Team:LACAS BioBots/Public Engagement
Education
Summer School
Team BioBots set up an entire summer school designed for beginners and aspiring synthetic biologists, among many other fields. The Batch was taught the very basics of cell biology, moving on to more complex mechanisms such as DNA synthesis and replication and how DNA is used as a functional unit. After these basics, the kids were also taken to our lab at CEMB where they were shown various techniques used in the science as to develop a thorough understanding within them. We also touched on revolutionary developments such as the biobrick and CRISPR.
Not only did we talk about science, but at the end of everyday we had in depth discussions with the students about ethics and moral debates relevant to the study. Why can’t we test with these organisms? Why is it unethical to do this or that etc. Within these debates slightly more abstract ideas about the lines between progressive science and immoral practices were also discussed, scratching the surface of the consequentialism and utilitarianism debate.
We wanted to make sure that not only did the students understand the science, but also thought about the various aspects and impacts of their scientific ventures - our little attempt in helping create a responsible community of scientists.
It would be interesting to note that, in order to ensure that the kids had thoroughly learned and retained the knowledge we held tests to see where they stood and offered assistance to students who were having a difficult time understanding certain concepts. We want to qualitatively and quantitatively make sure that our efforts have a lasting impact.
Here are the questions asked in the final test,
- Describe the process by which DNA is translated
- What is gel electrophoresis, how does it work?
- State the various parts of a plasmid vector
- Which enzymes are used to create sticky ends?
- Which enzymes are used to create sticky ends?
- How does the CRISPR system work in bacteria that are being infected by a new virus?
- What are some ethical guidelines that scientists follow when experimenting on living test subjects?
- What is the function of the enzyme Helicase?
- State 2 differences between RNA and DNA in a typical eukaryotic cell
- Why is it easy to use bacterial cells in genetic engineering experiments?
- What responsibilities do scientists and genetic engineers have towards society?
- Do you agree that harmful/fatal experimentation should be banned under all circumstances even if it helps our species as an outcome. State whether or not you agree with arguments and reasoning.
Education through public engagement
Members of the human practices teams went to several places such as malls and one of the biggest universities in the city in order to talk to people about genetic engineering as to get a general public opinion on the topic. We tried our best to expand the horizons of these individuals and also cleared up some misconceptions. The whole process was documented in the following video,
Most team members also took part in the fridays for future climate March, since we recognise the importance of the environment and how science can potentially help reverse the consequences of catastrophic human nature. Afterwards we discussed with different students in our campus about how science can potentially help the current state of the environment, in order to get the average persons’ opinion.
Public engagement
Meeting with the minister for science and technology
The team was lucky enough to schedule a meeting with Mr. Fawad Chaudhry, the Pakistan minister for science and technology. We were also accompanied by iGEM Asia ambassador Hassnain Qasim Bokhari. The main aspect of the meeting was funding for iGEM projects and teams, as well as motivating more schools to be active at the international level with such competitions. We explained alongside Hassnain what iGEM is and what importance it serves to the synbio community.
Moreover, we also encouraged the minister to organise a national level science Olympiad revolving around genetic engineering - he was rather fond of the idea himself as he was looking for a high level event. We proposed that the event can serve as a stepping stone for potential iGEM teams, and the best contenders can get proper funding for their iGEM projects and travel costs. Furthermore, this will be an excellent opportunity for international companies such as twist biosciences or ginkgo bioworks to be attracted to the scientific community in Pakistan.
Such a competition would not only drastically improve participation from Pakistan but would also revolutionise this industry in Pakistan. We are currently looking for a follow up with the new minister in order to submit a proposal (click here for the basic draft) one of our team leaders drafted for the event, outlining the structure and the exact components of the Olympiad. We would be more than willing, and are looking forward to, work with the iGEM HQ to perfect this proposal and get it in action.
We sincerely believe that with focused efforts and cooperation between the ministry and iGEM, Pakistan can be an emerging community of genetic engineers/synthetic biologists. This meeting laid the foundation of such activities in the future, and we hope to be in touch with the ministry and serve as a bridge between the international community and Pakistan - as we have always strived to do so.
Trip to BCCG
We visited the Beaconhouse College Campus Gulberg school in order to talk to their students about iGEM, our project, and how they could be part of this wonderful competition. We briefly went over some very key ideas relevant to synbio and DNA, then moved on to explain details about the competition.
While the students weren’t very keen at the start, most were thoroughly passionate about wanting to participate next year and kept asking us about details. We look forward in assisting them, and getting their school administration on board. We will continue assisting other schools and convincing more administrations to participate in iGEM 2020.
Multan fair visit
We took part in the Blue Fair in Multan which brought together local artisans and textile companies from multan to display the various cultural products they had for display and sale. Our target was the textile brands and cloth makers who would be interested in sponsoring our research into the bio dye. We interacted with an estimated 500 people ranging from adults to children and told them about our project and what iGEM is/aims to do. This allowed us to talk closely and interact with one of the biggest markets in Pakistan famous both here and abroad - textiles. Their input with regards to dyes and how it could affect their businesses was of utmost importance.
Shaping iGEM for more communities
Running and managing an iGEM team full of energetic and optimistic high schoolers has been a difficult but rewarding process. However, we team iGEM Lahore, faced certain unique difficulties we had to work around as a team from a developing country and try to tackle to the best of our abilities. This document is a categorical look at what problems we faced, how we dealt with them, how we feel they can be better catered to, and what students across Pakistan think about this competition.
With all the students and teachers that we've met, our issues and how he attempted to resolve them were shared. We wanted to make sure that similar obstacles weren't faced by each and every team that participates from Pakistan. It is our core HP philosophy to be of help to all aspiring high school teams in our city and across Pakistan, in all manners possible; and with the consistent efforts of our HP team we’ve managed to turn a new chapter in this field of science for young Pakistani students.
There are three things that we will be talking about
- 1. Lack of resources
- Financial (i.e. registration fee, jamboree)
- Resources and products (chemicals, safflowers)
- Mentors and tutors
- What have we done to solve this?
- Tried to get the government involved
- Tried to raise awareness (difficulties due to political climate etc)
- Trying to establish funds for teams in Pakistan
- How do we think iGEM can be better catered to in developing countries?
A lack of resources
The first roadblock we hit as a high school team was a financial one. A high school team has significantly less funding available than a university. There are also no government funding programs for bio-engineering we could possibly reach out to. This, coupled with Pakistan’s economic conditions and rapid inflation made necessary items such as biobricks and accessing facilities such as labs a much more difficult task than for other teams. A recurring issue was simply the fact that we often ended up in a situation where we weren’t sure who we would be able to send to Boston as the price of the trip would fluctuate quite frequently.
This leads to a second issue: acquiring resources and products, which can be divided further into two sub-categories. Those being political in nature, and those being related to resource availability. On the first, Pakistan has an atmosphere that is not conducive or supportive of bio-engineering ventures, due it's lack of gravitas within our culture (it's fast changing however). That coupled with a tendency for customs to not look very favourably on our imports became an issue. Several integral items of ours were stuck in customs for months, right until the end. We weren’t able to work on our project properly and instead often had to come up with work-arounds. Creative problem solving, yes, but also a massive time sink.
The second part of this issue was simply about availability and information about the items themselves. We had to order local items (such as safflowers) in bulk but due to the shortage of growth in the country, it was no longer available. We tried finding safflower farms and contacted authorities from the Pakistan agricultural Departments who had previously worked with safflower, but they too did not know where it was being grown in large quantities. One of the researchers whose main work was on safflower - had unfortunately passed away (yes we technically emailed a ghost).
Lastly, the problem of not having enough guidance. We, as high school students will most likely not have the kind of experience required to guide ourselves correctly all the time. Accurate information is not always presented online, such as when we tried growing safflower plants at home only to have the batch die to incorrect germination techniques. We met with Saad Rasool through the mentorship program and only then did we get a proper sense of direction. There is an incredible shortage of mentors and tutors in developing countries which leads to high school teams like us having to make uninformed shots in the dark, fully knowing they might backfire, but now knowing why. There is a drastic difference in the learning curve when teams have an onsite mentor dedicated in helping them with their iGEM work, and there is only so much online resources can teach you (much thanks to the bio builder books however).
So, what did we do?
There were quite a few things we tried to do to help overcome obstacles. On imports, we tried to get the government involved as mentioned above in the public engagement section.
To break a narrative and (hopefully) help create an environment where more Pakistani high school teams will consider participating in IGEM, we tried to raise awareness about biotechnology and engineering. We went to several malls, local universities, and got students involved and talking about gene modification. We recorded a youtube video of a survey we conducted. (insert link). Hopefully this will help incubate a new scene for igem and synbio in Pakistan.
The minister for science and tech assured us that in the future more funding would be available to teams taking part in such competitions - he was very impressed with the work being done at iGEM. More of this is covered in the public engagement section.
Fortunately the university in which our lab is located is generally very helpful in providing us with resources - but getting that lab wasn’t all that easy. It too, our team leaders a few months back in 2018 to try and arrange a lab in the city. With contacts in various university, the one in the Centre Of Excellence in Molecular Biology (CEMB) was very helpful and we continued to use their lab space in 2019 as well.
What do we think HQ can do?
We genuinely appreciate the efforts by iGEM HQ in making the whole event a very inclusive and open place for people from all corners of the world - which is why we think you'd love to hear some of our suggestions and feedback.
Money
We have talked to several schools, their students and administrations, in order to better understand what hinders their participation and the most common answer is “we can’t pay the registration fee”.
Teams from less affluent countries and areas often find it difficult to get their school to pay for the fee, which in our currency is 800k. At the end of the day, they would much rather have students partake in relatively cheaper science competitions such as the Ames space settlement. And while we the students understand the critical difference between most science competitions and what makes iGEM stand out - that often isn’t enough to translate into money and financing.
iGEM could potentially subsidise the fee for a few teams each year, or for new ones emerging from countries where the competition still needs to grow in less affluent areas, allowing the competition to be even more inclusive.
While the financial dynamics of the competition aren’t our area of expertise, different registration fees for undergrad, postgrad, and HS teams may be a good idea. More professional high level teams who have solid research projects that are funded by their institutes can afford to pay more money, allowing more financial relaxation for HS teams.
Another idea would be for HQ to assist students and individuals in talking to their respective government officials - through proper channels of communication many would be willing to fund these ventures. In fact, our minister was also very keen on getting government schools involved in such events.
Mentorship
While the current mentorship program can be very useful we believe that more localised efforts with the help of iGEM teams can prove to be much more efficient.
A network of professionals can be formulated, resident to the lab spaces where the teams will work, who will assist the teams as mentors on behalf of iGEM. This sort of program will allow for more participation from the side of the engineers already working in the lab as their work will be recognised. While we do receive a lot of help here and there from different members of the postgraduate community at our lab, there is no dedicated individual or such group that can discuss our project design and all the other aspects in detail with us. We are often found with a lack of direction, and really have to dig deep in order to attain it.
Not only will this allow for better guidance to local teams, it can also be pushed forward into creating more available lab spaces for other teams. While we haven’t explained the exact logistics in this little article (since the whole ordeal is certainly too lengthy to fit in this small article, we hope the general idea comes across.
We’ve prepared a proposal for the national level Olympiad as well (basic draft linked in minister section), which will act as a stepping stone for future teams and will support the community in Pakistan .
What we’ve achieved
The team has successfully managed to lay the foundations for future synbio activities and events in Pakistan relevant to us students, this is perhaps one of the first times that such a high level meeting of this regards was held. We will move forth with this and ensure that more institutions begin realising the importance of such competitions.
Moreover, we have successfully created an eco system within our own school for genetic engineering and synbio, more and more kids are interested each year due to the continuous efforts and educational help the team provides. The team in 2018 barely had any members, this year we had a surplus of 50 applications for the 2019 team. Nearby private schools are also very keen on participating, as mentioned above about BCCG, and just require more assistance and a solid plan.
We can assure you that in our city, one of the largest in Pakistan, we have done an extensive job in trying to create awareness. With more focused efforts more students in Pakistan will take interest in this field of science, and after successful collaborations with the government of Pakistan we will be able to turn this venture into something much more grand not only here, but in the region.
In developing countries the challenges faced by teams, particularly HS, can be monumental. IGEM Lahore will continue to make sure that we make it as easy as possible for more students to become part of this wonderful journey which we had the absolute privilege to do by involving our ministries and professionals and revitalising the spirit of science within our communities.