Human Practice

Human Practice Philosophy: big dreams with applications

Behind our Human Practice we have one simple idea. We have a vision to transform our dreams in new applications to excel in achieving social goals. Our vision for Human Practice has been shown in report on Future Lanthan Hospital Model. It is a bottom-up strategy to transform healthcare by launching collaboration on the boundaries of several disciplines aimed at inducing openness and sharing, not only in business and academia but also in the society itself. In Human Practice we would like to show the perspective and context for Cellulare. To tell the truth we would be pleased show you big dreams with application and encourage you to collaborate with us!

We believe that the person with a great idea behind is more powerful than one who depend merely on facts. So, everything what we have done was based on that philosophy. We do not give you complete solutions, but a vision and a strategy to develop and apply. Our first goal is not to be the best iGEM project, our goal is to initiate the project which could be developed further, outside iGEM by people of different skills and different potential to solve complex problems on the larger scale. We are aimed at design both Cellulare itself and its Human Practice to serve social goals which could be developed far beyond synthetic biology.

“Some look at things that are, and ask why. I dream of things that never were and ask why not?”
George Bernard Shaw

Recycling ideas: recovery - transformation – new application

We have started from listening what others want to say and, asking them questions to understand better the context of our project (Figure 1). This is how new application for Celulare has emerged. Our ultimate goal of the Human Practice is to add valuable contribution to healthcare transition by proposing a more synthetic biology-oriented approach for medicine. At the same time we want to encourage you to become more resource-efficient through optimal allocation of scarce material. We would like to show new application for mechanism design (engineering part of the economics) and the stable matching algorithm allowing to better resource-management addressing the needs of the patients. We also aim to provide a contribution to the processing of medical data and open source science in the era of big data in medicine. Here, we see new application for Celulare, (and in futher perspective iGEM itself) to finally bring idea of transform healthcare with synthetic biology.

Figure 1. Cycles of ideas with new applications. Context for Celulare itself and its Human Practice

In our persuits we have been inspired by and support mutually with Collegium Invisibile and Offtopicarium who also realize some bottom-up initiatives and have excellent Human Practice. We understand, however, that our contribution is only a droplet in the sea of knowledge. Still, we envisage project to be a small thing with greater perspectives. That is why we are searching for new ways of communication via Scientia Crastina (latin for ‘The Science of Tomorrow’). Our aim is to encourage to seek new possibilities of collaboration of the interdisciplinary projects through open communication in science.

Lanthan Hospital

Moving to implement of our dreams in practice we comprised thoughts derived from our Human Practice in the raport “Celulare: transforming healthcare" in which we present Future Lanthan Hospital Model. The basic idea behind Lanthan Hospital Model is to integrate synthetic biology lab with hospital. This is sort of start-up strategy with systems impact, which we set in the context of a broader healthcare transformation. As Celulare is focused on lanthanides bioremediation, we want to propose strategy to optimal allocation of these elements and other deficit resources on healthcare market. That is why we have indicated several possible applications for novel economic concepts of Nobel Prize Winners in ‘Nobel Lantan Economy and Nobel Human Practice’ section. We believe that synthetic biology approach, especially iGEM itself may "influence the world from protein, to policy, to pixels.” To make it happen we develop Future Lantan Hospital Model.

Download the report (pdf file)

Report - table of contests

Report - summary

Nowadays, in the big data era, medicine will be inevitably transformed by systems biology. Rapid developments in deep sequencing, metabolomics and so called "personal medicine" have already changed medical sciences. Hence, we would like to add a valuable contribution to that healthcare transition by proposing a more synthetic biology-oriented approach for medicine. Our project ‘Cellulare’ touches both healthcare transformation for data analysis and optimal allocation of deficit resources. Our question is how to design a hospital only having access to limited resources, equip it in modern technologies (biomedical and IT), and finally how to combine modern technology and pro-ecological design in order to improve the work of healthcare. To address this difficult issue, we developed Future Lanthan Hospital Model, which is aimed to show that recovery of lanthanides (rare earth elements) from electronic waste (smartphones, tablets etc.) by synthetic biology methods, could be a beneficial supporting strategy for a modern hospital. We have proposed integration of a hospital with a supplementary synthetic biology lab, in which lanthanide remediation project could take place. First, such a solution would contribute to the public image of the hospital as a rationally functioning institution with eco-friendly profile. Secondly, it could allow to equip the hospital in modern technologies based on rare-earth metals. Simultaneously, we suggest mechanism design (engineering part of the economy) and the stable matching algorithm allowing better resource-management that would address the needs of the patients. By Future Lanthan Hospital Model we would like to show beneficial changes for society resulted from implementation of modern technologies in medicine and educate people about applications, safety and some security problems related to cutting-edge technologies. In the end we also aim to provide a contribution to the processing of medical data and open source science, since in the era of big data in medicine such measures seems to be necessary for the rapid transformation of the healthcare.

Collaboration and future perspectives

Science Polish Perspectives

We are extremely proud that just before Giant Jamboree we have passed through competitive selection process for talks and we are to present Future Lanthan Hospital Model at the Science Polish Perspectives 2014 at Oxford! One of main aim of conference is to popularise science, whilst also enhancing the cooperation between its British, Polish and European branches. Taking in mind SPP agenda we hope that presenting our project help us to build a network of contacts and discuss Poland’s participation in the development of science and technology. We agree with the agenda that drawing inspiration from each other is one of the best ways of developing the huge potential as individuals and as members of a fast-growing scientific community.

Here see announcment on talk 'solving limited resources problem with engineering part of biology, economy and medicine. Step forward to open health' to be presented by a member of our team.

Leaders of healthcare market and Collegium Invisibile

We aim to improve our Future Lanthan Hospital Model by means of cooperation with members and Alumni of the program ‘Leaders of healthcare market’ supported by Foundation 2065 im. Lesław A. Pagi and Collegium Invisible. Members of iGEM Warsaw Team, ‘Leaders of healthcare market’ program and Collegium Invisibile wish to contribute to educational initiatives, hence our long term goal is to build a group of passionate young people who will continue spreading our ideas in the future. In these particular cases we feel an obligation to help in STEM education in medicine and to find some future leaders to take care of Lanthan Hospital Model. We also hope to perform several analyses related to our project in cooperation between iGEM team and members mentioned organizations. See annex 4 in the report 'Celulare - future leaders start here'.

Kidney Paired Donation project

We also support Future Lanthan Hospital Model by estimation of potential gains from KPD to facilitate implementation of pilot program in Poland (in the raport we feature also preliminary results of the project 'estimation of potential gains from Kidney Paired Donation and comparative analysis of national and worldwide transplant law to facilitate implementation of a pilot KPD program in Poland' - see annex 2).This part of the Human Practice is based on idea of openness and sharing and touches the problem of optimal allocation deficit resources so is very in line with Celulare philosophy.

Workshops for gifted high school students

We aimed at spread the idea of Future Lanthan Hospital and potential applications of lanthanides, as we thinking of our long term goals from the beginning - we want our project Celulare to have real application and meet people needs. Together with members of Collegium Invisibile we prepared workshops introducing idea of Future Lanthan Hospital and simultaneously fascinating young people with synthetic biology and showing idea of startups. We also prepared workshops on advanced visualization in oncology (molecular imaging, MRI) to show applications on lanthanides in medicine and collaboration on the boundaries of science.

Offtopicarium

As we have discovered that Offtopicarium gives unique opportunity to present our project to people from different fields: scientists, entrepreneurs, people involved in startups, who like to discuss, create and solve problems and are not afraid of unconventional and "off-topic" ideas, we wanted to contribute to this event by being active participants and by preparing supporting materials(see Figure 2). Important to say is that one of our members has coorganized the event this year with a view to mutually spread ideas between iGEM Team and Offtopicarium community (for more information on Offtopicarium see article in Scientia Crastina).

Figure 2. Event cover - supporting materials prepared by the member of IGEM Warsaw Team 2014.

Offtopicarium has been launched to spread ideas among people with passion, so we prepared comprehensive presentation of ideas related to our project in three talks. First talk titled "Synthetic life - beyond biology and chemistry" briefly summarized the recent discoveries and development in biological chemistry which are connected to the idea of synthetic life such as new synthetic analogues of DNA, extended genetic code and so called bioorthogonal chemistry which allow us to introduce chemical modifications to proteins, nucleic acids and other biomolecules in vivo. Second talk “Serious games in Education – was related to computer game connected with Celulare - game that would teach synthetic biology. It was also a story on ventures with starting up a small game-design company. The last talk, titled “How to make healthcare more open? How to allocate resources in healthcare? - are those mirror questions?” presented Future Lanthan Hospital Model in the context of open health. This was a talk on the possibilities and problems encountered in spreading ideas in context of society awareness, medical environemnent and lack of economical and law analysis.

At the end of September our iGEM Team took part in Festiwal Nauki (Science Festival)– an annual event held all over Warsaw, organized since 1997. The aim of the Festival is to talk, show and share science with the entire society, to gain social endorsement for further progress of science in Poland. It is also an opportunity for anyone to do science on their own – by taking part in discussions, lectures, workshops, shows and many more events held every day for 10 days.



As a Team, we prepared two things for this occasion: workshop called “Design your own gene” and a stand devoted to synthetic biology and recycling. On our stand we were showing in simple ways what is synthetic biology and what we can do with it. We were also talking about our project, showing that not only bacteria can be used for recycling, but that it is also possible to use some basic trash to create something useful or pretty – like newspaper baskets or crayon boxes from milk containers. Most of our listeners there where young children.



The bioinformatics workshop was dedicated to older listeners, who already knew a little about biology. We were trying to show them what synthetic biology is and how the process of genetical engineering really looks like. Listeners where given a basic program that would show them if the sequence created by them will work as a gene.



This event was a very important part of our Human Practice, where we could meet our target people face-to-face. Overall, Science Festival was a great experience for us and an amazing way to meet and talk with people about synthetic biology and our project. Both children and adults seemed fascinated by the idea of bacteria recycling lanthanides and many people said they are looking forward to see our project become everyday reality.

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