Team:Edinburgh/Practices

Some notes that were sent to us...

Human Practices 2011

Attached is a a variation on some powerpoint slides that Jane and I used last year to introduce Human Practices to the UK iGEM teams. Hopefully they're not too cryptic, but just ask if you have any questions or want to know more about anything.

Human Practices ideas brainstormed -- Tues 5 July. PLEASE ADD MORE!!

• exploring / developing ideas of biorefineries based on the project application area of converting sugars / starches
• contacting industry (e.g. who makes xylitol? compare companies that do and don't use microbial biosynthesis?)
• work with Management & Business students at UofE (Chris F has a contact there)
• develop a cultural probe -- for the general public? for industry?
• a speculative magazine (perhaps could be used as a probe or provocation?)
• defining key words on the wiki in simple English (get the team to work on consensus definitions? or maybe provide definitions grounded in different disciplines? e.g. what does the word 'model' mean?)
• something building on the work with the digital pen & notepad that Linda has you using. A reflection on whether / how it has been helpful at all for the team? Any possibility of collaborating with the Beijing team?
• an animation?
• sessions with the Forum's playwright-in-residence? ('tea with Peter' sessions on the last Thursday of every month at the Traverse Theatre, see http://www.genomicsnetwork.ac.uk/forum/events/pastevents/publicevents/title,24851,en.html)

[** Whatever you do, it's important to find a clear way of representing your work on the wiki, and providing a rationale for why you've done this work and what you've learned!! **]

USEFUL REFERENCES? (Just let me know if you have any difficulty finding any of these. Also which ones are useful / not useful so that I can tailor subsequent postings!)

Bioeconomy and biorefineries (I also have some readings on sustainability if you're interested)

European Commission (2005) Conference report: New perspectives on the knowledge-based bio-economy; available at http://ec.europa.eu/research//conferences/2005/kbb/pdf/kbbe_conferencereport.pdf

OECD. The Bioeconomy to 2030: designing a policy agenda. OECD International Futures Programme Scoping Document, Paris, 2006; available at http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/48/1/36887128.pdf

Herrera, S (2004) Industrial biotechnology—a chance at redemption. Nature Biotechnology 22, 671-675 [**this paper has an image of what an 'idealized biorefinery' would look like]

ETC Group (2008) Commodifying nature's last straw? Extreme genetic engineering and the post-petroleum sugar economy; http://www.etcgroup.org/upload/publication/703/02/sugareconomyweboct10-2008.pdf [** the ETC group have very provocative illustrations, and it's important to know what kinds of concerns they're raising and think about how you might respond. Synthetic biology is one of their main areas of work (http://www.etcgroup.org/en/issues/synthetic_biology), and in fact they've recently complained to the organisers of SB5.0 that they weren't given any opportunity at the conference to engage with the research community]

Kamm, B & Kamm, M (2004) Principles of biorefineries. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 64: 137–145

Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology (2001) Harvest on the Horizon: Future Uses of Agricultural Biotechnology

Young, A. L. (2004) Biotechnology for food, energy, and industrial products: New opportunities for bio-based products. Environ. Sci. & Pollut. Res. 10, 273–276 (2003).

EuropaBio is a good organization to know about, and they have developed pretty comprehensive diagrams of how biorefineries might compare to traditional petrochemical refineries; http://www.europabio.org/

Castle, D., Loeppky, R. & Saner, M. (2006) Convergence in biotechnology innovation: Case studies and implications for regulation, University of Quelph, Canada; available at http://davidcastle.ca/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/Castle-et-al-2006-Convergence-in-Biotechnology-Innovation.pdf [**David Castle is now a professor at Innogen in Edinburgh, and i'm sure he'd be willing to talk with you about your work]

Eames, M., Mcdowall, W., Hodson, M. & Marvin, S. (2006) Negotiating contested visions and place-specific expectations of the hydrogen economy. Technology Analysis & Strategic Management 18(3), 361–374. [** this article is about the hydrogen economy, but interesting to think about whether the same underlying visions apply to the bioeconomy and models for biorefineries?]

Hilgartner, S. (2007) Making the bioeconomy measurable: politics of an emerging anticipatory machinery. BioSocieties 2(3), 382–386. [** this piece offers a short critique of the work that the OECD is doing on the bioeconomy. Are economic measures the only and best way to evaluate the bioeconomy? What other goals and values might be important?]