Team:Macquarie Australia/Outreach/SYTYCS

The Macquarie University iGEM team 2014 is proud to present the WORLD’S FIRST Synthetic Biology themed reality contest titled So You Think You Can Synthesize. Check out the trailer below!

The So You Think You Can Synthesize project (website can be seen at http://www.sytycs.org) has been the flagship of our iGEM policy and practice initiatives. The online reality TV style contest features 6 contestants or “Synthesizers” – Amit, Alice, Leah, Nadia, Sunny and William – all members of the Macquarie University iGEM team. It provides a forum for anyone with a computer to reach out and ask questions regarding Synthetic Biology- its applications, concerns, potentials and pitfalls. The users were then able to vote for their favourite Synthesizers based on how they felt their questions were answered. Videos from eliminated contestants, trailers featuring catchy music and video responses to outstanding questions were added routinely for added drama - which tends to appeal to the general public and is a feature of most contemporary reality TV shows. Scroll through the slider below to see a glimpse of our website.

Whilst this was originally intended to be a pilot project, our entire team was equal parts dumbfounded and proud with the phenomenal success our humble project achieved. The website for the contest had about 11,000 views as of 16th October, 2014. Whilst the first “season” of the contest is officially over, and the people had a chance to vote for their favourite “Synthesizer”, the website continues to attract visitors from all over the world! In future years, we hope to see this reality TV style online contest feature international contestants, and as one user remarked –

“I can see this becoming the Eurovision of the Synthetic Biology World!”

Skip to sections of this report by using the links below

The Inspiration!

At the start of our project, we recognized that we needed to draw on past iGEM policy and practices to truly optimize our policy and practices initiatives. Having looked at several wikis over the month of August, we identified two main streams in which Human Practice work was undertaken –

• Work towards increasing public understanding of Science. Mostly via outreach activities.
• Work towards identify, analysing and hopefully minimizing the various concerns over Synthetic Biology on behalf of the “public”.

We wanted to integrate both of these into our Policy and Practices initiatives, whilst simultaneously working towards providing a platform for self-directed inquiry regarding Synthetic Biology and uncover a forum that can form the basis for user driven innovation. Furthermore, we wanted to eliminate traditional gatekeepers of knowledge (notably the sensationalist media) from traditional science communication.

Then the BIG QUESTION was –

HOW DO WE GO ABOUT ACHIEVING ALL OF THIS?

The answer came with So You Think You Can Synthesize.

Our Approach

How does it work?

The contest started with six hopefuls (called the Synthesizers) who would chat with people from all over the world on the competition website during our live chat sessions. The users can then ask the Synthesizers questions on various aspects of Synthetic Biology, whilst the Synthesizers replied. Users were also encouraged to provide their opinions on various aspects of our project and Synthetic Biology in general. Every week the contestant with the least votes was eliminated, and the eliminated contestant made a video detailing their experiences. These videos featured dialogues that hinted at scheming behaviour, or extreme emotions for extra drama!

The response was outstanding! With 560 unique visitors in the first week alone, and an overwhelming amount of questions – we knew it had taken off! Check out the first elimination (Will Klare) below!

Why does it work?

We recognized that invoking the term “public” in iGEM policy and practice discourse meant referring to people who are not familiar with the scholarship regarding Synthetic Biology. In other words, the “non-experts”. Of course, the public is by no means a homogenous group. People have all kinds of differences – based on their occupation, gender, class, age, level of education and so on. This has a profound impact on their lived experience, which means based on their personal contexts, they will have different concerns, expectations and opinions regarding production, use and development of engineered micro-organisms. Thus, Synthetic biology and associated projects such as ours, will mean vastly different things to different people. This is where the Self-Directed Inquiry aspect of So You Think You Can Synthesize comes to play. With a platform like SYTYCS where individuals can direct how they question, critique and discuss both our project and the discipline on their own, the knowledge individuals acquire becomes relevant to their personal context. Such embodied knowledge is likely to create a better appreciation and promote better public understanding of the SynBio discipline and associated research.

Additionally, an honest and open dialogue between researchers and non-experts also contributes towards the removal of “Gatekeepers” of knowledge. Gatekeepers are usually journalists, editors and other media personnel. Whilst extensive scholarship on SynBio research, ethics and philosophy exists, it is written at a level that is not accessible to all audiences. This is where the gatekeepers come to play. In trying to cross the bridge between academic thought and public opinion, they are often likely to sensationalize, over-dramatize and over simplify knowledge. So You Think You Can Synthesize removes these gatekeepers and offers scientific knowledge in a way that is fun, accessible and interactive to the public.

Our accomplishments

Throughout the 5 weeks of So You Think You Can Synthesize, we got roughly 11,000 views on the website as of 16th October, 2014 and had users from 14 different countries asking questions. To our knowledge, such large numbers of people have never been reached via an online platform created by an iGEM team. Furthermore, an online platform that is both interesting, educational whilst being able to facilitate self –directed inquiries have never been created. The novelty of the idea, combined with a contemporary media format is what motivated such large numbers of people from different parts of the world to engage with this site. The following infographic summarises some of the key analytical data from the website.

Our Findings

Furthermore, a subjective analysis of our conversations on So You Think You Can Synthesize revealed that the main concerns regarding our project ran on 5 primary veins. Figure 2 summarises these main “issues” as identified via our conversations with roughly 700 users over the course of 5 weeks. We wanted the rest of our policy and practices to be informed by the concerns and expectations. A lot of users wanted to know how the Australian Law has changed with advances in genomic research. To evaluate how Australian law has changed with such recent advances, refer to the section titled Synthetic Biology in Australian Law. Similarly, all the other areas of interest were dealt with in various sections of our Policy and Practices initiatives.

Figure 2. Summary of main issues via analysis of conversations with users on So You Think You Can Synthesize.

The following examples demonstrate some of the most insightful questions we had on So You Think You Can Synthesize over the course of five weeks. The text has been slightly modified to eliminate spelling errors where required.

Photophyll and So You Think You Can Synthesize: Project, Policy, & Practices

How does it relate to the technical aspects of our project?

Firstly, So You Think You Can Synthesize provided an excellent platform for communicating our research to a large number of people. This allowed us to easily survey public opinion, concerns and expectations regarding our project. In fact one of the most frequent questions we got out of So You Think You Can Synthesize was –

“So, what are you guys working on?”

This discourse generated two important issues –

• Queries regarding the economic viability of our research, and how we intend on taking this research from the laboratory to the industry.
• In the spirit of promoting user driven innovation, we used the insights and ideas gained from our conversations to drive the rest of P &P initiatives. This included increasing visibility of our research by showcasing it at Sydney’s Powerhouse Museum, assessing the economic viability of our project by means of an articulate Business plan and conducting a review of relevant Australian law in regards to Synthetic Biology.
Furthermore, each week our live chat “episodes” had a particular theme – Synthetic Biology and beyond, Ethics of Synbio, Synbio and the Environment, and so on. In every conversation we aimed to explore how the technical aspects of our project related to the weekly theme.

Future Directions:

We expect this contest, which has a focus of promoting self-directed inquiry and user driven innovation, to continue and be carried on by other iGEM teams. After all, the fans of So You Think You Can Synthesize will expect numerous “seasons”!

Season 1 may be well and truly over, but next year we expect it to return – with more contestants and even greater coverage! In future, we also hope to get other iGEM teams involved. For example, the six “Synthesizers” can be representatives from six different institutions, thus turning So You Think You Can Synthesize into an international, inter-varsity competition!

We would like to remind future iGEM teams that creating such a web based platform is fairly easy, and the Macquarie iGEM team 2014 is more than happy to assist with any issues regarding implementation. Please contact our team’s IT guru Mitchell on mitchell.jeitani@students.mq.edu.au for any queries.

Finally, we would like to remind future iGEM teams that running an online contest such as So You Think You Can Synthesize is a rewarding experience in and of itself. Here’s a quick reminder of all the wonderful things such outstanding levels of public engagement can achieve:

• The public can be equipped with up-to-date and accurate information regarding synthetic biology, addressing the failures of the media & scientists. It avoids the complex language of academic and philosophical journals, communicating the technical and ethical issues simply and effectively.
• A conversation which has been started on the public's terms is more comprehensible to ordinary people, and speaks directly to them and is able to correctly target and hopefully resolve their concerns. By allowing the public to express and drive the conversation, the issues of primary interest to the public can be identified or allayed.
• Direct and open communication with academics serves a watchdog function, ensuring proper public oversight of areas of ethical concern, and encouraging scientific personnel also to consider the ethical and social consequences of synthetic biology.
• Our vision of “SYTYCS goes international” will prompt discussion of a broad range of cultural perspectives on issues of synthetic biology. This allows for those culturally versed in social and ethical issues of their region to address those concerns in a manner not engaged in by Western, often secular, literature.