In conclusion, $\MyColi$ seems to be a safe and predictable system, whose biggest danger would be to be used to produce a dangerous protein. This latter problem has to be addressed on a case-by-case basis, by other institutions than ours.
In conclusion, $\MyColi$ seems to be a safe and predictable system, whose biggest danger would be to be used to produce a dangerous protein. This latter problem has to be addressed on a case-by-case basis, by other institutions than ours.
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Revision as of 13:03, 11 October 2014
$~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
\newcommand{\MyColi}{{\small Mighty\hspace{0.12cm}Coli}}
\newcommand{\Stabi}{\small Stabi}$
$\newcommand{\EColi}{\small E.coli}
\newcommand{\SCere}{\small S.cerevisae}\\[0cm]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
\newcommand{\PI}{\small PI}$
$\newcommand{\Igo}{\Large\mathcal{I}}
\newcommand{\Tgo}{\Large\mathcal{T}}
\newcommand{\Ogo}{\Large\mathcal{O}}
~$
Example of a hierarchical menu in CSS
The use of $\MyColi$ in the society does not raise too many questions: genetically modified microorganisms (GMM) are already used daily (and safely) in the pharmaceutical industry.
However, we realized that few people were aware of it, and still mingled GMM with genetically modified crops, which have a terrible reputation in western Europe. Although, $\MyColi$ would be welcomed in the industry, we feared that if for some reason we had to ask the authorization of the public to use $\MyColi$, we would only face fear, incomprehension, and eventually refusal. Since the use of synthetic organisms is an important ethical and societal issue, we think that the general public should be included in the debate. But we also think that it should be properly informed about the nature of synthetic organisms and the way they are used. Hence, we decided to organize several popularization events on the subject.
On the other hand, if we consider the biosecurity issues raised by our project, we can conclude that since $\MyColi$ is only able to improve the production yield of a protein, the main issues that could be raised by $\MyColi$ really depend on the protein of interest (PI) rather than $\MyColi$ in itself. However, one could argue that a $\MyColi$ bacterium that would somehow escape from a bioreactor would not be able to lose its ability to overproduce the PI, which could lead to various pollution of the environment depending on the PI.
As a conclusion, we choose to address two different issues in our human practice: the first is the popularization and the public awareness of GMM in particular; the second is the biosecurity measures that should be taken in order to use $\MyColi$ responsibly.
Popularization events
After discussion within the team and with our friends and families, we decided that the themes of our popularization events would be the synthetic biology, the use of GMMs in research and industry (and the role that $\MyColi$ could play in it), and the means and perspectives of genetic manipulations.
We settled on a kind of popularization event that would bring us a maximal visibility, but that would also allow us to interact with each person individually and collect feedback. It would enable us to ensure that our message was not be misunderstood or oversimplified in the popularization process. We found just that opportunity in the Brussels Game festival.
Furthermore, we had the opportunity to participate to the Synbio Hours, a popularization event organised by the iGEM team Uppsala, in Sweden. We thus seized this occasion of explaining our project and of helping the Team Uppsala to explain to students and academics of Uppsala University the perspectives of synthetic biology. The event will take place on the 3rd of October. A report of the event should quickly follow.
In conclusion, $\MyColi$ seems to be a safe and predictable system, whose biggest danger would be to be used to produce a dangerous protein. This latter problem has to be addressed on a case-by-case basis, by other institutions than ours.
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- Université Libre de Bruxelles -
