Genetic engineering is tightly connected to our daily lives, through food and medical industry. However, genetic engineering is not well known among Japanese, As you can see. (a survey of whether they have know about genetic engineering.)
![](https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2009/c/ca/Survey-genetic_eng.jpg)
Todai-Tokyo conducted a survey; we asked 121 people who do not know well about genetic engineering and 45 people with knowledge of it, "Are you reluctant to eat GM food?" The following graphs are the result.
(left: people who do not have enough knowledge of genetic engineering
right: people with knowledge of genetic engineering)
![](https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2009/5/59/Survey-not_EK.jpg)
![](https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2009/c/c6/Survey-EK_food.jpg)
People who lack knowledge tend to dislike GM food, according to these results. People seem to feel anxiety and disgust towards newly created organisms, even though breeding and genetic engineering has only slight differences. We concluded that the repulsion toward GM food derives from the lack of knowledge of genetic engineering. Therefore we decided to disperse the knowlege of genetic engineering.
Todai-Tokyo contribute deepening thier understanding by the following activities. We opened a Japanese website that explains the basics of synthetic biology and the answers to the most frequent asked questions about genetic engineering, in an easy-to-understand format. In addition, through our humorous Tobacco project, we drew attentions of people toward genetic engineering.
Through such activities we successfully enlightened the general public for synthetic biology and hopefully reduce fear towards genetic engineering.