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Team:Calgary/Human Practices
From 2009.igem.org
UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY
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HUMAN PRACTICES INDEX
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A TOUR OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY iGEM TEAM
We have reached the seventh and final stop of our tour of the iGEM Calgary wiki. Human practices this year took on the challenge of interacting with all different levels and groups of the local Calgary community. Through fundraising we were able to target the local corporate network. Ethics introduced a novel approach to examining ethical implications of Synthetic Biology. Meanwhile marketing raised the visibility of iGEM as a premiere education program through our media coverage. Additionally our educational outreach activities were instrumental in promoting synthetic biology to the next generation of potential researchers! So now that you've seen the multiple facets of our project, please click HERE to see what we've been up to recently! |
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THE OUTREACH, FUNDRAISING, AND ETHICS PROJECTS
THE OUTREACH AND ETHICS PROJECTS
Our ethics team is focusing on two major compnents this year. First we are writing a paper examining the environmental, economic, ethical, legal and social implications of our project as well as how to look at synthetic biology ethics in general. We are also working on hosting an ethics conference using the virtual world of second life. We will be organizing general topics, guiding questions as well as inviting guest speakers to take part in this event. We hope that this will be a creative format to explore ethics that will allow for discussion between multiple people.
Our outreach team is in charge of getting our message out to the public. We aim to raise the profile of synthetic biology in Alberta by exposing more people to both the iGEM competition and synthetic biology in general. We hope that this will generate interest and help to promote the field of synthetic biology. To do this, we have planned several activities targeting high school students as well as the general public. We are inviting select high school students to our lab to learn about what we're doing. We are also preparing a presentation to take to high schools in the fall that teaches students about iGEM and Synthetic Biology in general. We are also starting a collaborative project with UChicago with the aim of creating an Outreach kit for use by future iGEM teams in the competition.
'''HUMAN PRACTICES: An Overview'''
In order to form a synthetic biology community, it is very important to involve certain Segments of our community that would play a significant role in this community formation. These segments include the large Corporate Sector, whose interest in synthetic biology would lead to further funding in this field and thus more research and innovations, and the Education Sector, whose involvement would encourage more research and development in the field of synthetic biology. Both segments would play a critical role in Sustaining the Future of synthetic biology and therefore their involvement and interest in this field is important. However, attracting the interest of these segments of our community is not an easy job. Majority of the population in these segments probably might have never heard of synthetic biology. Furthermore, there has not been much done about the Ethical Issues surrounding synthetic biology, which could raise questions concerning the potential harms and benefits of the field. These concerns are some of the communication barriers that stand in between the corporate and education sectors, and the field of synthetic biology. Although the complete removal of these barriers is impossible, their impact of these communication barriers could be significantly reduced. This reduction in the impact could lead to greater involvement of the education corporate sectors in the field of synthetic biology. Keeping these considerations in mind, our University of Calgary iGEM team tailored its approach towards the Human Practices aspect of our project in a way that would try to reduce the impact of these communication barriers and therefore would lead to greater involvement of the education and corporate sectors in the field of synthetic biology. And as mentioned above, these segments would play a pivotal role in the formation of a synthetic biology community. In order to increase the impact of our Human Practices approach, we divided our Human Practices team into three areas namely Ethics, Marketing and, Education and Outreach. Each area would have its own individual focus but in the end, their goal would be the same and that is to work towards the formation of a synthetic biology. Our University of Calgary iGEM team strongly believes that it is very important for these three areas to interact with each other because all areas are related to each in some way or the other. Since the formation of a synthetic biology community was our University of Calgary iGEM team’s long term goal, we assigned each area specific short term goals and milestones that would be accomplished before the iGEM Jamboree. The following is a brief summary of the goals of the three areas of our Human Practices aspect of our project: '''Ethics''' To examine the ethical issues surrounding the synthetic biology and our project, we wrote an Essay that aimed to analyze the perspectives of the supporters and the critics of synthetic biology using the precautionary and the pro-actionary framework. The essay also examines the ethical issues surrounding synthetic biology and quorum sensing by using the E3LS system, which is an acronym for environmental, ethical, economical, legal and social issues. We also suggested an Ethics Conference that would be held in the online virtual world of Second Life ™. This suggestion would be a future direction that our University of Calgary iGEM team could use for its future projects. The conference would invite guests, who would have some background on synthetic biology and the iGEM competition, and discuss with them some of the important issues surrounding synthetic biology. '''Education and Outreach''' In order to promote iGEM and Synthetic Biology in the education sector, it is very important that students become involved in a practical way. Keeping this consideration in mind, our University of Calgary iGEM team organized High School Day Camps and invited 6 high schools students to our labs at the Health Sciences centre. Alongside the high school day camps, our University of Calgary iGEM team participated in 2 poster presentations namely the Undergraduate Student Research Program (USRP) and the Bachelor of Health Sciences Symposium. Our team would also participate in another symposium that would be held after the Jamboree called the Students Union Symposium. We were also involved in some outreach activities during the course of our project. Our team’s involvement in the annual University of Calgary Campus Fair and the Discovery Days are some examples of how our team aimed to promote iGEM and Synthetic Biology at the University of Calgary. Our University of Calgary iGEM team collaborated with the University of Chicago iGEM team to form an outreach package that will include educational tools such as PowerPoint presentations. '''Marketing''' The goals of our marketing team included attracting the corporate sector’s interest in synthetic biology, iGEM and our project, and raising sustainable amount of funds for our University of Calgary iGEM team. We commenced our marketing campaign by writing up a Business Plan that highlighted our project description for 2009 and our goals and milestones that we hope to achieve. We also organized a Sponsorship Package that highlighted the past achievements and accomplishments of our previous University of Calgary iGEM teams and also gave a description of our 2009 iGEM Calgary project. Our University of Calgary iGEM team was able to Raise More Than $100, 000 Dollars for our project this year. Our sponsors range from several departments from the University of Calgary to Research and Development, and Oil Gas Companies. |
