Team:Purdue/Human Practices
Overview
Our work in human practices focused on answering two questions: will our diagnostic test responsibly impact the world in a positive way, and if so how can we best tailor our design to the needs of those seeking to use it. To answer these questions, we sought the advice of professionals specializing in paper-based assays and the opinions of those who would feasibly come into contact with the test at each step of the diagnostic process. The insight we gained from these interactions demonstrated that Yeast ID has a high potential to responsibly improve the lives of those suffering from yeast infections. By listening to feedback from these key stakeholders we were also able to identify and correct previously unforeseen problems in assay design, propelling us closer to our goal of making as large and positive as possible. Our human practices process consists of six basic steps.
Step 1
Doing research on the problem and learning diagnosis and treatment processes
Follow up on findings from literature review by investigating diagnosis and treatment processes first hand.
Who we talked to:
Practicing OBGYN: Dr. Lisa Yang
On any given day, Dr. Lisa Yang could expect to visit with regular patients for checkups, perform surgeries, coach a future mother through labor, and deliver multiple babies. Dr. Yang additionally oversees surgeries and tests performed by residents in training. Apart from answering our questions pertaining to current diagnostics for yeast infections (see problem page), Dr. Yang described the ideal yeast infection diagnostic. The ideal diagnostic has the following characteristics:
- Able to produce results in the office without the use of specialized lab equipment
- Produce a comparable number of false positives and negatives compared to the "gold standard" diagnostic
- Inexpensive
- If her staff is able to perform the test because she either has to conduct the test herself or send it into a lab
- Requires minimal training and expertise to complete
Step 2
Developing our Paper-Based Assay
Throughout the process of building our paper-based assay, we consulted professionals who helped us change our assay to better fit the needs of healthcare professionals and patients everywhere.
Who we talked to:
Dr. Linnes
Dr. Linnes is an assistant professor in Biomedical Engineering at Purdue University who specializes in developing paper-based assays. She helped our team greatly by providing examples of paper-based assays, identifying important variables in assay design, and allowing our assay designer to use materials and equipment in her lab. Because of her large contribution, it is difficult to narrow down discrete changes she provoked in our design; that being said, we directly implemented her suggestion to have a 3-step maximum on our assay.
Step 3
Learn how to Relay our research to the public
Communicating our research and transporting or assay to the public is important when making our assay more globally accessible.
Who we talked to:
Dr. Cooky
Dr. Cooky is an associate professor of American Studies and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Purdue University. During our project she helped us in focusing in on how we can help the general public understand our research. She also brought to light that yeast infections are “a relatively minor medical issue that creates a disproportionate impact on women’s lives.”
Throughout our talk with her she brought to our attention:
- How the youth is getting educated on sexual health and what their programs entail
- Whether or not sexual health education programs are teach about infections like vulvovaginal candidiasis
- Different misconceptions that surround women’s health and the implications of what going to get treatment for infections like vulvovaginal candidiasis entail
- How different cultures view women’s health and the challenges women face in obtaining a test and getting treatment
- Make sure our test is something women could do by themselves by keeping it simple and accessible
- Consider a global reach with our test
Dr. Clase
Dr. Clase is the director of the Biotechnology Innovation and Regulatory Science Center and also a professor in Agricultural and Biological Engineering as well as Technology Leadership and Innovation. She works extensively with building programs to help secure access to medicine in Africa and developing nations. Dr. Clase helped us by answering questions about bringing our assay to the global market. From talking with her she answered our questions about international healthcare and suggested we find out how people learn about healthcare and where people go if there is no doctor or nurse.
Public Engagement
We had the opportunity to work with Purdue University Libraries in creating an event called DIYBio and Maker, where we educated the Purdue community about synthetic biology and our project. During the event we interacted with students and shed light on the importance of synthetic biology and the implications of our research.
Integrated HP:
Step 4
IRB-approved survey
The most important stakeholder for any diagnostic test is the user, the person tasked with completing the necessary steps and analyzing the results. Unfortunately, the stigma associated with yeast infections and the difficulty of finding a large diverse population of potential users make collecting data from this key demographic challenging. Thankfully Amazon Mechanical Turk, an online survey distribution platform, was able to help us circumvent these problems. After working with the Purdue Statistics Department to eliminate biases from our survey questions and receiving IRB approval, the survey was distributed and completed by 239 potential users. The survey allowed us to collect data on the habits of those with potential yeast infections and determine minimums for assay cost and speed among other metrics. Because users preferred the test have two sample channels instead of the one channel offered by our paper-based assay at the time, we updated our test design. To view our survey questions and full findings, click the link below,
Step 5
Collaboration
A truly accessible assay can be shipped anywhere with minimal shipping accommodations. To test how shipping and dormancy would affect the functionality of our assay we shipped prototypes to the Northwestern iGEM Team for experimentation. Although we were unable to characterize the impact of shipping on test effectiveness, the interaction demonstrated that our assay instructions needed to be more specific and that sample loading areas should be labelled. The updated design can be found on our hardware page. To view more details of our collaboration, click the link below.
Follow Us On
