It is undeniable that Synthetic Biology has the potential to change the lives of every single person on the planet. Synthetic biology constructs may one day provide humanity with the means to solve its energy crisis, deliver drugs with increased efficacy and efficency, and even create new forms of life to solve problems that may not even exist yet. However, the extent to which synthetic biology will be able to solve problems is limited by how much the general public is willing to allow synthetic biology to do. We believe that the media is the primary driver behind the lay public’s perception of synthetic biology. In an interview with Valerie Bonham, J.D., the Executive Director of the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues, she explained that “the media shapes perception,” which was one of the reasons that Presidential Commission was created. She cited the example of Craig Venter’s 2010 experiments in Mycoplasma mycoides sparking headlines such as “Scientists accused of playing God.” Our team has also had anecdotal experience with this issue; when we tell people that for our project we are developing human cells that can signal to each other with light, many of them have an adverse reaction.

As we have seen with several promising technologies in the past such as genetic engineering and stem cell therapy, an inability to promote a transparent and informative dialogue between scientists in the field and citizens resulted in a media backlash against the integration of these technologies into our daily lives. This backlash resulted in a seemingly never-ending cycle of regulation, legislation, and funding cuts that severely impeded scientific progress and prevented these technologies from realizing their full potential. As synthetic biologists, we must acknowledge the role that public opinion has in our work and address it accordingly. Here, we will investigate the role that the media has on public opinion of science in general and synthetic biology.

We have surveyed the general student body of the University of Pennsylvania to determine how people obtain scientific information. We asked general questions such as the person’s year, educational background, etc, as well as more specific questions regarding their views of synthetic biology and their sources for scientific knowledge. We obtained over 200 responses (n=202) and from those responses we gleaned a great deal of information. As with any study, we found that sophomores, juniors, and seniors were roughly equally represented in our survey, while freshmen were slightly underrepresented (Figure 1).

We then determined their field of study, which may influence their ability and views on synthetic biology and science in general. We found that the majority were non-biological science majors, which was to be expected (Figure 2).

Then, we began to investigate where students obtained their scientific information from. Students were given the choice of designating the media, scientific based media such as Popular Science or National Geographic, scientific journals, or designating their own source, if none of the other options were suitable, as their sources for scientific information. The students were permitted to choose more than one. The results show that as a whole, the surveyed students relied predominantly on the major media outlets as their source for scientific information (Figure 3.1). Furthermore, when split into biology-related majors and non-biology related majors, we see that while many more non-biology related majors turn to the media for scientific information, within the biology-related majors, there is a shift towards the science-focused media outlets and scientific journals (Figure 3.2).

Finally, we investigated how much students knew about Synthetic biology and related fields, as well as showed them an article describing Dr. Craig Venter’s recent creation of what many hailed as “synthetic life.” When asked about their knowledge of synthetic biology and the closely related field of genetic engineering, we found that although many people were aware of genetic engineering, synthetic biology has not garnered as much public exposure (Figure 4). However, when asked about whether Dr. Venter had truly created synthetic life, the results were split almost completely 50/50. However, the comments on this development did give some insight to the ways that news articles influenced their perception of the event. Some people provided comments like, “It says ‘built a synthetic cell from scratch’ in the article,” “the article says that it has,” etc. These comments indicate that at least some readers of news articles are willing to accept everything in media as fact. Without debating the scientific veracity of the media, these results underline the influence that media has upon public opinion.

Conclusions:
Through our survey, we believe that the media is a primary source of information, even within an unrepresentative population such as college students, which one might expect to read more research journals and science-specific news outlets when compared to the general public. Furthermore, while the public may be aware of related fields such as genetic engineering, synthetic biology has not completely grasped the attention of the general public. However, this development may not be a bad thing, as it gives those within the synthetic biology community time to plan an appropriate and unified response to what will surely be increased media scrutiny in the future. Finally, we have anecdotal evidence that the content of media can be a very strong factor in determining a person’s views of a specific event. Knowing these things, we believe that in order for synthetic biology to fully realize its potential and become a widely accepted field and technology, we must encourage greater scientific accuracy in reporting, show the public and the media that we will place safety as our number one priority, and most importantly maintain an open and frank discussion with the public through the media to prevent the pitfalls that have plagued other fields.

So what can Synthetic Biology researchers do? Is it even possible to change the perspective of a public that obtains the majority of its information on science from the news media? We asked this question while interviewing Valerie Bonham, J.D., the Executive Director of the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues. Ms. Bonham said that we need to “recognize, respect, and understand the fear surrounding Synthetic Biology, but at the same time, bring thoughtful analysis to the concerns behind those fears.” Our team believes that this is an important point—if synthetic biologists simply dismiss the lay publics fears as irrational, it will most likely do nothing to help allay these fears. But we also believe that synthetic biologists should take an active role in public perception. There have been many instances of synthetic biologists and genetic engineering researchers writing opinion pieces in the news, but these are generally found in very science-focused media outlets (which we showed are accessed by a minority of lay public), and also in academic reviews. Their voices are almost never heard in the most widely disseminated and accessed news forms. We believe that going forward, synthetic biologists need to respect the fears of the public and make their voices heard, effectively using the media to improve the public’s opinion of synthetic biology, instead of hurting it.