Human Practices

The 2014 Pitt iGEM Team also carried out community outreach, in addition to our lab-work.

Duquesne Ethics Forum

Ethical considerations are a significant portion of any new, developing field, especially synthetic biology. The Pitt iGEM Team believes our best recommendations for the future can be found amongst ethical case studies of the past. To this effect, the Pitt iGEM Team participated in the 2014 Duquesne Ethics Forum, where we presented a case study of the Holmesburg Prison Experiments, unethically conducted by Dr. Albert Kligman from 1951 to 1974.

Our case shows that despite numerous guidance documents, such as the Helsinki and Nuremburg codes, Dr. Kligman was still able to operate without much oversight. In Dr. Kligman’s words, “Informed consent was unheard of. No one asked me what I was doing. It was a wonderful time.” Even when the public discovered how prisoners at Holmesburg were routinely infected with warts, herpes, and staphylococcus, or how the prisoners’ backs were “patched” with dozens of unknown chemicals, Dr. Kligman (along with sponsoring government agencies) faced few repercussions for their complete disregard for medical ethics. Dr. Kligman avoided any implications of medical misconduct by blatantly deleting his results.

Thankfully, the creation of Institutional Review Boards (IRBs), has provided the necessary oversight to enforce ethical guidelines, such as the NIH Code of Federal Regulations for Human Trials. However, the Pitt iGEM Team believes there is more to the story. Prior to the Holmesburg experiments, medical ethics were not taught in medical school, which made it easier for Dr. Kligman’s associates to turn a blind eye. In that light, our recommendation to the scientific community is to promote and encourage the study of ethics in university curricula, as it pertains to synthetic biology.

Science Palooza

To reach a younger audience, we developed a community outreach module, dubbed “Dermalicious,” to teach middle-school children about the structure and proper care of the skin. After an interactive worksheet, the exercise culminates in a candy model, where layers of the skin are represented by marshmallows, fruit sheets, and licorice.

On July 31st, 2014, the Pitt iGEM Team presented their Dermalicious module to a gathering of underprivileged middle-school children at Pitt’s annual Science Palooza event, sponsored by the Clinical & Translational Science Institute. In this day-long event, about 500 middle-school children rotate through 30-minute stations, where they learn about all different areas of science – the Pitt iGEM Team was excited to add “Skin Health” to this list of subjects!

iGEM Collaborations

Greg Poterewicz, founder of the 2014 Stony Brook iGEM Team, reached out to us for advice on general team management, which we were more than happy to offer! Similar to the Pitt iGEM Team, this was the first year for the Stony Brook iGEM Team, and they were struggling with the same issues we were: raising funds, delegating work, staying motivated, etc. We met with Greg on July 11th, 2014, to share our experiences starting the Pitt iGEM Team.

We reached out to the 2014 Montgomery High School iGEM Team on July 2nd, 2014, to collaborate on their project, since Montgomery’s project is also related to acne. We found the 2014 Montgomery iGEM Team had difficulty completing their experiments on time, because their team was new to the synthetic biology lab setting. To help out, we have invited Montgomery iGEM to the 2014 Pittsburgh Meet-Up, and we will offer a crash-course in synthetic biology lab techniques, so Montgomery iGEM can succeed in the 2015 competition!

Early on in the team-creation process, our mentors provided strong support to help us off the ground, and we learned a lot along the way. Namely, we had read about basic management techniques, such as planning distinct goals, and assigning clear tasks with solid deadlines to everyone. We have found if you can ensure accountability, then work flows more smoothly, and deadlines seem less daunting! Our meeting with Greg, as well as discussions with the Montgomery team, were influential in creating a “How to Start an iGEM Team” guide, which we are currently writing.

The 2014 Carnegie Mellon iGEM Team is right next door to us and made for an instinctive collaboration opportunity. With the Carnegie Mellon iGEM Team, we are hosting a Pittsburgh iGEM meet-up on September 6, 2014. The meet-up will consist of practice presentations and information sessions on creating a poster, public speaking, and constructing a wiki.

Also with the Carnegie Mellon team, we presented an overview of iGEM and our 2014 projects to a group of undergraduates conducting computational biology research at the University of Pittsburgh on July 11, 2014. The presentation covered the biological, modeling, and outreach components of our iGEM projects. We specifically focused on our logical model and its relation to computational biology. Overall, our presentation was well-received and incited the spark in several undergraduates to start iGEM teams at their own universities.