Our project is based on the idea that the combination of the sponge's filtration power and the bacteria engineered biosensing capacities will form a bioremediation agent that will be more efficient that if we just released the bacteria into the water. However we believed it was important to also take into consideration the ethical issues such a system would rise, since it would imply the use of an animal as a biosensing tool, and the introduction of a genetically modified bacteria in its microbiome.

The organisms commonly suggested as bioremediation agents are micro-organisms and plants. But the sponge is an animal, even though for a long time it was thought to be a "zoophyte", an organism at the limit between vegetal and animal. And what is often considered acceptable for micro-organisms and plants concerning genetically engineering, raises a lot more questions and debates when we want to apply them on animals.
In our case, we saw two major issues with the Sponge Patrol project:

1. even though we are not modifying the sponge's genome, we are modifying its microbiome and replacing with a synthetic one, which could be considered in some extent as a modification of the sponge.
2. the use of the Sponge Patrol system would imply that we put living sponges in waters that were likely to be polluted, and thus we would knowingly endanger the sponge's health.

We soon realized that little to no paper, conferences or legislations had ever talked about the use of an animal as a host for a genetically modified micro-organism (GMMO) to serve as a bioremediation agent, nor discussed the ethical issues such a use would raise. The focus seemed to be largely on modified micro-organisms and plants, with sometimes the mention of a GMMO intended to be symbiotic with a natural plant. We hence decided to discuss the status of such an organism between ourselves, hoping that our reflexion would bring to light the existence of such organisms, and the importance to take them into consideration in legal and ethical discussions concerning GMO. We organized a debate where we tried to address as best we could several questions that seemed important to us.

1. Is modifying an organism's microbiome the same as modifying the organism itself?

We all agreed that in the device we wanted to build, the sponge itself would not be genetically modified. We are only changing the genome of the bacteria, so the sponge would not be a GMO.
However some of us thought that changing its microbiome was still in some extent a modification of the sponge, though not a genetic one ; but they had difficulties in finding exactly why the new sponge would be different.

One of the persistent ideas was that most of cells that constitute a sponge were probably bacteria and not sponge's cells, just like the human body contains ten times more bacteria than human cells. Hence if we were to change an considerable part of the sponge's microbiome with synthetics bacteria, then the new sponge would be mostly made of genetically engineered cells.
Other team members, though, argued that the nature of an organism was not determined by the cells that are the most numerous in its body ; they made a clear distinction between the sponge's eukaryotic cells (pinacocytes, choanocytes, etc.) and the prokaryotic cells living in its microbiome (bacterias). Only a change in the eukaryotic cells containing the sponge's DNA would actually be a modification of the sponge itself.

Another observation was that by bringing engineered cells into the sponge's microbiome, we were giving the sponge a function that it didn't possess before: the ability to serve as a biosensor for toxic pollutants. Once again though, several members of the team argued that only the bacteria could be considered biosensors, and not the sponge which, in the device, would only pump water. The pumping would bring large amount of water to the bacteria who would then be able to detect the presence of pollutants, but the sponge itself didn't sense any compounds, so it would not be true to say that it has a new function.

We finally agreed to say that an organism hosting GMMO should be given a special status, as:

1. They are different from GMO in the sense that no change has been made in their DNA
2. They are different from natural organisms in the sense that their behavior of health could be affected by the engineered bacteria
3. They are different from natural organisms in the sense that releasing them out of the lab would have the same effects as releasing GMO in the environment.

We believe that such organisms, which we tentatively called Organism with Genetically Engineered Microbiome (OGEM), should be taken into consideration in legal and ethical discussions, separately from GMO and from natural organisms.


This question was very interesting because even though we did not intend to change human's microbiome, thinking about it in that way helped us understand what it would mean to change an animal's microbiome. The answers were varied and often undecided. Though most of us said they would agree to hosting temporarily a synthetic bacteria in their organism for therapeutic purpose, the majority of the group wasn't so keen to have their microbiome changed by GMMO for a long time and/or for no therapeutic reason. Others though stated that they wouldn't mind as long as it wasn't detrimental for their health.

It is clear that the goal of the Sponge Patrol project is not to cure sponges against the toxic effects of pollutants. Even if the change of their microbiome should lead to a better detoxification of the sea water, and hence will be beneficial to the overall health of all the fauna and flora living in the detoxified area, we cannot say that we are injecting bacteria in the sponge for therapeutical reasons. The primary reason is to detect pollutants, not to cure the sponge against some harm it could have received. To put it bluntly, we only want to modify the sponge's bacterial flora in order to use the sponge as an efficient tool.

And it appeared during our discussion that this was the reason why most of us were reluctant to being injected in their organism bacteria that would then be used as bioremediation agents: they didn't want their body to be used as a tool. One member added though that her opinion was undecided, and that since she recognized the importance of protecting the environment, she might agree to it depending on the circumstances.


Usually, when people talk about bioremediation agents, they think about micro-organisms, and also sometimes about plants. But with the Sponge Patrol project, it is also an animal that would become part of a biosensing device, and it appeared to us that the use of animals as tools should raise more ethical issues than the use of other organisms.

The 2012 Evry iGEM Team had a similar reflexion about the use of animals as tools in synthetic biology. Their question at the time was whether a frog larva could be used as a chassis in iGEM, and they concluded that using these animals wasn't the best option. In our case, though, the animal is an invertebrate with no nervous cells, which is probably why there are few regulations concerning the harvest of sea sponge for commercial purpose. People usually don't feel overly concerned by a sponge's well-being, because it looks so much like a plant, and because their lack of nervous cells leads us to believe they cannot feel pain.

This observation led us to discuss why people care more about certain animals than others. For example, people usually think that it's acceptable to experiment on flies in a lab, but would not always agree to experimentation on cats and dogs. There do not seem to be logical explanation of that fact ; both flies and dogs have nervous systems and can feel pain, which is often the major concern of those who defend animals' rights. Is it the size of the animal, or the size of its brain, or something else that makes us care more about certain animals than others? This is a complex question, that has already been thoroughly explored by many experts before, and our purpose here is not to make an exhaustive report of all that has been said about it. We will only share one here, because it was brought to us by an artist (XXX???) during the CURIOSITas reunion (? ça s'appelait comment cette réunion ?), where two of our members had a chance to discuss bioart and ethics with other iGEM teams and with artists. XXX's hypothesis was that we care more about certain animal's well-being because we have a higher emotional proximity with them. (Romain tu pourrais en parler davantage ?? Cette théorie est-elle du type ou de quelqu'un d'autre, il a dit quoi exactement ?)

It is not for us to decide whether modifying sponges' microbiome and using them as tools to protect the environment is ethical or not; but .... [blablabla ???]


We thought that our project could potentially be dangerous for the health of the sponge we would use, either because of the bacteria, or because of the pollutants.
The danger posed by the synthetic bacteria is that it could have an unexpected behavior when put inside the sponge. Even though the only modification we want to make in the bacteria is to add a biosensing system that is not harmful in any way, we can never fully predict the consequences of adding a new organism in an ecosystem ; here, the ecosystem is the sponge's microbiome. It cannot be ruled out that the new bacteria will have negative consequence of the sponge ; for example, if the new bacteria were to take over the other species living inside the sponges, and if some of those species were vital to their host like our gut bacteria are vital to us, then it would harm the sponge. We actually don't know much about Spongia officinalis' microbial flora, nor about the relation between this sponge and its microbiome, so it is not possible to predict what could happen.

However, we have strong reasons for believing that it is highly improbable that our engineered Pseudovibrio would take over other microbial species. In fact, to the best of our knowledge, researchers have never been able to build a GMMO with new functions that was competitive against natural species. The new functions added to the engineered microorganisms are always a burden that make them unable to compete against the species, because they use a lot of energy doing these functions that are, most of the time, not even useful for their own survival. So if we did went ahead with the Sponge Patrol project and actually inserted our transformed bacteria in the microbiome of the sponge, it would probably not live long in it. We would need to inject new bacteria in the sponge each time we want to test water toxicity, or to find a way that would enable the survival of our bacteria for prolonged period of times.


The danger posed by pollutants appeared more problematic to us. In order to use Sponge Patrol in an efficient way, we would need to put it in areas which we know are susceptible of being polluted. Which means that we would knowingly put the sponge in an environment that could be toxic and affect its health.
We realized how paradoxical it would be to intentionally move animals into dangerous areas that were likely to be toxic, when the goal of our project is precisely to protect marine species from toxic compounds. ...