You need to record the risks you identify and the measures you are using to manage them in your Safety and Security Form. As your project evolves, the possible risks connected to it can also change. You will need to review and update your Safety and Security Form regularly. This is why is the form is considered a work in progress until it is submitted by your PI prior to the Jamboree..
Responsible Design
There are many ways to approach the design of a synthetic biology project. The resources below explore some of the human practices and safety considerations that you should be mindful of.
Human Practices Considerations
Ethics and Responsible Research
Research ethics and its regulations vary from country to country. Yet there are some basic principles, such as informed voluntary participation, confidentiality, anonymity and minimising harm, that could be regarded as universal.
Resources
The iGEMer’s Guide to the Future ↗ to the Future offers yourteam exercises and frameworks to get your Human Practices work started. The guide was developed during the Synenergene project and is based on the Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) principles.
iGEMer’s Guide to the Future
routecraft.com
A brief summary of key ethical concerns relating to human practices can be found on the Web Center for Social Research Methods ↗.
Web Center for Social Research Methods
conjointly.com
Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) Tools ↗ is curating a toolkit for understanding the relationship between science, technology and society.
Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) Tools
rri-tools.eu
Conducting Public Engagement
Engaging with the public is a two-way process, involving interacting with people outside of your team or lab with a goal of generating mutual understanding and mutual benefit. This not only means letting the public know what you are doing, but also requires you to understand the relevant publics’ needs and concerns, and to try to incorporate these into your research design. A two-way dialogue often requires you to stay in regular contact with relevant stakeholders throughout your project to acquire feedback and suggestions. Survey, interviews and focus groups can all be part of the public engagement process. You can also take more innovative approaches (e.g., art, social media, podcasts).
Building With Biology ↗ provides digital kits to help facilitate and prototype public engagement. You can read about iGEM teams’ experiences using and adapting these tools on their blog.
Building With Biology
www.buildingwithbiology.org
Tips from UK’s National Coordination Centre for Public Engagement on how to engage with policy makers ↗, young people ↗, and how to understand your target audience in general.
National Coordination Centre for Public Engagement
www.publicengagement.ac.uk
Oxford University’s video ↗ on how to plan high quality public engagement with research.
How to plan high quality public engagement
www.ox.ac.uk
Watch Video: How to properly engage with stakeholders in Human Practices.
Safety Considerations
As part of the process of designing your project you need to think about any potential risks to you, your colleagues, communities, or the environment. For example, the 2016 Arizona State team won a Safety and Security Commendation for developing a white paper on context specific risks.
You will need to identify what procedures, practices or containment measures are needed to manage those risks. For example, the 2012 Paris Bettencourt team won a Safety and Security Commendation for developing a three-level containment system. Members of our community have reviewed some useful tools, such as biosafety systems constructed, either to prevent survival of bacteria outside the lab or to hinder horizontal or vertical gene transfer.
You might need to redesign your projects to avoid some of those risks. For example, the 2014 Aachen team won a Safety and Security Commendation for designing safety into their project and demonstrating their precautions worked.
You might need to think about how others might misuse your project to cause harm. For example, the 2018 Bielefeld-CeBiTec team won a Safety and Security Commendation for considering how their project to reclaim previous metals from discarded electronics could be misused to damage electronics still in use.
You will also need to think carefully about what would happen if you completely "finished" your project, and turned it into a product that real people use. What effects might it have in the real world?
Here are some questions to get you started
- Who will use your product? What opinions do these people have about your project? - Where will your product be used? On a farm, in a factory, inside human bodies, in the ocean? - If your product is successful, who will receive benefits and who will be harmed? - What happens when it's all used up? Will it be sterilized, discarded, or recycled? - Is it safer, cheaper, or better than other technologies that do the same thing? - Could others use your project inbways other than you plan to cause accidental or deliberate harm?
Consider these questions, and consider how you might modify your project design in response to these real-world issues. Even if you cannot think of a good modification, you can discuss the problem with others, and propose future experiments to find a good solution.
