Contents 1 Ethics through Art 2 bioSpirits 2.1 bioSpirits artTeam 2.2 bioSpirits Movie Story Arc 2.3 bioSpirits Ethics Component 2.4 bioSpirits Examples of How Synthetic Biology Is Being Incorporated by Society 2.5 bioSpirits Hardwork

Ethics through Art

The emergence of Synthetic Biology has presented scientists with the opportunity to manipulate biological systems with the intention of providing solutions to everyday problems that humans encounter. However, the advancements made in the field of Synthetic Biology dictate that ethics must be considered because the manipulation of organisms in nature is a very controversial subject. It seems like a foreign idea that bacteria, yeasts and other cellular organisms are being engineered with genes from various organisms to perform a given, desired function. But the reality is that the advancement of science has been facilitated by the scientific and ethical implementation of practices that are strictly regulated to prevent misuse. Yet, the public is bombarded with ideas—primarily from television and the internet—that present science in a negative manner. This only exacerbates the many misconceptions about Synthetic Biology.

Seeing as television and other media have become a vital means of raising awareness, scientists must adapt to this change in the way people get their information. Scientific papers pervade information but this is not readily available to non scientists. Dramatization is an essential tool to convey information from the scientific domain to the public domain. It is a means of crossing knowledge, social and cultural boundaries and addressing the issue of public awareness with regards to the nature of synthetic biology and its practices. With drama, we can clear the public misconceptions about synthetic biology.

bioSpirits

bioSpirits artTeam

The artTeam brainstormed about making a movie. One member wrote the screenplay and others played lead roles. The filming occurred over the summer and the complete draft was premiered at aGEM where the team placed first.

Here is a table of the scenes for bioSpirits. The U of L iGEM team members are designated in yellow in the first column. Community members including elementary, middle, and high school students have taken some roles. Two radio personalities are included. Six non iGEM university students participated and three academic staff members took roles. We feel that there can be a better outreach than this, but we don't know what it can be.

bioSpirits Movie Story Arc

The 45-min bioSpirits movie draft has a story that spans Harland Robert Brown’s life. We hear the story start with the elder Harland Brown looking back at some major events that changed his life. We first see Harland as a youth hearing from his grandfather that someone clever will clean up the tailings ponds.

We also see Harland as a youth tasting beer for the first time. He finds it horrible, but memorable.


We don’t actually see this, but it is part of the backstory—Harland as a young man goes to college and gets a degree in synthetic biology. We then see Harland as a young man heading up a lab, using tailings pond water he has purified to water trees he has bioengineered to ferment their own sap to make beer. His grandfather inspired him to this career.


In the movie we see some competition with a former friend both to win a beer contract and also to win the affection of a coworker, Mackenzie. This forms the major part of the movie experience.

At the end of the movie we see the elder Harland toasting the spirit of his grandfather who inspired his career.

bioSpirits Ethics Component

During the competition of creating beer through bioengineering, Harland’s competitor Ryan causes Harland’s trees to be contaminated and as a result are creating slight amounts of methanol. It is not much, but Harland refuses to let the team’s product be consumed because that little bit of methanol would be unhealthy to a consumer.

bioSpirits Examples of How Synthetic Biology Is Being Incorporated by Society

In Harland’s lab, we see a television commercial where a bioFilm is being pitched to the viewing audience. You spray the liquid on your lawn and it creates a surface where one can iceskate all year long.

When Harland is driving to his beer tree plantation, he hears a story by local radio personalities Vince n’ Rosie about a farmer who gets bioengineered yellow corn with the name of Svetlana in red kernels. Svetlana is his mail order bride from Russia.


Purified water from tailings pond using bioengineering is being used as part of the foodchain to water bioengineered trees creating beer.

bioSpirits Hardwork

bioSpirits also promotes winning characteristics by having lab members working overtime to achieve their goals.

What one puts into life, one gets out of it.