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Latest revision as of 18:15, 5 October 2011

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Part I: Team collaboration (1)Survey:Sent out 50 questionnaires to Zhejiang University to survey their opinions about safety and ethical issues in synthetic biology, which helps us better investigate undergraduates’ understanding about synthetic biology with comparison to those in Fudan University. (2)Postcards:Received well-designed postcards from Shanghai Jiao Tong University and the friendship between the two closely related universities in one city are further consolidated by two iGEM teams .
Survey and discussion
Question 1 1. According to your first impression, what does "synthetic biology" mean? (Multiple choice) A. The synthesis of biologically active macromolecules such as proteins, DNA, etc. B. Synthetic life C. Similar with genetic engineering, modification of genes to render them new features
Question 2 2. Have you heard about “synthetic biology”? A. Quite Familiar B. Have certain understanding C. Heard, but know very little D. No (if this option, please skip questions 3.4)
Question 3 3. In what way do you know synthetic biology? (Multiple choice) A. Media news B. Teaching content C. Reading the academic literature D. Talking to people around E. Supplementary ways _____________
Question 4 4. In your opinion, what’s the application of synthetic biology? (Multiple choice) A. Synthesizing micro-organisms used to produce medicine for the maintenance of human health B. Designing a highly efficient metabolic pathway of the engineered bacteria to produce bio-energy C. Creating organisms with a high detection sensitivity for environmental monitoring and management D. Supplementary points____________
Question 5 5. In your point of view, could synthetic organisms be discharged into the environment? A. Resolutely oppose. Unnatural life would bring unpredictable impact to the environment B. Their emissions can be allowed only if appropriate technical means are taken to reduce or eliminate synthetic organism’s viability in nature C. It does not matter
Question 6 6. What impact you think synthetic organisms would bring to the environment? A. Synthetic organisms might have unpredictable interactions with natural life or environment, which probably turns out to be a huge threat to the ecological balance. B. Synthetic organisms have potential risks to the environment, but it could be avoided by technical means and effective oversight and restrictions C. There would be no impact and we needn’t worry
Question 7 7. Are you worried about synthetic organisms might be used as biological weapons? A. Synthetic organisms mainly serve the purpose of scientific research, which are unlikely to be used as biological weapons in modern society with developed monitoring methods and legal system. B. Considering synthetic biology can only create simple organisms with great technical obstacles in the manufacture of pathogens, so we needn’t worry too much C. With the rapid development of synthetic biology, it is highly likely to be used as fancy biological weapons by lawbreakers
Question 8 8. What do you think of "artificial life"? (Multiple choice) A. It make human’s dream possible to create life forms based on their own desires, which turn out to be a great achievement of science and technology development B. Immature technology and potential security risk make it impossible to create new biological organisms C. As a huge challenge to life evolution systems, it would arouse debates on the ethics D. There are both advantages and disadvantages, but it is the inevitable trend of biotechnology development E. Supplementary points____________________
Question 9 9. Do you support the development of "artificial life" technology? A. Yes B. No C. It has nothing to do with me
Question 10 10. Do you think humans will create artificial lives that truly adapt to the natural environment? A. Limited to technological and cognitive abilities, it is impossible for human to create artificial lives truly adapting to the environment B. With human’s growing understanding of life and the rapid development of technology, mankind will eventually design artificial lives truly adapting to the environment C. It depends on the level of technological development and acceptance of social ethics
Question 11 11. Do you think the development of synthetic biology should be under regulation of organizations and restrictions regarding both safety and ethics? A. Yes, the development of synthetic biology needs controllable development B. No, it will limit novel ideas C. It does not matter
Question 12 12. Do you think knowledge and research progress in synthetic biology could be instructed in undergraduate education? A. Yes, it is the forefront of biotechnology development and the promotion of relevant knowledge would attract more young talents to join in this field B. No, this area is too specialized, which is too difficult for the undergraduate C. I'm not interested.
Results: 200 valid questionnaires were collected, including 150 from biology students in Fudan University (FDU), 19 from biology students in Zhejiang University (ZJU) and 31 from non-biology students in ZJU. The survey results are summarized as histograms, showing the variance between different schools and different majors.
Discussion: In the survey, we find that more than two-thirds of undergraduates in both Fudan University and Zhejiang University have acquired knowledge about synthetic biology more or less through various ways and developed a relatively comprehensive understanding of the application of synthetic organisms. Students major in biology seem to have better knowledge of synthetic biology. As for the security risks of synthetic biology, about half of the respondents show their worries about the potential detriment that synthetic creatures would impose on our nature, while others believe it could be avoided by effective technical and policy regulations. Students in ZJU seem to have less worry about the biological weapon problems while students in FDU are more anxious. With respect to the issue of “artificial life”, although many students show concerns about the attendant problems in safety and ethics, more than half still hold a positive attitude towards the technological development of artificial creatures on the condition that it’s within the range of ethical standards. When it comes to the regulation of synthetic biology, most of undergraduates believe that it is imperative to make the development of biologically synthetic technology within standardized restrictions and supervisions. In sum, the surveyed undergraduates generally hold a relatively rational point of view towards the development of synthetic biology with fair consideration of moral standards and respect to our nature. In addition, we also notice that in FDU almost 40% of students have heard synthetic biology in class, which means that many teachers have informed their students of this cutting-edge biological technology and most of students are in favor of relevant instruction and talk about it in daily conversation, showing that synthetic biology would have a promising future with its great attraction to young biological leaners.
Part II: iGEM 2011 China Meetup Our team got together with other teams from different universities at the 2011 China Meetup held at University of Science and Technology of China from July 29th to July 31th, where we make friends with many other iGEMers. Prof. Ruoyu Luo, one of the instructor of Fudan iGEM team was invited to deliver an interesting lecture on the realistic simulation of E. coli gene expression processes, which made the complicated bioinformatics knowledge quite easy for biology students to understand.
Part III: Meeting with academician Zhao Guoping Fudan iGEM team has a meeting with academician Zhao Guoping in Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) on Sep. 30th, 2011. Academician Zhao is a molecular microbiologist, serving as Laboratory Director in CAS Key Laboratory of Synthetic Biology. We mainly talked about our projects with Academician Zhao intended to acquire authoritative evaluation and suggestions about the projects and make better preparation for the coming competition. After our introduction of the three projects, Academician Zhao offered us with several practical suggestions in the later period of our experiments, for instance, to pay more attention to cell concentration in the projects based on quorum sensing, which turned out to be very helpful to make the desired effects of our projects achieved. With fair recognition of works we have done, Academician Zhao encouraged us to think more about the practical significance during project design, which came closer to the essential meaning of synthetic biology—better serving human beings. In addition, Academician Zhao also shared a lot of his personal experience and interesting ideas with us, which offered us great encouragement and inspiration to better develop our iGEM team in the future.

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