Overview

As a first year iGEM team, we relied heavily on our human practices efforts to help guide our project ideation and design. Throughout our Human Practices efforts we focused on answering two questions concerning the ideation and implementation of our project:

How can we design a project that has potential for development beyond the iGEM Competition in the current biotech startup culture?
How can we design a project that is environmentally and socially responsible to fit within the current fertilizer industry?

Ideation

6/11 Ken Savin, Director of Life Science for the International Space Station

During our ideation process we spoke with Dr. Ken Savin, who manages commercialization of the life sciences portfolio for the International Space Station. He proved to be a treasure-trove of practical information as he shared his thoughts on our project ideas.

For instance, Dr. Savin explained that the secret to getting industrial customers onboard with new technologies is to show with absolute clarity how your product will affect their bottom line. He cautioned that the analysis necessary to establish that effect is quite difficult and that some industries are more interested in decreasing production costs than others. For instance, biofuel manufacturers would dive at a 2% increase in efficiency, but pharmaceutical manufacturers care far more about R&D costs. Dr. Savin also discussed the importance of good legal counsel to back up intellectual property assets, almost saying that each is useless without the other.

Because we were considering a biofuels project at that time, Dr. Savin agreed to connect us with Josh Heyen, CEO of Xylogenics.

6/14 Katherine Chou, Research Scientist at the National Research and Energy Laboratory (NREL)

We reached out to Dr. Katherine Chou, a research scientist at NREL, when the team was still in the process of project ideation/determination. Dr. Chou, was a key source of information for a project candidate that wasn’t selected, however, she gave great insights into both choosing the best project possible as well as giving tips for working with microbes in specialized environments and media. These tips were utilized during the experimental design process for our current project, and continues to spark ideas for questions and innovations in how to best approach protocol writing.

7/8 Josh Heyen, CEO of Xylogenics

We spoke with Dr. Josh Heyen, CEO of Xylogenics at the suggestion of Ken Savin. Dr. Heyen shared with us the story of how he came to be the CEO of Xylogenics and the important lessons he learned along the way. Xylogenics is a synthetic biology company that specializes in working with yeast fermentation process and helps with the commercial scale-up process. Dr. Heyen’s insight was very insightful in allowing us to better consider the future direction of our project and to help guide our project design and execution in a similar fashion to that of successful biotechnology startups.

7/9 Dr. Michael Camp, Executive Director of Entrepreneurship and Technology Innovation and the Experiential Entrepreneurship Education (E3) Program

We met with Dr. Michael Camp, the Executive Director of the Experiential Entrepreneurship Education Program and Entrepreneurship and Technology Innovation at The Ohio State University. Dr. Camp is very knowledgeable about entrepreneurship and navigating product fit in the start up space. His advice to gain familiarity with the “nested problem set” drove our human practices and project design efforts throughout the rest of our project’s life cycle. His suggestion to evaluate how our project would disrupt the current fertilizer ecosystem was instrumental in helping us identify valuable candidates to contact for our human practices efforts in implementation.

Implementation

6/13 & 7/12- Dr. Jane Fife, CSO at 3BAR Biolgics

On June 13th, we talked with Dr. Jane Fife, CSO of 3BAR Biologics, a local agbiotech start-up in Columbus, Ohio that develops plant probiotics.

Our conversation with Dr. Fife was crucial in allowing us to contextualize our project in the research-to-industry pipeline. The work 3BAR is currently doing in commercializing and distributing their technologies is far downstream from our current focus on iterative prototyping and developing the technological details of our project idea. Dr. Fife also spoke to us about the regulatory agencies and policies that govern the use of their product and how these might differ for our intended project. 3BAR is currently partnering with Pivot Bio, another agbiotech startup that is using remodeled microorganisms to intercellularly fix atmospheric nitrogen into bioavailable forms. The difference in using a remodeled organism vs. a genetically modified organisms affects the classification and regulation technology. Pivot Bio is using 3BAR’s LiveMicrobe[TM] technology to test their microorganisms; this prompted our team to begin exploring the policies that would govern the use of our project and the different application methods that we could use downstream in the implementation of our project.

We were invited to visit 3BAR’s headquarters to see their research and production processes and learn more about the current focus of the company. While touring 3BAR’s production space we viewed their LiveMicrobe[TM] technology it action and discussed their work with Pivot Bio, who is using their application technology to test their own genetically remodeled organism. We also talked about 3BAR’s development, and how they spun out of Ohio State University after the discovery research was completed on campus.

8/2 Ryan Mercer, Resarch Program Manager at Genome Alberta

We connected with Ryan Mercer of Genome Alberta, a non-profit corporation that works to initiate and oversee genomic research and partnerships in Alberta and throughout Canada. Genome Alberta’s Genomics Ethical, Economic, Environmental and Legal Studies (GE^3LS) priority area is focused on considering the impacts use of these technologies may have beyond the technological accomplishments. Their research is focused on contributing to a sound and effective regulatory environment to properly oversee and regulate the environment. Their research has the power to push forward the development of regulations to help oversee these developing technologies.

8/6 Lara Moody, Vice President of Stewardship and Sustainability Programs at The Fertilizer Institute

We spoke with Lara Moody to learn more about the current state of the fertilizer industry and how our project might fit in. The Fertilizer Institute is a small trade association that focuses on communicating with crop advisors who can relay recommendations to farmers. The 4R fertilizer best management practices include the right source, right rate, right timing, and right place for fertilizer to be used. Our conversation with Lara helped us to contextualize our project in the current fertilizer industry and gave us a better idea of how our project might disrupt the current recommendations and practices for fertilizer use.

8/16 Alan Sachs, Principal at Beveridge and Diamond

On August 18, we talked on the phone with Alan Sachs, an attorney at an environmental law firm called Beveridge and Diamond. One of Alan’s specialties is FIFRA, the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act. He explained to us how FIFRA is the only federal regulation regarding biostimulants, and he explained the significance of the EPA’s recent “Draft Guidance on Acceptable Label Claims for Plant Biostimulants”. He also answered our questions on biostimulant labelling requirements. His expertise was helpful in clarifying our understanding of the USA’s biostimulant regulatory landscape. Most importantly, he confirmed that our project would not fall under any federal regulations of which he was aware.

8/29 Sarah Bloch, Research Strategist at Pivot Bio

We were able to connect with Pivot Bio, one of the companies that is currently working on developing nitrogen-fixing bacteria for agricultural use. We spoke with Dr. Sarah Bloch, a research strategist for Pivot Bio, who was also a past iGEM advisor for the Minnesota team. Dr. Bloch shared with us the exciting things that are happening at Pivot Bio and the current interest in developing alternatives to synthetic fertilizers.

Team:OhioState/Human Practices