Team:Bologna/Human Practice

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"Like all the new technologies that have arisen from scientific knowledge, biotechnology is a tool that can be used either for good or for evil purposes. The role of ethics is to strengthen the good and avoid the evil.[...]. I see no scientific reason why we should not achieve the good and avoid the evil"

F. J. Dyson

Synthetic Biology continues to develop as one of the most exciting area of scientific discovery, but research has shown that the public is almost completely unaware of its applications.
Considering the technical nature of this area, there are many possible questions about the implications arising from its applications. All these questions are considered by Synthetic Biology which tries to use in a conscious and responsible way its techniques and promotes the objective of its studies transparently.
We decided to realize an Information Booklet to explain to people that do not possess special knowledge in the field of Synthetic Biology, what the 2009 Bologna Igem Team project is about. We distributed these booklets to students of the University of Bologna in order to collect their opinions and considerations once they have been informed in a few words on the basic concepts of Synthetic Biology.
In order to gather up these data we thought that may be useful to prepare a questionnaire and submit it to other students or our families, trying to “measure” the mistrust that those people can feel about our project. If a large variety of people will answer to our question, we could be reasonably sure that our data are indicative of the impact of our project on the public opinion.

Click on the following links to check the Information Booklet and the questionnaire:

Information Booklet (English version, Italian version)

Questionnaire about Synthetic Biology (English version, Italian version)

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 <font face="Times New Roman" font size="4"><i> F. J. Dyson </i></font>
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+Synthetic Biology continues to develop as one of the most exciting area of scientific discovery, but research has shown that the public is almost completely unaware of its applications.
+<br>
+Considering the technical nature of this area, there are many possible questions about the implications arising from its applications. All these questions are considered by Synthetic Biology which tries to use in a conscious and responsible way its techniques and promotes the objective of its studies transparently.
+<br>
+We decided to realize an Information Booklet to explain to people that do not possess special knowledge in the field of Synthetic Biology, what the 2009 Bologna Igem Team project is about. We distributed these booklets to students of the University of Bologna in order to collect their opinions and considerations once they have been informed in a few words on the basic concepts of Synthetic Biology.
+<br>
+In order to gather up these data we thought that may be useful to prepare a questionnaire and submit it to other students or our families, trying to “measure” the mistrust that those people can feel about our project. If a large variety of people will answer to our question, we could be reasonably sure that our data are indicative of the impact of our project on the public opinion.
+<br><br>
+<b>Click on the following links to check the Information Booklet and the questionnaire:</b>
+<br><br>
+* Information Booklet (English version, Italian version)
+<br>
+* Questionnaire about Synthetic Biology (English version, Italian version)
-= Ethics =
-Ethics is an important discussion topic especially in a Synthetic Biology context.  For this reason, we scheduled a first meeting on the 6th of July to discuss about the ethical issues concerning synthetic biology and our project.
+</font>
-The first concept that came out was that ethical principles are largely subjective, depending on religion, cultural environment and education. So, we thought that is more useful to fix global principles, generally admissible. Basing those principles on a self-regulation of transparency is also important.
-From this point, we distinguished two principal fields:
-) Ethical-Political
-) Ethical
-Then, we developed other different aspects.
-Safety: the condition of being protect against the possible consequences of any non-desiderable event. In particular, biological safety regards researchers, public and environmental safety;
-Security: a set of preventive measures designed to reduce the risk of intentional removal (theft) of a valuable biological material;
-Sharing or communicating projects and ideas without feel ashamed.
-Social impact: the effect that an event has on the public opinion; this is also conditioned by possible misunderstandings.
-Equality: sense of equal chance of accessing to resources and technology.
-Considering the second field of reflection, ethics, we used a consequentialist perspective: it means that an action is proper if it is useful and morally right. So is important, before realizing an application, to foresee possible misapplications.
-In order to apply these considerations to our project we thought that may be useful to prepare a questionnaire and submit it to other students or our families, trying to “measure” the mistrust or the fear that those people can feel about our project. If a large variety of people will answer to our question, we could be reasonably sure that our data are indicative of the impact of our project on the public opinion.