Team:Hong Kong JSS/Human Practices
Integrated Human Practice
Achievement
- We performed water tests to justify the needs of developing a copper adsorption for aquaponics, feedbacks from local aquaponics business owners are incoperated into our project plan and B-CAD prototype development
- We develop our project based on stakeholders opinions. We collected opinions from different stakeholders including the producer, retailer and consumer. Based on their feedback we generate a ethical matrix to identify the most critical factors being concerned and shaped our project accordingly.
- Our project is backed by experts. We had interviewed local experts in environmental sciences, marine toxiology and bioethics. We integrated their suggestions in the development of our product
2018 Sep
2019 Feb
2019 Feb
2019 Feb
2019 Mar
2019 May
The ethical matrix is very useful to show the concerns of different stakeholders, and gives insight for use to determine what concerns should be prioritized. It clearly showed that using the device has to be a progress for both the farmers and consumers, farmers would be able to produce some high-quality products, have a much more satisfactory income and the consumer would be able to have a quality life and guarantee for their health.
After the ethical matrix analysis, two important concerns were raised repeatedly, that they will make the stakeholders’ benefit be fulfilled. They are:
2019 May to August
2019 Oct
2019 Oct
-
Motivation
Our project was inspired by the incident of the Hong Kong Lead water incident in 2015. It aroused the society’s awareness of heavy metal pollution in water used in our society. Though the government had solved the heavy metal pollution problem in drinking water quite responsively, heavy metal pollution in other water systems was neglected.
2019 Feb
-
Choosing aquaponics water as our target
To identify the problem, we investigated water samples from the reservoir, household tap water, the sea and aquaponic systems. Copper pollution was detected in almost all water systems. In the aquaponics water, we noticed a concentration of copper up to 3mg/L was present. Since aquaponics water is used to raise fish and irrigate crops which will eventually be sold in retail shops in all districts, and copper can bioaccumulation in plant and fish, the copper pollution causes potential health problems in consumers. Detectable level of copper pollution were also identified in water samples from fresh fish retailers in local markets.
We obtain water from different locations in Hong Kong and test for the copper concentration.
2019 Feb
-
Consumer and Retailer survey
Both consumers and retailers had low awareness of heavy metal pollution in water. For the consumers, only 12.5% of them had frequently monitored their water quality (once a month). Nearly 70% of them were reported to have never checked for heavy metal pollution, reflecting a low awareness of heavy metal pollution. Under such circumstances in society, it is not surprising that 90% of the consumers were also not aware of the potential problems brought by heavy metals. However, 47.5% of people considered food safety as the first priority when buying their food. This shows the gap between expectations in food safety and knowledge about the issues within the general public. Same questionnaire were used on the retailer at the local fresh markets. Similar trends were shown in the retailers about their habits of monitoring the water quality and awareness of the harmful effects from heavy metal pollution. This reflects the lack of relevant knowledge in the retailers, which may confer to potential problems concerning food safety. Besides, the survey showed cost of products is also of high priority of retailers.
Therefore, when solving the problem of heavy metal pollution using a synthetic biology approach, we must also take into account the concerns of retailers to design a device with high cost-effectiveness.
The result of our consumer and retailer survey. ( Consumer n = 80; Retailer n = 20)
2019 Feb
-
Basic thoughts and ideas
We came up with basic thought that we use E. coli as our synthetic target and create a synthetic strain of E. coli that can remove copper ion from liquid.
2019 Mar
-
Interviewing local experts to discuss our ideas and project design
Professor Wong Woon Chung, Jonathan
Interview with Professor Wong Woon Chung, Jonathan
Prof. Jonathan Wong is an environmental scientist from the Department of Biology in Hong Kong Baptist University. He reviewed the design of our Bacterial Copper Adsorption Device (B-CAD) and suggested that it was too simple and have so much uncertainty. We need to monitor that the population of the genetically engineered E.coli so that it is high enough to have any effect. The contact between copper ion and E.coli in our device is by chance, and to increase the chance of contact between E.coli and copper, we can lower the speed of the pump to lengthen the retention time of water containing E.coli, in order to give sufficient time for the bacteria to absorb copper ion; however on the contrary, as the bacteria will multiply, excess bacteria may block the membrane for the exchange of copper ion, we may need to consider flushing the system regularly to remove any bacterial film developed on the membrane.
We incorporated his suggestion into our design by adding speed control units to the magnetic stirrer as well as the peristaltic pump of the B-CAD.
Professor Wen-Xiong Wang
Interview with Professor Wen-Xiong Wang
Prof. Wen-Xiong Wang is the Chair Professor in the Division of Life Science, HKUST. He commented that the theoretical efficiency of our device is unsatisfactory, the preferred copper removal in the industry is 80 to 90%. Therefore the efficiency of copper removal should be increased. He also suggested we could try to create synthetic algae to do the work. As algae can produce oxygen at the same time.
We incorporated his suggestion into our design by choosing a protein expression E. coli strain BL21(DE3) and the pET151 protein expression vector. We aimed to increase the production of copper-binding protein to increase the copper adsorption efficiency.
Dr. Olivia Ngan
Interview with Dr. Olivia Ngan
Dr. Olivia Ngan shared her views on bioethics and current hot topics in bioethics research areas. She suggested we should take serious precautions of manipulating our synthetic organisms. And ethical concerns should be considered precautiously as synthetic biology can be rights provoking to all organisms in the world.
Bioethics is certainly within our core value and of high priority. We understand the release of any GMO to the environment is a threat to biodiversity. Therefore, in our study, we never release any GMO to aquaponic systems, instead, we obtain aquaponic water from the system and carry out our experiments in a closed system. All experiment wastewater will be disinfected before discharge.
2019 May
-
Ethical Matrix - Stakeholders Analysis
We summarized the information gathered from the public, experts and our own research. We created the ethical matrix to logically determine which areas should we tackle in first priority.
| Stakeholder | Wellbeing | Autonomy | Fairness |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Aquaponic farmers |
|
|
|
| 2. Consumers |
|
|
|
| 3. Fish |
|
|
|
| 4. Retailer |
|
|
|
| 5. Biota |
|
|
|
| 6. Official authority |
|
|
|
| 7. System operator |
|
|
|
The ethical matrix is very useful to show the concerns of different stakeholders, and gives insight for use to determine what concerns should be prioritized. It clearly showed that using the device has to be a progress for both the farmers and consumers, farmers would be able to produce some high-quality products, have a much more satisfactory income and the consumer would be able to have a quality life and guarantee for their health.
After the ethical matrix analysis, two important concerns were raised repeatedly, that they will make the stakeholders’ benefit be fulfilled. They are:
- Low cost for effective copper removal
- Health of all stakeholders by promoting food safety
2019 May to August
-
Product development based on feedback from experts and other stake holders
2019 Oct
-
Pitch to our potential users – User Survey
After our prototype was made, we introduced the device to the retailers and aquaponics owners. Although there are methods such as reverse osmosis, distillation and ion exchange filter to remove metal ions from the aquaponic system, we are surprised that non of these are being used. We asked why and the reason is due to high cost, in aquaponics, the pollutants are usually removed by water changes. However, the disadvantages are first, the nutrients in water will be lost and it may cause pollution to the environment. Second, water changes incur an operational cost. As a result, when we present our B-CAD and highlight the low operational cost as bacteria can multiply naturally in aquaponic water, 33% of the retailers are willing to try our device.
On the other hand, although there are 40% and 46% of the business owners think our device is efficient in removing copper and can enhance food safety, we still have 27% of them saying "NO". This reflected that the idea of using bacteria as a heavy metal adsorbent is still not generally accepted. The adsorption rate of our GM E. coli is still not high enough to convince the majority.
As a result, our future direction will be focusing on how to further enhance E. coli copper adsorption ability and biosafety. We are considering adding a kill switch to the bacteria to kill it once it leaves the device.
On the other hand, during the survey, several business owners reflected that the fish in may damage the dialysis tubing by biting; therefore we added a 3D printed cage to B-CAD, so that the dialysis tubing can be protected from the fishes.
The result of our user survey. (Retailer n = 15)
Besides, we interviewed Professor Chan King Ming, for the improvement of our device. He suggested we can try removing metal ions from bacteria by the conventional methods. And the characteristics of different homologs of metallothionein were discussed. This lets us reflect on our work and we do see a lot of areas that can be improved.
Interview with Prof. Chan King Ming.
2019 Oct
-
Public engagement
Since in our consumer survey, we noticed that the public are generally lack of awareness in heavy metal pollution. They also know very few about how to reduce heavy metals in water. As a result, we organized an outreach program to introduce our research and product to the public at local residential area and schools. The audience generally appreciates our work and is surprised by the idea that we can use bacteria to clean water. We hope to raise public awareness over heavy metal pollution in food sources, so as to promote our project.
Outreach program to introduce our research and product to the public at local residential area and schools.
Based on the result, we noticed that the public is still skeptical to the use of bacteria in daily life, 23% of the survey participants reject the idea of using bacteria to remove heavy metals. Yet, when compared to the consumer survey we did in Feb 2019, our project did make an impact by raising public awareness over heavy metal pollution in food, the percentage of participants who will never check their tap water quality drops from 60% to 23% and most of them consider checking their tap water at least once a year. At last, when it comes to "food safety v.s. cost", the public is still concerning more about the cost. As a result, our future direction in product development should be focusing on biosafety and how to lower the operational cost.
The result of our Public engagement survey. (n = 30)