(Re)Designing Life

This year, for the human practices portion of the iGEM competition, the Penn State team developed a video that explains synthetic biology in an understandable way for any general audience. This video is titled “(Re)designing Life” and addresses many topics surrounding the implementation and execution of synthetic biology. These topics include misconceptions generated by misinformation from the general public, the techniques used to perform synthetic biology, ethical issues surrounding genetic engineering research and the future applications of synthetic biology. Through this video, the Penn State team aimed to bridge the gap that separates the technical jargon used by today’s scientists and the understanding the common public has for common biology. As a result, the misconceptions surrounding these technologies will be eliminated, opening a new relationship between synthetic biologists and the population they wish to improve through research.

Why This Video is Unique

While previous teams have made synthetic biology informational videos for their human practices project, this video differs not primarily in content, but in intended audience. Most of the previous videos and workshops submitted to iGEM have been directed towards students attending grade school, secondary school, or even universities. The Penn State team developed their video with the elderly in mind as the primary audience. The residents of Foxdale Village, a retirement community in State College, PA, were given the opportunity to view the video submitted by the Penn State team. The age range of these residents spanned about 40 years, from 65-104, a demographic previously ignored by the iGEM competition. From this viewing and a short discussion following the video, the residents were able to gain a better understanding of genetically modified organisms and their relation to synthetic biology.

Why the elderly?

In addition to their role as an untapped demographic, the elderly provide an open audience available to give feedback and opinions regarding the synthetic biology video. While the elderly population will have difficulty adding to the ever expanding technology that allows genetic engineering and synthetic biology, this demographic can still have a lasting impact on the scope of the scientific world. The elderly remain active in the political landscape through voting. According to the report summarizing the 2008 presidential election voting patterns, about 20% of all voters were above the age of 65, while only 10% were between 18-24. The latter age group has been well represented in previous iGEM human practices projects, but the former has yet to be reached. Until now…

Research Component

The Penn State iGEM team had two main goals for the video “(Re)designing Life.” The Penn State team first wanted to determine if this video provided an adequate explanation of the technology behind synthetic biology and genetic engineering to any viewing audience. Assuming the video provided enough information for the viewers to understand synthetic biology fully, the Penn State team then hypothesized that with this information, the general audience will form more positive opinions regarding genetically modified organisms (GMOs). GMOs are defined as any organism whose genetic material (DNA) has been altered through human intervention. By improving the public perception of GMOs, the Penn State iGEM team hopes to increase positive regulation of this technology without allowing severe limits by the government on scientific advancement in the field of synthetic biology and GMOs.

The adequacy of the synthetic biology information portrayed in the video as well as this information’s effects on the audience’s perceptions regarding GMOs were analyzed through the use of two surveys. The first surveyfirst survey was given to the audience before the video in order to determine demographic information as well as a baseline for the audience’s opinions regarding GMOs. After the video was shown, a second survey was given to the audience in order to determine if the audience increased their knowledge of synthetic biology as well as if this knowledge changed their opinions regarding GMOs.

Institutional Review Board

In order for the Penn State team to conduct research in the form of a survey using human participants, the surveys and recruitment process needed to be approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB). Three of the students, Alex Bina, and Vishal Saini received training through the IRB in conduction sociological and biomedical research. After training, and with the help of Leland Glenna, an associate professor of rural sociology and science, technology, and society at Penn State, the research proposal was reviewed and approved, as proven by the implied consent form.