engagement and education
The team participated in a number of educational events targetting different groups. School children were introduced to synthetic biology via interventions in schools and open-air centers with experimental activities around DNA (Science Village, Research Night). We participated in a national conference on social housing, presenting our project to professionals in the domain. A more informed audience was targeted through a conference and stand at a local biotechnology forum. These interventions helped educate the youngest about synthetic biology and bring a new vision of GMO's to an older public. More info...
Integrating Human Practices
Our human practices work was integrated into our project at various levels. First, discussions concerning biosafety at the with scientists at the science fair and also with biosafety experts at the French meet-up convinced us that a super-virulent fungus was probably not acceptable to legislative authorities. This pushed us to design a more safety conscious solution. Second, discussion with the bed bug expert, Mr. Berenger, comforted us in the use or a pheromone-based trap. Third, feedback from the general public indicated a trap containing live genetically modified organisms was only partially acceptable. These considerations lead to the modification of our design to avoid including GMO's in a publicly distributed trap.