Communication

As an interdisciplinary team, we quickly realized that we needed to find effective ways to communicate complex concepts and ideas from each of our disciplines - biochemistry, engineering, biology, chemistry, and law - to other members of the team with no more than a lay background knowledge. Doing this enabled us to take advantage of our different knowledge and perspectives, bringing a new angle and fresh approach to the work in each of our fields, and allowed us to use our combined knowledge to tackle problems which we would not have been able to address individually.
This sharing of knowledge and ideas is essential not only within successful iGEM teams: our interdisciplinary group is, in this regard, a microcosm of society at large. Dialogue between scientists and non-scientists must be two-way, with both

8th August 2014 - Focus Group Round 1

Our team hosted a group of volunteers, members of the public with no particular interest or prior experience of biotechnology. Our aim was to gain a deeper understanding of public perceptions and concerns regarding the advance of synthetic biology, and in particular to get an idea of how far these concerns are based on misinformation/lack of understanding, and how far they are legitimate, well-founded fears which need to be addressed by the scientific community as the field grows and develops.
Particular issues which appear to be recurring themes in this discussion include:
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