Team:ITESM Mexico/Human Practices
From 2011.igem.org
The Instituto Tecnológico de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey campus Querétaro, is a university concerned about the society and its development.
That’s why its mission statement is “The formation of integral, ethical persons, with a humanistic vision and internationally competitive in their professional field while at the same time being committed with the economical, political, social and cultural development of their communities and the sustainable use of the natural resources".
Therefore we got committed to the task of spreading out the biotechnology and synthetic biology principles inside and outside our college community, reaching students of about all age ranges, from undergrads to elementary level, with the purpose of teaching and listening to their fears and doubts. We discussed, the advantages, disadvantages, implications, objectives and reach.
To achieve this we presented four conferences, two on the August-December 2010 period and two on January-May 2011. On each period we also presented a workshop where Young students could extract DNA from saliva, allowing the society to have a glimpse of what biotechnology can do.
The achievements of those conferences allowed people to have much better criteria about the genetic enhancement and synthetic biology, with a better understanding of the impact that biotechnologist such as us have in modern life.
ITESM QRO 2011 colaborated with the society and the science, transmiting knowledge to other people and spreading the iGEM challenge to other students, inviting them to participate.
As an example of this a new team has ensambled already at our campus, they got really interested and by this time they are getting organized to present themselves at iGEM 2012.