Team:KIT-Kyoto/Human Practice

First

Today, science alienation is still a big problem that transcends borders. Japan suffers of a similar alienation that poses a barrier towards further advancement of science and technology. In biology, genetic modification epitomizes the magnitude of this problem among people who regard synthetic technologies and sciences as “something strange”, or “something dangerous” in general. Whereas genetically modified foods are sold on the counter, consumers don't pick or choose food with labels. This results from the scarcity or lack of information on genetic modification on the part of the general public. Since a more rapid advancement of the field of life sciences is expected in the near future leading to more complicated technologies, information and communication will also become critical. Moreover, while we benefit from technology, this is increasingly becoming “a black box”. Unknown technology is not familiar any longer.

Accordingly, to let people in Japan and in the world know about more information of genetic modification, we tried activities below.

Introduction the class of bioart

2011/09/27～2011/09/29

In our college KIT, bioart was firstly introduced as a lecture with practical course called‘Fusion of Science and Art Ⅰ using our project last year, E. coli pen in this year. Undergraduate students who major not only biology but also various fields of science can take the lecture.

Students learned the mechanism that the ink of E. coli pen emits fluorescence and drew paintings on agar plates using E. coli inks. And they gave a presentation on their concept of bioart.

Furthermore, the bioart described in E.coli Pen will be carried by the textbook of the high school student.

We realize synthetic biology spreads out steadily.

This lecture helps various students to know synthetic biology and to feel familiar with genetic engineering. We expect that it will develop into global lecture and disseminate synthetic biology to the world from Japan like iGEM which was a practical course of bioengineering in MIT.

A briefing for high school students

At the open campus in August(2011/08/10)

We introduced iGEM and our activities. To make the lecture simple, we tried to avoid using technical terms.

Besides, we displayed model organisms genetically modified, for example, Drosophila and E.coli. Students could see Drosophila mutants, both organisms were genetically modified. We aimed to make their understanding clear, and make them have a feeling of familiarity for genetic modification.

Poster

Questionnaire in our survey

We conducted a survey widely targeted to public ranging from high school students to citizens in general with Team:Osaka . The objective of the survey are two things. One is to find how Japanese people feel or think about synthetic biology and its problems like bioethics or safety. The other is images of Drosophila and leukemia. We asked people who came not only from biology departments but also from various fields of study. We also asked visitors at the open campus mentioned above. Furthermore, we made it able to answer from website so that we could collect the answer from various classes.

The Questionnaire

Results

This questionnaire shows three remarkable results.

First, though there are few people who try not to get genetically modified foods, a lot of people feel anxious about them. This is a paradox. Next, synthetic biology (e.g. genetically modifying) is not common among people. Finally, people have an image about flies as ‘Dirty’ and ‘Harmful’ and about leukemia, they think it is scary. Moreover, the interest thing about treatment is that ‘’ Curable’ and ‘Incurable’ account for half and half.

Help to other iGEM Team

We provided with three DNA parts for Team:Kyoto in 26 August.

BBa_E0240 GFP generator

BBa_I20260 Measurement Kit Test of J23101

BBa_K325909 Lux Operon (under pBAD)

We conducted a survey widely targeted to public ranging from high school students to citizens in general with Team:Osaka.