Team:UEA-JIC Norwich/Human practices/Interviewthree

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Latest revision as of 19:29, 21 September 2011

University of East Anglia-JIC

Interview Three

Media:Interview_3.mp3.mp3

Interviewer:

‘’The first question is; do you actually know what Synthetic Biology is?’’

Interviewee:

‘’Sort of, I wouldn’t be able to define it. I don’t really work within Synthetic Biology. I do know what it is but I wouldn’t be able to give you a one sentence definition. ‘’

Interviewer:

‘’Thats okey, but you know what it’s about?’’

Interviewee:

‘’Yeah’’

Interviewer:

‘’How do you generally feel about Synthetic Biology? Is it a good thing?’’

Interviewee:

‘’Yeah I think it’s important because it’s all about finding new ways of solving life’s problems so you know, you can go the conventional way, but you know, trying to find new ways that are initiative, you might be able to solve problems that you couldn’t solve with normal methods. Yeah, so I think it is.’’

Interviewer:

‘’Have you seen anything on the media which influenced your opinion on it at all?’’

Interviewee:

‘’No not really, the media tend to, because of the whole GM thing people tend to...that causes a lot of debate and synthetic biology is sort of along a similar line so I think people you know, I don’t think it’s been publicised, maybe it has been publicised, I haven’t noticed much of it, maybe it hasn’t been publicised in the way of it saying its Synthetic Biology because people probably kind of you know, some people will be alright with it but some people will be kind of weary of it, thinking its unnatural and kind of medalling with things. ‘’

Interviewer:

‘’Do you know the differences specifically, the lying boundary between that and Genetic Modification? ‘’

Interviewee:

‘’Probably won’t be able to define it to you, you can tell me if you want.’’

Interviewer:

‘’Its more just, i think Genetic Modification is more like single circuit, where Synthetic Biology generally involves the entire organism. How do you feel about Genetic Modification? Do you feel differently towards it than Synthetic Biology?’’

Interviewee:

‘’I would feel, being a scientist, i would feel it’s kind of in the same kind of light. You’re sort of trying to do similar things with GM and Synthetic Biology, maybe synthetic biology is on a larger scale. I think as long as it’s going to be, you know, useful to actually solve a problem or something like that, you know, it’s useful. But just doing it for the sake of, you know, trying to engineer something just to see whether it can be done or not. I’ve got nothing again it, I just don’t see benefit if it’s not going to be used for anything.’’

Interviewer:

‘’Would you say the media has influenced your opinion on that?’’

Interviewee:

‘’I’d probably say no because I know I’ve got more of a background. I think if I were just a normal member of the public then I’d probably feel quite, well maybe not negative but sort of have my reservations about it. But being a scientist i can appreciate the benefits. I know it’s not medalling with nature, you know, not going to create some sort of super organisms that are going to take over the world which you know, in the media it tends to get misrepresented about what it is if you don’t understand what it is. Most journalists are not scientists and i think it gets blown out of proportion. I’m not negatively affected by it.’’

Interviewer:

‘’Do you think any of these two approaches will further help the world one day or do you think it will go down the line of it being more harmful?’’

Interviewee:

‘’No i think, well GM is already known to the world so i think, as long as, I mean you’re always going to get the researchers that are going to do something dangerous in a, can it be done kind of thing. But you get that with anything, whether it’s GM or not so. Yeah, I think once you understand the applications and you can develop it, yeah, you can solve problems you couldn’t solve, doing methods which exist naturally. If you could, most of the problems would have probably already been solved. ‘’

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+<h1 style="font-family:verdana;color:black">Interview Three</h1>
+<br>
+<p>
+[[Media:Interview_3.mp3.mp3]]
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-<body>
-<div style="background-color:#000000; color:#FFFFFF">
-<h1 style="font-family:verdana;color:green">Interview Three</h1>
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@@ Line 11: / Line 13: @@
 <br>
 <br>
-	''Do you know what synthetic biology is?''
+	‘’The first question is; do you actually know what Synthetic Biology is?’’
 <br>
 <br>
 Interviewee:
 <br>
 <br>
-	''I think that synthetic biology can mean many things to many people depending on their background, from the purest approach; making something that resembles a living organism out of abiotic components like assembling proteins, self-assembly proteins that have polarity  for example, through to what you might call, metabolic engineering, extreme metabolic engineering. Modelling is obviously very important. I think it can be very broad. People have strong views; the experts in those areas have very strong views in some case about what synthetic biology is.''
+	‘’Sort of, I wouldn’t be able to define it. I don’t really work within Synthetic Biology. I do know what it is but I wouldn’t be able to give you a one sentence definition. ‘’
 <br>
 <br>
 Interviewer:
 <br>
 <br>
-	''How do you feel personally about synthetic biology?''
+	‘’Thats okey, but you know what it’s about?’’
 <br>
 <br>
 Interviewee:
 <br>
 <br>
-	''I think it’s a very interesting tool to trigger new ways of thinking, bringing people together with different backgrounds to take on challenges in different ways is very stimulating, and I’m sure at one point lots of useful things will come out of it. But at the minute, in my view it’s more of a vehicle for thinking and developing ideas and bringing new areas of science together.''
+‘’Yeah’’
 <br>
 <br>
 Interviewer:
 <br>
 <br>
-	''Has the media influenced your opinion at any point about it?''
+	‘’How do you generally feel about Synthetic Biology? Is it a good thing?’’
 <br>
 <br>
 Interviewee:
 <br>
 <br>
- 	''No, i must admit i haven’t heard that much recently about synthetic biology in the media. I think Craig Venter talking about his synthetic bacteria I heard on the radio. Didn’t feel entirely comfortable with it. I think my own experiences with synthetic biology, I ended up in a sand pit in America with 30 people from different backgrounds spending 5 days...competing for funding...was the best way to find out people views and to find out what it could and could not do.''
-<br>
+	‘’Yeah I think it’s important because it’s all about finding new ways of solving life’s problems so you know, you can go the conventional way, but you know, trying to find new ways that are initiative, you might be able to solve problems that you couldn’t solve with normal methods. Yeah, so I think it is.’’
-<br>
-Interviewer:
-<br>
-<br>
-	''Do you know what genetic modification is?''
-<br>
-<br>
-Interviewee:
-<br>
-<br>
-''Yes and again that is a term that is used perhaps in too much of a tailored way, the implication is that its genetic engineering as in, something what is being facilitated by humans though unnatural routes. But i would say that any form of genetic modification what can be nature or induced for example, by chemicals mutagens is still genetic modification. So golden promise barley which is organic has had a large amount of its genome knocked out by eradication.''
 <br>
 <br>
 Interviewer:
 <br>
 <br>
-	''So how do you feel personally? Do you think genetic medication is beneficial? ''
+	‘’Have you seen anything on the media which influenced your opinion on it at all?’’
 <br>
 <br>
 Interviewee:
 <br>
 <br>
-''Certainly, and i think there is too much polarity around technologies and if we have a problem solving based approach to things like we say we have a food security issue we have to feed alot more people and we need to be able to figure out quickly, we could do this through smart classical plant breeding, on some occasion we may need to introduce genes from perhaps oats into, for example wheat where you could normally cross them and the fastest way to do that would be through genetic engineering. And also you can accelerate plant breeding of very specific genes into species regardless of even if they are very close; it’s still a faster way of doing that, without the problem of dragging unwanted genes with them. ''
+	‘’No not really, the media tend to, because of the whole GM thing people tend to...that causes a lot of debate and synthetic biology is sort of along a similar line so I think people you know, I don’t think it’s been publicised, maybe it has been publicised, I haven’t noticed much of it, maybe it hasn’t been publicised in the way of it saying its Synthetic Biology because people probably  kind of you know, some people will be alright with it but some people will be kind of weary of it, thinking its unnatural and kind of medalling with things. ‘’
 <br>
 <br>
 Interviewer:
 <br>
 <br>
-	''Has the media influenced your opinion of this in any way? ''
+	‘’Do you know the differences specifically, the lying boundary between that and Genetic Modification? ‘’
 <br>
 <br>
 Interviewee:
 <br>
 <br>
- ''I think the media is looking for stories, i think in the past, in the beginning of applications of generic engineering to plants, perhaps some scientists put too much enthuses on saying ‘we will use genetic engineering to save the world’, whereas if they had taken a more problem solving based approach, saying this is a very powerful tool that we can use.  But we are biologists addressing questions, rather than saying I’m a genetic engineer and this will do the trick. And of course we’re now 20-30 years on, and GM still has to prove its value for crop improvement, which I’m sure it will but it’s a long term thing.''
-<br>
+	‘’Probably won’t be able to define it to you, you can tell me if you want.’’
-<br>
-Interviewer:
-<br>
-<br>
-	''Do you think these two approaches could help the world, and how could these principles be used together? Do you think they could be used in a harmful way in the future? ''
-<br>
-<br>
-Interviewee:
-<br>
-<br>
-	''Any sort of technology, there has to be a risk assessment of it and i think obviously there are areas, there are possibilities where damage could be done if technology is used in the wrong way or in the wrong hands. As qualified scientists you are employed to do research science, the guidelines are strict, ethics are very strict and I think that professional scientists should be given more credit and respect then they tend to get. And I think it’s very easy for groups with missions who are not trained scientists to do a lot of damage in the media, dismissively by coming out with a lot of stories which attracts a lot of media attention and in many cases are unfounded.  So if, for example, we had protests about the GM potatoes trail here. So the director heard that we had...noticed there was a protest, and John Innes offered to engage in a constructive dialog with the key people within that group. And indeed offered host a discussion at John Innes. That was dismissed. I’m not blaming that round but there are other groups around who will, for example, brainwash children with literature about GM being bad. So my daughter came home from school when she was about six and told me that she had been told that GM was bad, and that organic is good. So i asked the teacher about that at parents evening. ''
 <br>
 <br>
 Interviewer:
 <br>
 <br>
-	''What did she say?''
+	‘’Its more just, i think Genetic Modification is more like single circuit, where Synthetic Biology generally involves the entire organism.
+	How do you feel about Genetic Modification? Do you feel differently towards it than Synthetic Biology?’’
 <br>
 <br>
 Interviewee:
 <br>
 <br>
-	''Well she looked a bit uneasy, of course you don’t know whether this is coming from the teachers personally view or not, but I think it is important to pick those things up. Not in a confrontational way but to ask, why did my daughter say this? ''
+	‘’I would feel, being a scientist, i would feel it’s kind of in the same kind of light. You’re sort of trying to do similar things with GM and Synthetic Biology, maybe synthetic biology is on a larger scale. I think as long as it’s going to be, you know, useful to actually solve a problem or something like that, you know, it’s useful. But just doing it for the sake of, you know, trying to engineer something just to see whether it can be done or not. I’ve got nothing again it, I just don’t see benefit if it’s not going to be used for anything.’’
 <br>
 <br>
 Interviewer:
 <br>
 <br>
-	''I suppose when people don’t understand it enough themselves its quite easy for someone to tell them it can be harmful.''
+	‘’Would you say the media has influenced your opinion on that?’’
 <br>
 <br>
 Interviewee:
 <br>
 <br>
-	''Yes, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. I also think to be fair; scientists and professionals in general can be, in some cases, very arrogant. And have a habits of telling people things. Although the public are not thick. Many members of the public are highly intelligent, well informed people who are perfectly capable of making a decision based on the evidence presented in front of them. And to dismiss the public as needing to be told something is really arrogant and unhelpful. Wanting to know what their views are, talking them onboard and having a dialog of concerns is important.''
+ 	‘’I’d probably say no because I know I’ve got more of a background. I think if I were just a normal member of the public then I’d probably feel quite, well maybe not negative but sort of have my reservations about it. But being a scientist i can appreciate the benefits. I know it’s not medalling with nature, you know, not going to create some sort of super organisms that are going to take over the world which you know, in the media it tends to get misrepresented about what it is if you don’t understand what it is. Most journalists are not scientists and i think it gets blown out of proportion. I’m not negatively affected by it.’’
 <br>
 <br>
 Interviewer:
 <br>
 <br>
-	''Would you feel different about either of these approaches if more information was readily available? ..
+	‘’Do you think any of these two approaches will further help the world one day or do you think it will go down the line of it being more harmful?’’
 <br>
 <br>
 Interviewee:
 <br>
 <br>
-''I think i have access to a lot of information, a lot more information than many people, people not working in a scientific environment would have. I suppose I’ve been interested how many examples there are and direct comparisons between different ways of farming, side by side. So if you take cultivars are grow them organically and also grow them in replicated plots in different ways how many side by side comparisons have been done to enable people to say, well actually...I think the answer would be some things work better in some situations with some cultivars and others in other places.''
+	‘’No i think, well GM is already known to the world so i think, as long as, I mean you’re always going to get the researchers that are going to do something dangerous in a, can it be done kind of thing. But you get that with anything, whether it’s GM or not so. Yeah, I think once you understand the applications and you can develop it, yeah, you can solve problems you couldn’t solve, doing methods which exist naturally. If you could, most of the problems would have probably already been solved. ‘’