Team:Edinburgh/ethics(publicperception)

Abstract

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Synthetic biology is a controversial practice from many ethical and societal standpoints. The unnatural processes involved, the biological and environmental safety of engineered microorganisms, malicious intent—these are all hot issues surrounding this sphere of research and it is up to us, the synthetic biologists, to address these issues and perhaps to attempt to raise public awareness of what we get up to in the labs and the effects of our scientific endeavours. Our team designed a questionnaire targeted primarily at friends and family, to see where synthetic biology stands among the circles we mingle in. Furthermore, we believe that much of the negative perception of synthetic biology stems from lack of knowledge about it—for this reason we saw it as our duty to make small, yet significant changes through explaining our work to others either personally, or through our university wiki. Finally, our team helped to trial and evaluate DEMOCS (deliberative meeting of citizens)—a game designed for the purposes of engaging people in the dialogue of public policy issues, in particular issues of synthetic biology and genetic engineering. DEMOCS is a game which is intended to raise awareness about these issues, in particular among school children, and it presents matters such as commercial interest, ownership and safety of biological activities. Our team designed a virtual version of DEMOCS, available here, which you can play to see how up-to-date you are in the debates on synthetic biology! Our team is proud to have been able to witness, and even play a small role in ethical history in the making.

Below is the survey our team presented to the public, which was made available online here.

Edinburgh University iGEM Team 2009