Team:ULB-Brussels/Human

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Human Practice
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<font color="#CCD6EA">'Team mobilized on</font> $Human$ $practice$ <font color="#CCD6EA">and Biotech activities'</font>
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<br/><section><b> Introduction | <a href="https://2014.igem.org/Team:ULB-Brussels/Human/MissionBGF">Brussels Game Festival </a></b>
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<a href="https://2014.igem.org/Team:ULB-Brussels/Human/MissionBGF">Brussels Game Festival </a></b>
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<h1>Introduction</h1>
<h1>Introduction</h1>
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<p>The use of MightyColi in the society does not raise too many questions: genetically modified microorganisms (GMM) are already used daily (and safely) in the pharmaceutical industry (1, 2).</p>
 
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<p>However, we realized that few people were aware of that fact, and still mingled GMM with the GMO plants used in agriculture, which have a really bad reputation in western Europe. Although Mighty Coli would be welcomed without any problem in the industry, we feared that if, for some reason, we had to ask the authorization of the public to use Mighty Coli, we would only face fear, incomprehension, and eventually refusal. Since we firmly believe that the use of GMOs is an important ethical and societal issue, and that the general public should be included in the debate, we decided to organize several popularization events.</p>
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<p>On the other hand, if we consider the biosecurity issues raised by our project, we can conclude that since Mighty Coli is only able to improve the production yield of a protein, the main issues that could be raised by Mighty Coli really depend on the chosen protein rather than Mighty Coli in itself. However, one could argue that a Mighty Coli bacterium that would somehow escape from a bioreactor would not be able to lose its ability to overproduce the chosen protein, which could lead to various the pollution of the environment depending of the chosen protein.</p>
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<p>The use of Mighty Coli in the society does not raise too many questions: genetically modified microorganisms (GMM) are already used daily (and safely) in the pharmaceutical industry.</p>
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<p>In conclusion, we choose to address two different issues in our human practice: the first is popularization and public awareness of GMOs and GMMS in particular; the second is the biosecurity measures that should be taken in order to use Mighty Coli responsibly. </p>
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<h1>Popularization events</h1>
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<p>After discussion within the team and with our friends and families, we decide that the themes of our popularization events would be the use of GMMs in research and industry (and the role that Mighty Coli could play in it), the means and perspectives of genetic manipulations and synthetic biology, the difference between GMMS and agricultural GMOs, and, given the opportunity, we would also discuss the pros and cons of agricultural GMOs, even if it is a bit off topic for Mighty Coli.</p>
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<p>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, Mighty Coli would be welcomed in the industry, we feared that if for some reason we had to ask the authorization of the public to use it, 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 popularization events on the subject.
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<p>Since our perception of the public’s opinion about GMs and GMM were inherently biased by the few TV-reports and discussion we had had with our friends, we also decided to gather as much objective data as we could about the knowledge of the public in the area of the Biotechnology.</p>
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<!-- <p>On the other hand, if we consider the biosecurity issues raised by our project, we can conclude that since Mighty Coli is only able to improve the production yield of a protein, the main issues that could be raised depend on the protein of interest (PI) rather than Mighty Coli in itself. However, one could argue that a 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.</p>
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<p>We settled on two types of popularization events: first, we would exacerbate the ludic dimension of the iGEM competition to take part in the Brussels Games Festival; then, we would prepare a presentation to give to science classes in several High Schools in Brussels.</p>
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<p>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 Mighty Coli responsibly. </p> -->
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<h1>Popularization events</h1>
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<p>After discussion within the team and with our friends and families, we decided that the themes of our popularization events would be synthetic biology, the use of GMMs in research and industry (and the role that Mighty Coli could play in it), and the means and perspectives of genetic manipulations.
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<p>Since our perception of the public’s opinion about GMOs and GMMs were inherently biased by the few TV-reports and discussion we had had with our friends, we also decided to try to gather as much objective data as we could about the knowledge of the public in the area of the Biotechnology.</p>
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<p>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 <a href="https://2014.igem.org/Team:ULB-Brussels/Human/MissionBGF"><b> Brussels Game festival</b></a>.</p>
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</p>Furthermore, we had the opportunity to participate to the <a href="https://2014.igem.org/Team:ULB-Brussels/Human/SynbioUpp"><b>Synbio Hours</b></a>, 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.
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<h1>Biosafety</h1>
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As mentioned earlier, the main concerns raised by $\MyColi$ depend more on the protein that we chose to produce than on $\MyColi$ in itself. However, $\MyColi$ could compel an escaped recombinant bacterium to produce a PI in the environment, when a bacterium without the $\MyColi$ system would quickly degenerate to stop producing the PI. The risk seems thin, since such an overproducing bacterium would suffer from a clear competitive disadvantage in a wild environment. However it is not excluded that the plasmid containing the $\MyColi$ system, since it benefits from the properties of the TA System, could manage to maintain itself anyway through Horizontal Gene transfer (HGT), at the expend of the wild bacteria it infects.</p>
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In the current state of our project, however, the plasmids are maintained through the usual system of antibiotic resistance, since the toxin and the antitoxin are placed on different plasmids bearing different resistance genes. The properties of the TA systems are only used to overproduce the protein, not to stabilize the system in the bacterial population. The system will thus decay quickly if the $\MyColi$ bacteria wander in a wild environment, without any antibiotic.
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Furthermore, in the final version of our project (that is, if we have the time to go this far), the toxin gene will be inserted in the genomic DNA of the bacteria, preventing it to ever be lost, and compelling the bacteria to keep the plasmid bearing the genes of the antitoxin and the protein of interest. It will also prevent any reasonable chance of Horizontal Gene Transfer of the $\MyColi$ system as a whole.</p>
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If, for one reason or another, the overproduction of a protein did not result in a competitive disadvantage, one could subordinate he antitoxin production to an inducible promoter that would act as a built-in biocontainment device. Indeed,if one selects in the bioreactor an artificial inducer (that is, an inducer not found in nature) for the antitoxin, the escaped bacteria would have no means to inhibit the toxin and would quickly die outside of the bioreactor.
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Several of containment devices have been developed by IGEM teams, and other are already in use in the industry.
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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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<a href="https://2014.igem.org/Team:ULB-Brussels/Human/MissionBGF"><b> Brussels Game Festival > </b></a>
<a href="https://2014.igem.org/Team:ULB-Brussels/Human/MissionBGF"><b> Brussels Game Festival > </b></a>
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<a href="https://2014.igem.org/Team:ULB-Brussels/Human/MissionBGF"> Brussels Game Festival > </a>
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Latest revision as of 18:14, 17 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

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- Université Libre de Bruxelles -


'Team mobilized on $Human$ $practice$ and Biotech activities'


Retrieved from "http://2014.igem.org/Team:ULB-Brussels/Human"

Introduction

The use of Mighty Coli 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, Mighty Coli would be welcomed in the industry, we feared that if for some reason we had to ask the authorization of the public to use it, 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 popularization events on the subject.

Popularization events

After discussion within the team and with our friends and families, we decided that the themes of our popularization events would be synthetic biology, the use of GMMs in research and industry (and the role that Mighty Coli 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.
Brussels Game Festival >