Team:TAS Taipei/Public Engagement

TAS_Taipei

PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT

Bioethics Discussion

Figure 1. Bioethics discussion raising awareness of gene editing and the CRISPR baby scandal.

In November 2018, He Jian Kui, a Chinese scientist and former iGEM supervisor, created the world’s first gene-edited babies. In light of this news, we decided to focus our bioethics discussion this year on the ethics and regulation of gene editing. In order to encourage people to weigh the advantages and drawbacks of gene editing, we conducted an activity where participants ranked seven medical conditions of different severity and editing feasibility on a spectrum based on whether they believe CRISPR, a new and powerful gene-editing method, should be used to prevent or treat each condition.

Figure 2. Participants ranked the list of medical conditions provided based on the
severity from their perspective.

After ranking the medical conditions, participants selected the two factors that most influenced their decisions. The consensus was that quality of life was the most important factor while genetic and environmental effects were the least (Figure 2).

Figure 3. Factors that discussion groups considered when ranking medical conditions.

We also challenged participants to think about how gene editing should be regulated (Figure 3). With the rise of this new technology, we hoped that participants would gain a more informed perspective and understand the complexities of not only gene editing but also the safety and ethical checkpoints that should be in place.

(Whole team activity)

Education

Kindergarten:

Every year, we have a lot of fun introducing science to kindergarteners with simple hands-on experiments. We led a variety of activities that show how the scientific method works, including how to use a microscope to see the hidden text on dollar bills and learning the basics of attractive and repulsive forces with soap and milk. Maybe someday these students will also become iGEMers!

(Whole team activity)

Figure 4. TAS_Taipei with future iGEMers :)

Figure 5. Using milk and soap to
introduce attractive and
repulsive forces.

Figure 6. Kindergartners utilizing microscopes to
see hidden texts.

Middle School:

We taught the basic principles of synthetic biology, as well as some common lab techniques, to the entire 7th grade. In our wet lab portion, students learned how to work with micropipettes and used them to load and separate dyes by gel electrophoresis. We also introduced four biobrick part types: promoters, ribosome binding sites, open reading frames, and transcription terminators. Given hypothetical situations, the students then worked out different part combinations that they thought would solve the problems.

(Whole team activity)

Figure 7. Teaching 7th graders about gel electrophoresis and how to load dyes using micropipetttes into
gels.

Figure 8. Materials that were
used while teaching middle
schoolers.

Figure 9. TAS_Taipei introducing biobricks parts to 7th
graders.

Spring Fair

During our school’s Spring Fair, we reached out to members of our community hoping to raise public awareness on the dangers of exposure to different agricultural residues. In addition to asking for survey responses, we also handed out infographics that included a list of the top 10 pesticide-contaminated food products and tips on how to remove these residues.

Figures 10 and 11. (Infographic made by Daniel C, Eugene C, Jessica C, Jessie H, Kimberly H, Kelsey W)
Info-graphic explaining the dangers of pesticides and heavy metals for humans and describing the most effective methods to remove the contaminants.

At our booth, people were able to make their own Grass Babies, by planting rye seeds in cups that they can decorate themselves! The Grass Babies were not only related to our iGEM project’s theme of agriculture but were also a great way to attract young students with their parents, who can take our online survey.

(Whole team activity)

Figure 12. TAS_Taipei selling Grass Babies at the
Spring Fair.

Figure 13. TAS_Taipei at the annual Spring Fair
with our team member, Grass 寶寶.

The News Lens and ICRT

The News Lens International, an online English news media outlet in Taiwan published our article about the dangers of pesticide and heavy metal residues. The article not only spreads awareness about the dangers of consuming these residues but also explains how our team, TAS_Taipei, attempts to solve this issue - through our experiments and prototype, as well as the policy brief we submitted to the Taiwanese government.

Click here for our News Lens Article

The International Community Radio Taiwan (ICRT), one of Taiwan’s largest radio stations, hosted us for an interview to discuss the dangers of pesticide and heavy metal contaminants on fruit and produce. During the interview, we gave a short introduction on iGEM and summarized our project. We also introduced the idea of incorporating UN SDGs into our project and the iGEM community to spread the impact of this collaboration. Furthermore, during TASMUN this year, a Model United Nations conference held by our school, we proposed synthetic biology as a tool for MUNers to carry out the solutions they discussed in their communities in real life. This allowed us to help iGEM reach an even wider audience in the world and raise awareness about the SDGs and iGEM as a whole. ICRT has not yet aired our interview, so please refer to the ICRT websiteto view any updates.

(Planned by Daniel C, Dhirpal S; ICRT Interview by Anna C, Eugene C)

Outreach Through MUN

TASMUN + MUN Impact

iGEM provides such a great way to potentially make a real difference in the world. In this section, we outline a number of ways in which we increased the reach of iGEM through Model United Nations and a worldwide collaborative effort to tackle United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

TASMUN Conference + MUN Impact

In April 2019, TAS hosted its annual Taipei American School Model United Nations (TASMUN) conference. Over 700 participants attended from countries all over Asia. Unlike conventional MUN (Model United Nations) conferences, the theme of this conference was MUN Impact and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The SDGs (17 in total) are a set of goals created by the United Nations that they hope to achieve by 2030. MUN Impact encourages high school students to use the SDGs as a framework to create projects and tackle global issues.

Figure 14. United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
(United Nations, 2019)

From the TASMUN conference, we realized MUN’s vast platform - consisting of middle school, high school, and college students around the world - could be used to spread awareness about iGEM and synthetic biology (Ryan, 2007). On the other hand, we also discovered that iGEM could assist MUN in transforming their ideas and resolutions into actions. Therefore, our team presented at TASMUN to help inspire participants in MUN to join iGEM in order to actually make an impact on the problems they learn and discuss.

At this conference, we presented our iGEM project on the Detection of Agricultural Residues, and how it addresses three of the SDGs:

In addition to the presentation, we also put together a video to briefly describe our project and the SDGs we addressed. The delegates of the conference voted on all participating projects, and we were honored to receive the General Assembly Award of the 2019 TASMUN MUN Impact Competition.

Watch our video below, and click to learn more about MUN Impact and the SDGs! Click hereto view an article about our participation in TASMUN on the MUN Impact Website!

(Presentation by Iris H; Video featuring Daniel C, Eugene C, Jessie H, and video edited by Alexander C)

iGEMxSDGs Instagram and Twitter Challenge

To further spread the SDGs within the iGEM community, we collaborated with iGEM teams Tuebingen and Costa Rica to organize an Instagram Challenge with the hashtags #igemxsdgs and #igemxsdgschallenge.

iGEM team Costa Rica created a webpage as a platform for our social media challenge. This page allows teams to select up to 4 individual SDGs that relate to their project and download the template, as shown below, to post. In addition to the webpage, we created an Instagram account (@igemxsdgs) to promote our challenge and further stress the impact SDGs can have on all iGEM projects. Similar to the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge several years ago, each team, along with their post, mentions four other teams in their caption to invite them to complete the challenge. The challenge was extremely popular with over 60 participating teams; it even spread to other platforms such as Twitter. View our collaborations page for more information about our challenge and the teams that participated.

(Organized by Eugene C., Jessica C., Kimberly H., Vivian W.)

Figure 15. TAS_Taipei participating in the
iGEMxSDGs Instagram Challenge

Qatar Leadership Conference

The Qatar Leadership Conference (QLC) is one of the largest annual professional development conferences designed around developing student and teacher leadership within schools involved in Model United Nations, service, activism, and media studies through over a hundred workshops. This year, our team had the opportunity to lead one of these workshops at this conference titled “Achieving the SDGs through Extra Curriculars”. In this discussion, we emphasized the importance of using the SDGs as an overarching goal to work towards in everyday activities and projects. Specifically, we highlighted the importance of iGEM in allowing high schoolers to make a profound impact on the SDGs.

Figure 16. TAS_Taipei presenting about our collaborations
with the United Nations Sustainable Development
Goals at Qatar and introducing the biobrick parts
to other Qatar participants.

Figure 17. TAS_Taipei discussing our
iGEM project with other Qatar participants.

(Presented/Organized by Dhirpal S.)

Policy Regulations

Current Issues Surrounding Agricultural Contaminants

More than one thousand kinds of pesticides are used globally, and each one of them has a different toxic effect on humans from causing terminal diseases such as cancer to disorders such as endocrine and developmental disorders (World Health Organization, n.d). In fact, about 200,000 to 300,000 people worldwide die every year from toxic exposure to pesticides (United Nations, 2017). Despite these dangers, 10 to 15 percent of Taiwanese produce still breach the maximum residue levels, which is drastically higher than those tested by the European Union and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration at only 2 percent (European Union, 2019). In fact, this month, “21.6 percent of the tested items in Taipei had pesticide residue exceeding” the MRLs, according to Taipei Times, which is much higher than the 10-15 % reported by the Taiwanese FDA (Taipei Times 2019).

To further understand why so many produce in Taiwan surpasses the Maximum Residue Level (MRL) set by the Taiwanese government, compared to other countries, we reached out to producers, distributors, and governmental organizations such as the Taiwanese FDA to ask about relevant policies related to contaminant testing and how the produce in Taiwan are tested. We found that to ensure the validity of data about agricultural residues, the government would fine the producers or distributors with NTD$60,000 to NTD$200 million if they do not meet the MRLs. Despite the fines that the government charges, there are still 21.6% of produce in Taiwan that exceed the MRL in 2019, which urged us to create this policy to better tackle the problem of agricultural contaminants on produce (Lee, 2019).

Policy Proposal - Changing Current Practices

With the detrimental effects of pesticides and heavy metal residues on produce, it is clear that agricultural contaminants are a prevalent problem that should be addressed immediately. Through our surveys, we saw that the three sections - producers, distributors, and consumers - lack communication with each other about the produce they grow, sell, and consume. We believe that improving the current QR code implementations by enforcing the uploading of testing reports on Taiwan Agricultural Products Production Traceability System (TAPPTS) and by adding warning labels on the stickers on produce to facilitate communication between these sectors will be an effective solution.

Click to View our Policy Brief

The Council of Agriculture replied to our policy proposal of adding warning messages on the QR label stickers of produce by stating that "the COA will take [the proposal] into consideration when making changes to its policy."

Response from Council of Agriculture

Response from Taiwan Food and Drug Administration

(Written by Jessica C., Kimberly H., Eugene C.)

References

European Union. (2018). Maximum Residue Levels. Retrieved from https://ec.europa.eu/food/plant/pesticides/max_residue_levels_en

Lee, I-chia. (2019). Taipei Times: Excessive pesticide residue on fruits, veggies in Taipei. Retrieved from http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2019/10/03/2003723308.

The Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station. (n.d). Removal of Trace Pesticide Residues from Produce. Retrieved from https://portal.ct.gov/CAES/Fact-Sheets/Analytical-Chemistry/Removal-of-Trace-Pesticide-Residues-from-Produce

United Nations. (2019). Sustainable Development Goals. Retrieved from https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/?menu=1300

United Nations. (2017). Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food. Retrieved from https://undocs.org/en/A/HRC/34/48.

World Health Organization. (n.d.). Pesticide Residues in Food. Retrieved from https://www.who.int/en/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/pesticide-residues-in-food.