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Team/CINVESTAV-IPN-UNAM MX/Biosecurity.htm
From 2012.igem.org
Biosecurity report!
Introduction
We know that the biosecurity is a fundamental part of any project. In our country, there
are very few laws that regulate the Biosecurity in Synthetic Biology and the requirements of it
are not well established. Because of that we decide to use a statistical tool named QFD, (Quality
Function Deployment) or Quality House.
This tool is a process developed by Yoji Akao at Japan in 1960 and 1970. This quality
management method is based in transforming the demands of the user in the quality of the
design, implementing methods for achieving design quality in subsystems and components, and
ultimately to the specific elements of the manufacturing process. Actually, QFD is a technic that is
applied in several areas, such as consumer products, military needs, emerging technology
products, marketing strategies, etc., and has showed satisfactory results because it allows the
improvement of the processes.
We used the QFD for evaluating the Biosecurity actions and measures that were made in
our Synthetic Biology Project and also implement these in upcoming projects.
Construction of our Quality House
First of all, we made a brainstorm in order to establish the requirements or criteria that
must be accomplished according to the national normativity and international guides for projects
of Synthetic Biology. With the same technique, the proposals of the team members of
CINVESTAV-IPN-UNAM_MX for the Rhodofactory project were established.
The next step was to construct the main matrix with the needs and proposals in order to
define the score of priorities according to some experts and the team members. (See Figure 1)
After that, we made a scale of relative score based on the dependence and correlation
between the needs and proposals. Based on these values the Pareto Diagram was built. This
technique was used to point out the measurements of more importance as necessity or proposal.
Once the Pareto diagram was ready, we divided it in three parts for its analysis.
We used both, the Pareto Diagram and the interactions Matrix (roof of the quality
House), for making an effort vs. impact diagram, this tool allow us to verify the functioning of the
performed analysis.
Finally we used the Effort vs. impact diagram in order to implement the Biosecurity
measures, which were pointed out as the most important of all the criteria.
Results
The following QFD diagram was built from the establishment of the needs and the ideas which were defined by the Synthetic Biology team for our project.
The Pareto diagram (See figure 3) shows the priorities, established by the team, to work in
Biosecurity, the most important are:
The Effort vs. Impact diagram (See Figure 4) shows the team’s interests and organizes the ideas as a conclusion.
Conclusions
- In this work we used the QFD because it defines our ideas and also involves compliance
with the regulations of the Synthetic Biology projects.
- With the obtained diagrams, we decided that the iGEM competition project will be
defended in biosecurity, considering the impact of the GMO’s in the society and the
environment.
- In addition, it defines an approach that follows the criteria according to the percentage of importance, impact and effort.
References
1.Jonathan Tucker and Raymond Zilinskas (2006). The promise and peril of synthetic
biology. The new atlantis. P. 132-139.
2.Verma Dinesh; et al, (2009). Quality function deployment (qfd): integration of logistics
requirements into mainstream system design. Systems Engineering Design Laboratory.
Industrial and Systems Engineering. p.1-8.
3.Kelle Alexander (2009). Ensuring the security of synthetic biology—towards a 5P
governance strategy. Syst Synth Biol 3:85–90.
4.Ley de bioseguridad de organismos genéticamente modificados. Nueva Ley DOF 18-03-
2005. Cámara de Diputados del H. Congreso de la Unión
5.Jhon L Sandford, How to use QFD? QUALITY PROGRESS JANUARY 2005 P:
Rhodofactory 2012
