For our project, we built a Facebook page. We produced a document that invited iGEM teams from across the world to contribute posts. This invitation outlines interview protocols, instructions for obtaining permission to post an interview transcript and photo online, and how the project relates to the broader goals shared by the iGEM competition and its constituent teams.

After e-mailing this to all teams whose e-mails were readily available, as well as posting our invitation on the iGEM Facebook group several times this summer, results started to flow in. The submissions weren’t the only memorable element of this outreach - we learned a great deal about how individuals around the world think about and relate to synthetic biology.

We continue to actively solicit and accept submissions for Humans & Synbio. Please contact us through Facebook if you are interested in participating!

SynBio Opinions

We surveyed a sample of our colleagues, peers, and community members (n=166), hoping to understand how individuals’ opinions about environmental issues and about the viability of synthetic biology affected their stated judgement of our synthetic biology application. We disseminated this survey using Facebook, e-mail, and other forms of social media. We also sent out invitations to all the iGEM teams who had their contact e-mails readily available on their websites. Results are summarized and pictured on the corresponding page, accompanied by a sample survey. Of note is the fact that out of the respondents who provided a complete set of responses (n=162), a distinct minority (n=3) indicated that they either disagreed or strongly disagreed (on a 5-point Likert scale) with the use of synthetic biology to implement the following description of our project:

"This year Cornell iGEM will be focused on developing an alternative solution to heavy metal water pollution (i.e. lead, mercury, or nickel). Our hope is to create a water filtration device composed of E. coli that have been genetically engineered to produce metallothioneins - a protein that has a high affinity for binding with heavy metals. In other words, water containing heavy metals will be pumped through the E. coli cells and the heavy metals will be taken out of the water and into the E. coli cells. Our hope is to design our device for point-source filtration, so attaching it to the end of a factory pipe filtering out heavy metal content before it enters the ecosystem. However, there are many other applications for our project."

Environmental Water Samples

Instead of solely analyzing water samples from our area (Fall Creek in Ithaca, NY), we were curious to see how many other areas around the United States had traces of heavy metal contamination. Thus, we sent out a request for other iGEM teams to send us environmental water samples from their areas. We got responses from all across the nation, ranging from California, Utah, Michigan, Indiana, and Connecticut. In return, we analyzed their samples via ICP-AES (Inductively Coupled Plasma Atomic Emission Spectromy) and generated an individual water quality report for each team. Our goal was to develop a better understanding of heavy water contamination in drinking water in the United States, and the analyses returned a surprising variety of heavy metal concentrations in environmental water samples.

Risk Assessment