The iGEM Team of University of Southern Denmark 2012 igem.sdu.2012@gmail.com

Bringing our project to the public

Introduction

In our project this year we have focused a lot on informing the public of iGEM and our project in general, furthermore we have taken a more business like approach to our project. Our Goal is to make a massive outreach and spread the iGEM word at the University among the students and throughout the public.
We participate in the “start of the academic year” fair. This is a huge fair at the University which attract many people every year. We expect a number of visitors about 3000 people over two days. For this we have made some pens as a promotional gift. Furthermore we have been so lucky to receive a package of different merchandise from the iGEM Foundation. From our point of view it is very important that the visitors have something to remember us by when they go home. It is also a great opportunity to make people stop and talk to them about iGEM and how it is to do scientific research. Read more about it and see the pictures further down.
Der skal sættes billeder in fra studiestartsmessen i outreach sektionen As a part of our Human Practices plan, we have been noticeable in the everyday life at the University in several ways - Indirect and outspoken. You can also read more about this in the outreach section. During September we launched a campaign so that we are certain that the students and professors have seen and recognize the iGEM logo. This is the base for the recruitment campaign. This year we didn't have many volunteers, and we want to remedy this. Just like at the “start of the academic year” fair we will reach out to people at the University on several occasions and talk to them, telling how great an experience participating in iGEM has been. As a matter of fact, we have already gotten three times the signups for next years iGEM team, as we had for this years team.

The press is also a big part of our Human Practices. You can read all about it in the press section further down.

Additionally to the campaigns we have had close contact with our opponent group from Bielefeld. Together we participated at the “Street science” in front of the town hall in Bielefeld. The idea was to talk to the laypeople in a fun way showing them how to use a pipette and so forth. Taking them closer to the laboratory. This you can also read more about and see pictures from in the collaboration section.

It is not just Bielefeld we have worked with. In the beginning of September we went to a great Scandinavian iGEM convention in Uppsala. We met with the other teams from Scandinavia to present our projects for each other and talk about different aspects of iGEM. Here we also took part in workshops about human practices, funding, “working as a team” and laboratory experiences. Read more about it further down.

As another approach to outreach we have participated in collaboration with other iGEM teams about creating informative videos about GMO and ethics. The different videos are available at our iGEM youtube channelSæt link ind(http://www.youtube.com/user/iGEMHPCollaboration?feature=watch) and our video can be seen further down. Apart from the GMO video, we where contacted by a former employee from the nation tv-station, who wanted to make a documentary about us, to tell the public about iGEM, read more about this in the documentary section.

In our business approach we have looked at the possibilities of introducing our product SLIM to the marked and how the laws would affect this introduction.

Outreach

Fair - At the Beginning of the Academic Year

The studies fair is a great exhibition with around 3000 visitors. It stretches over two days where both companies and unions from industry, associations and cultural life are represented.
The fair is a free service for students and other interested parties. We had the opportunity to create a great first impression of what we can offer students at the university interested in either joining next year's team or maybe even help us this year. We did this both to spread the word about iGEM and to raise awareness for students and staff at the university.
We got a great benefit from the fair, since we got a lot of attention from students from other faculties who also thought it would be exciting to be involved in iGEM for example, to help with the wiki, modeling, ethics, public relations and much more. In addition to this, there were of course many science students who were interested in being involved next year, to them we had made ​​a Facebook group where we update with information about registration, etc.

Flyers & Posters - At the University

In addition to the fair we have also been hanging up posters and giving out flyers about iGEM on the university. This year iGEM did not have any enrollments from other than us who are on the team. Although it was great to all who wanted to be with, it would be nice with some more attention to the concept. Therefore we decided to do a campaign to increase interest in iGEM at university.

Street Science

In Bielefeld we participated in “Street Science” as a part of their outreach. You can read more about this on our collaboration page.

Press

Interview by European Journalism Centre

iGEM - Sund & Hed

Local News feature - TV2 Fyn

NyViden - Article (p. 18-20)

To reach as many people as possible, we have contacted a lot of different media in Denmark. Therefore we have been in touch with both newspapers, magazines and television, locally and nationally. We have also been contacted by a former worker of a Danish broadcast station called TV2, which would like to make a short documentary. The documentary should tell the audience about the iGEM idea, and about a young team of scientists who create a new organism. The documentary is meant for the layman. To see the documentary please go to the documentary page

We are very pleased with the outcome. We reach out to a broad range of both scientific and non scientific audience of common people as well as both the new and the experienced students of SDU. Because of the article in NyViden (SDU magazine) we also reach the Humanitarian and the students who study social science. We consider it to have great importance that the iGEM teams consist of interdisciplinarity. This is also something our Human Practice group work intensively on.
Furthermore a student that studies Business and Law came to us, and would like to write a article about us in SIJ - Students & Innovation Journal

The magazine for faculty of Health, Sund & Hed, wrote a large article about the iGEM competition in general.

We would like to tell the society first and foremost, that studying science is fun! We would like to inform of the many possibilities there are when you go to the University and how many great opportunities students have to do something extra if they want to. It is also essential to tell about synthetic science because many people are unaware of the potential and maybe even looks at it with fear. To communicate that part we have established a special “media ethics” group.

We have discovered that the media is of great value when it comes to especially funding. It is important for the sponsors that they get some credit and that they support something that is popular these days. The university has also expressed that they are quite pleased with the media coverage of the project in the light of that they are our main sponsor. A news paper has been writing about us and our financial situation. The article brought the issue into focus that it is difficult to raise money for student based projects like iGEM.

Contacted
8 newspapers
6 specialist journals
4 TV stations

Achieved
Documentary
1 article in NyViden
1 news broadcast
1 article in Fyens Stiftstidende
1 article in SIJ - STUDENTS & INNOVATION JOURNAL

Documentary

We have had the great possibility to have a documentary made about us. One day a former worker at the local news station came and asked if he could be allowed to make a documentary about us. He would make it so that a layman could watch it and learn from it. The story was to tell about the competition and the story about students who spends all of their summer vacation in the lab.

He followed us almost two weeks and filmed a lot of hours in the lab and got a lot of interviews with the team members and our supervisors. In the end we got a great movie that gives the audience an idea of what iGEM and science is, and how it is to work in a lab.

Podcast

The start

During this years iGEM competition, we were involved in the making of a informational video in cooperation with several other iGEM teams around the world.

It all started when Lars-Christian (a former iGEM team member turned adviser from our team) told us that Cornell University was considering making a collaborative podcast video as part of the human outreach aspect of iGEM. It didn’t take long for us to decide that we wanted to participate because it sounded like a fun and exciting project to work on.

After the initial emailing and formal introductions were made we had a series of hangouts on google+ which enabled us to see and speak to each other face to face. This helped the process along very nicely, as it would probably have been a rather difficult task to achieve the same level of productivity and cooperation over email, when several different people from all around the world are involved in decision making.

The task

Very early on it was decided that the product of our labor should be focused on the ethical aspects of synthetic biology but also teach the public about iGEM and synthetic biology in general and that we, as scientist take the ethical issues regarding genetic manipulation seriously. The “problem” that we ended up wanting to tackle was that of GMO’s and the way they are perceived by the public.

The idea

At first we talked about just making one movie where the different teams would contribute with their part and the editing would be spread out amongst the teams. This approach was abbandoned though and each team was then tasked with producing their own movies.

After a couple of weeks of planning, writing scripts and making mission statements for our movies we were ready to shoot the first set of interviews.
By making this video we hope that the average joe might understand or at least appreciate our efforts to better the world, and not perceive our hard work as a means to corrupt the natural order of things.

The message

The purpose of this video is to build a bridge between scientists and the general public. Using it as a way to inform people in general about the ethical and philosophical aspects of genetic modification and how human technological advancement has enabled us to manipulate naturally occurring systems into workhorses of great benefit to modern society.

By openly discussing the issues that arise when dealing with GMO’s we hope to remove the stigma that has surrounded the field for a long time and try to dispel any rumours that people might have heard. We want to achieve this by showing the world what scientists think about the issues regarding genetic manipulation.

The video

The video will focus on the way humans have taken advantage of the fact that microbes behave as small molecular machines. We will take a look at what makes these machines “alive” by interviewing Martin Hanczyc who is a specialist on fundamental living systems.

In our interview with Martin Hanczyc we will focus on what it means that something is alive and how life is “simply” a set of chemical reactions happening under thermodynamically favourable conditions.

One can not deny that the biotechnology industry is big and ever growing. One of the key players on the market is Novo Nordisk who produce insulin for diabetes patients using genetically modified organisms. We wanted to hear what a global company the size of Novo Nordisk has to say when faced with the ethical dilemmas that arise on the field of synthetic biology. We believe it is important to show that companies like Novo Nordisk are not just out to generate money, but are actually striving to better the lives of people around the world. We had the chance to interview Esper Boel who is vice president of the biotechnology group at Novo and a man with more than 30 years of experience in the field. From our interview with Esper we learned that the people working at Novo Nordisk are dedicated and hard working on making peoples lives better.

You can see the short documentary below. Enjoy.

Introducing SLIM to the US market - perspectives and considerations.

by Lars Øvlisen, 2012

Obesity and the western implications

The creation of SLIM (Sucrose limitation and inulin metabolization) has opened a wide variety of possible uses. Sequelae of obesity now hold the position of being one of the most urgently growing health and financial problems of western civilization. The growing problem is especially visible in North America where more than two thirds of the population is overweight and one third is obese*. The negative impacts of obesity include health-related diseases such as coronary heart disease, hypertension and diabetes. In conjunction with these health issues, general psychological wellbeing, as well as actual psychological diseases, is also of important focus when looking at the impacts of obesity. The increasing financial burden related to sequelae of obesity includes medical costs spawned by the direct implications of health-related diseases, but equally important is it to recognize second stage costs in form of absenteeism, presenteeism, disability and premature mortality.

The goal of SLIM and ideas for implementation

The goal of SLIM is to be able to function as an accelerate of weight loss and could therefore be considered a great candidate as a supplement for currently active weight loss programs. Conversion of sucrose to inulin is the primary product of SLIM, but the effect of use also exhibits a positive byproduct in the form of sustaining a higher quantity of fibers in the stomach and intestines than normal.

The possible implementations for SLIM are many, but the nature of the product guides it towards the market for consumer foods. Food products involved in common western mealtimes could be ideal entry points for the implementation of the SLIM product. This includes, but is not limited to yogurt, white bread, pancakes, dairy products, cereal, cake/biscuit products and food ingredient products. Implementing SLIM in daily consumed and well recognized food products could give the producing companies an easily created additional value for their existing product repertoire or create a basis for a whole new line of SLIM incorporated products. In either way the producing company would have the freedom of exploiting SLIM induced possibilities in their company’s products by introducing the possibility of a healthier choice and thereby obtaining a very important strategic competitive advantage compared to their respective market competitors.

Utilizing the capabilities of SLIM, the soda industry could have its whole playing field changed. Modern diet soda drinks have frequently been subject to discussions concerning the possible ill effects of ingesting artificial sweeteners that have been implemented to substitute the processed sugar otherwise used to sweeten the diet drinks. By using SLIM in soda products, the manufacturers would be able to reduce the amount of regular processed sugar that would otherwise be obtained by the body. This implementation of SLIM could make way for great competitive strategic advantages in the industry and has the theoretical possibility of taking over a part of the massive diet soda market by being adopted as a new diet soda alternative or standard.

SLIM could be licensed for use to different consumer food manufactures and incorporated into their food products in close cooperation with the SLIM development team. Focusing on licensing, as the preferred way of marketing, could enable the SLIM entity to be streamlined in a manner benefiting the client manufacturers in their whole product life cycle.

Referring to the value chain above, the most important primary activities for the SLIM entity would involve contact and negotiation of the SLIM sales and marketing force and securing total supply chain awareness to and from clients through inbound/outbound logistic activities. Concerning support activities technology and development and human resource management would be crucial aspects of focus. Technology development including research and development is of importance because the SLIM entity would be forced to differentiate its product to different customer needs. This fact derives the importance of human resource management, so that hiring the best employees, not only those excelling in their technical field but also the ones able to conquer the challenge of ever changing product specifications, would be of paramount importance.
Instead of developing a consumer product in-house, licensing SLIM and thereby staying in the business-to-business arena, would enable the SLIM entity in providing a greater flexibility when cooperating with manufacturers who are interested in implementing SLIM in their products. Staying in this area of business the SLIM entity would have the ideal opportunity to engage in collaborative relationships and move away from those characterized by a more transactional nature.

In conjunction with the main primary and secondary activities, because of the nature of the SLIM product and market-for-implementation, the most natural strategy to pursue would be one focusing on differentiation. This choice of strategy is justified by the SLIM entity’s need of tailoring its SLIM product to different industries. A differentiation strategy should utilize the already unique competencies of the SLIM entity and product, while securing a broad market scope through the search and development of future possible customers and markets.
Recognizing the need for a differentiation strategy and focusing on the aforementioned primary and secondary activities could develop the advantages necessary for a positive blue-ocean scenario accompanied by a first-mover effect.

Possible markets and the communicative challenge

Several different food producers are of interest when considering clients who could be potential buyers. Companies such as Kraft Foods Inc., Kellogg Company and Coca-Cola Company are to be considered as prospect buyers because of their operating industry, consumer and industrial foods and their total market share. Working from this perspective of potential buyers, a greater analysis of the respective companies would be required in order to align the internal strategy of SLIM with that of the customers.

When determining a possible introductory market for the SLIM product, one important factor has to be considered. Any food product with SLIM incorporated will be considered genetically modified and is therefore subject to general GMO controversy. Rules and regulations of GMO in the US are fundamentally different from those created in the EU. The US has been working progressively with the development of GMO foods including corn, potatoes, tomatoes, soybeans and squash. Especially important was the production of golden rice in 2000, because it was the first product that had its nutrition values dramatically improved by the use of genetic modifications.

The communicative challenge imbedded in the release of a SLIM implemented product, has to be handled with great care when released to the public as consumer foods. The quest of maintaining a positive public reception of any given SLIM incorporated product is of paramount importance, not only for the corporation selling the product but also for the SLIM entity. The SLIM entity is completely dependent of the amount of sales generated by its clients and thereby also completely dependent on the end-user reception of the individual products. This end-user reliance stresses the importance of the SLIM entity to have its collaborative relationships tightly knit, especially in the area of sales and marketing.

*http://www.dovepress.com/the-economic-impact-of-obesity-in-the-united-states-peer-reviewed-article-DMSO-MVP

Legislation of GMOs in the European Union

– with outlook on the policy of the United States

By Gábor Barna, 2012

1. Introduction

While genetically modified organisms (GMOs), food and feed made thereof, and the related biotechnological processes such as genetic engineering are usually criticized because of their supposed risk for human health or the environment, we should not forget about the promising breakthroughs which they have the chance to perform sooner or later, such as helping to terminate starvation in the third world, or for instance – like the project Team SDU is working on – simply ensuring people a healthier, better life.

It would be very easy to argue about the statutory assessment of genetic engineering simply from a rational, economist point of view, to compare the benefits and costs (in this case the risks) and afterwards decide whether it should be allowed to use these techniques and products or not. Reality is a bit more complicated, we have to deal with the ethical questions and consequences of genetic engineering, which is the other very important field of criticism towards GMOs.

This paper will demonstrate the current legislation on GMOs in the European Union in a mostly practical way to show the actual difficulties that a GMO producer has to deal with compared to the general attitude of legislation in the United States without being detailed about the ethical issues because of the boundaries of length and topic of this paper.

However, I do have to mention the connection between law and ethics, which mainly belong to the fields of Philosophy of Law, and therefore is not subject of the following pages. To briefly demonstrate this connection, I would like to recall the legal positivist Jellinek’s definition of law: “Das Recht ist nichts anderes als das ethische Minimum.” which means law is nothing else, but the ethical minimum (standard). Of course, he did not mean it in the way that laws would reflect the ethical standards of legislators, and neither do I intend to express such a meaning. However, this quote can give the reader a good starting point of view to think about the questions discussed below.

2. General attitudes towards GMOs

For the better understanding of current rules, a quick look should be taken at the history of jurisdiction on GMOs, environmental and health risks. Vogel and Lynch gave a complex overview on this context in 2001. They demonstrated that a grave change can be recognized in the approach towards these techniques both in the US and the EU in the 1980s, but the difference between their directions did not disappear, in fact they almost replaced each other. As they write about the 1960s and 1970s: “As a general rule American regulatory politics tended to be more contentious, confrontational and adversarial than in Europe. There was less public trust in government officials and more widespread public skepticism about the benefits of new technologies.” Nowadays the situation seems to be the exact opposite: there is a lot stricter and more restrictive jurisdiction in Europe, while the American rules along with the public opinion tend to be in favor of innovation and support new technologies.

The authors also cited statistics that reflected the contrast between the two continents in public support at the edge of the new millennium: while great majority of Americans were willing to buy and consume products made by bioengineering, Europeans highly refused to do so, however they admitted that German opposition seemed to be declining at the time.

Recent facts doesn’t reflect this decline though, as for instance in early 2012 the German BASF – producer of the GM potato Amflora, which is one of the very few GMOs licensed in the EU – announced it is outsourcing its biotech operations and research facilities to America due to the lack of acceptance of these technologies in Europe from both the public, both the legislators. Maurice Moloney’s words summarize the result with a great adequacy: “It is ironic that much of the science that created modern biotechnology came from Europe and yet Europeans have been deprived of the environmental benefits such as the reduction of the use of pesticides and improved soil quality as well as the more obvious economic benefits of cheaper food and agricultural products.”

3. Jurisdiction in Europe

3.1. Antecedents

Before the currently effective regulations – mentioned below – were accepted by the European Parliament and the Council, the European Union used to apply a de facto moratorium on biotech products by refusing to approve their presence in the Common Market between 1999 and 2003, as World Trade Organization (WTO) concluded in the EC-Biotech case in 2006. WTO’s process was initiated by the US, Canada and Argentina – the main exporting countries of products to the EU effected by the moratorium. Ironically, despite the EU had to bear the wide international opposition, European farmers and companies did not benefit from the acts considered to be protectionist such as the GMO ban or the 1989 ban on importing beef from cattle treated with growth hormones – which for the record has also been found to violate an international treaty, namely the WTO Sanitary and Phytosanitary Standards of the Uruguay Round Trade Agreement – as the amount of imported agricultural products did not reduce, only the countries of origin changed to those that produce non-GM crops and meet without hormone treatment (i.e. Australia, Brazil).

3.2. Current regulations

After the EC-Biotech decision, the EU did not appeal, as it already had regulations that were in harmony with its international obligations. The most important sources of community law ruling these issues are Regulation (EC) No 1829/2003 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 September 2003 on genetically modified food and feed (hereinafter Reg. 1829/2003) and Regulation (EC) No 1830/2003. Latter contains the detailed rules of traceability and labeling, while the foregoing gives us the general rules and objectives. In the following paragraphs this paper will demonstrate these rules to give a preview of how difficult job a new GMO producer shall face in order to have its product authorized.

3.2.1. Objectives and scope

Reg. 1829/2003 has three objectives as follows: (1) ensuring a high level of protection of human and animal life and health, environment and consumer interests in relation to GM food and feed, whilst ensuring the effective functioning of the internal market; (2) provide the procedure of authorization; (3) give provisions on labeling. The scope of the regulation applies to GMOs for food use, food containing or consisting of GMOs, and food produced from or containing ingredients produced from GMOs. To put it more simply, if the food has any tiny thing to do with GMOs, it is subject of the regulation.

3.2.2. Authorization

The procedure for authorization is relatively slow. First, the application shall be sent to the national authority of a Member State, which on one hand acknowledges receiving the documents in 14 days, on the other hand forwards the case to the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). The latter is responsible for risk assessment and shall send his report of opinion to the Commission within 6 month. The Commission then submits the case to the Standing Committee on the Food Chain and Animal Health within 3 months after receiving the opinion of EFSA. This step is one of the most important ones since in the best case scenario this can be the last one: if the Committee accepts the proposal, the Commission adopts it. In case it does not accept it, the proposal will be discussed by the Council of Ministers. This of course delays the licensing, however, there is a time limit at this level as well: if the Council cannot reach a position with qualified majority within 3 months, the Commission adopts its proposal. Authorization, as seen above, can take up to a year from publishing the application. This ensures safety, but hardly promotes innovation. Once the authorization is granted, it is valid for 10 years – renewably – throughout the whole Community, but the authorized action is subject to a constant supervision.

3.2.3. Labeling

The fundamental and detailed rules of labeling are also covered by these two regulations. Food and feed products containing GMOs must be labeled as such, i.e. by printing a clearly visible text of “genetically modified” on the product. The only exception applies to products that contain less than 0.9 % GMOs.

3.2.4. Option to “opt out” for Member States

Although the geographical scope of the granted authorization covers the whole Community, there are several Member States that have successfully banned some GM products from their territories. If Member States want to do so, they have to invoke the safeguard clause of Directive 2001/18/EC, but they are supposed to have reasonable cause of the prohibition. For instance, several Member States, including Hungary have banned producing, selling and using GM maize MON810 on their territories. Even though in that specific case the Scientific Panel of EFSA did not find the scientific evidence provided by Hungary enough to justify the prohibition of MON810 , the Council of Ministers rejected the Commission’s proposal to force Hungary along with and Austria to lift their bans. I would like to note that Hungary also banned Amflora in 2010 , and given the abovementioned retreat of BASF in Europe, this ban is also very likely not to be lifted.

Summarizing the EU legislative rules and attitudes, it is very interesting to see how the Community tries to maneuver between promoting innovation and minimizing risks. Back in 1998, the European Parliament and the Council admitted the importance of biotechnology and genetic engineering and talked about their protection with the words: “will certainly be of fundamental importance for the Community's industrial development.” In my opinion, today’s Europe tends to choose risk minimization over innovation and growth, but only time will be able to tell whether it was the right decision or not.

4. The United States

As mentioned above, the American way of dealing with the GM issue is almost the opposite of the European. Given that the Unites States is the largest GM crops producer in the world, it is not surprising their jurisdiction and government firmly support these new technologies.
Their less restrictive legislation dates back to the 1980s, when the Biotechnology Science Coordinating Committee was established, and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) were chosen as the three regulatory agencies for biotechnology. Both of them did and do promote the use of GMOs.

Authorization process of GMOs also belongs to these agencies, and their process is considered to be faster and more liberal than the one in the EU. This liberalism is also reflected by labeling GM products, which in the US is absolutely voluntary. “FDA determined that labeling was not required on the basis of the method of food production (i.e. genetic engineering), but only if the new food itself posed safety problems for consumers.”

The barriers of this paper do not let the American jurisdiction to be presented in details, the objective was to give a brief compartment of the fundamental questions.

5. Conclusion

All 27 Member States of the European Union have signed and ratified the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and thus undertook the duty “to improve methods of production, conservation and distribution of food by making full use of technical and scientific knowledge” in order to ensure everyone’s right to be free from hunger. Also in the same covenant they recognized the fundamental scientific freedom by undertaking “to respect the freedom indispensable for scientific research and creative activity”.

Are Member States along with the Community really making full use of technical and scientific knowledge? It is not ours to decide, but considering the abovementioned circumstances, the United States seem to be a much more welcoming place for scientists working on GMOs and therefore outsourcing European jobs and loosing European scientists for the US is not really surprising. In this paper I presented the legal procedure of authorizing GMOs in the EU and placed it in a context to be comparable with the American government promotion of scientific innovations. Instead of collecting the short term benefits, the EU made a choice of values, and this should be respected.