We talked to Prof. Dr. Rainer Zawatzky, who is group leader and safety representative at the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) as well as deputy chairman of the regional office of the BUND (a German NGO for preservation of the environment) not only for safety concerns, but also majorly for receiving input from a scientific expert. The discussion we engaged in mainly dealt with three topics: Impacts of synthetic biology in general (and our project in particular) on the environment, synthetic biology as a risk-technology and sustainability, as we intend to provide an energy-efficient alternative to conventional gold-recycling.

We received first input concerning the communication of our project and our software to the general public. Prof. Zawatzky pointed out that possible concerns of the public regarding our project are negligible – at least for the planning of our project. In his long experience as researcher, he often experienced anxiety of non-scientists towards his research and doubts the effectiveness of advances in Human Practice, as discussions with concerned people may not lead to the expected result. However, we believe that it is in fact possible to address and to banish fears by informing society about one’s work and by promoting communication between science and the society.

With Mrs. Van Aaken, who not only is a pedagogue for environmental education, but also member of the BUND, we talked about the impact of synthetic biology on environment and on our lives in general. We cannot foresee all consequences and the impact our actions will have for the future – which accounts for both, the interactions of our “creations” with different ecosystems as well as the impact of synthetic food or medicine on our bodies. The evaluation of possible risks arising from them has to be done according to the specific use of the synthetic product. Furthermore, we should return to our essential needs instead of the urge to pile up cheap goods and wealth at the expense of nature and the poor.

Besides this general issue, we also considered the question whether synthetic biology is an artificial process or rather something natural. When interacting with the non-scientific public in general (see below), a common association to synthetic biology was “artificial”. However, we can ask whether synthetic biology actually is human-made artificial or accelerated natural evolution. Addressing these questions in the discussion with Mrs. Van Aaken lead us further in the very theory behind science in general, hence, what natural sciences really are, what nature is and whether our quest for knowledge and technological advance is part of human nature. These considerations opened up an entirely new point of view on what we as scientists-in-training were doing and hence, we thank Mrs. Van Aaken for broadening our horizon during this enlightening afternoon.

Seeing safety concerns as one of the major issues in a Human Practice Advance, we wanted to gain a deeper knowledge of professional biosafety, in this case, defense against biological weapons. We arranged to take part in an open day at the ABC-defense regiment (i.e. atomic, biological and chemical weapon defense) organized by the German Armed Forces. Especially the part about biological weapons was of special interest for us, as many people we talked to pointed out safety concerns as one of their major fears regarding synthetic biology. Hence, we wanted to know, how experts in biosafety approach these issues. Read about our experiences!

Additionally, as part of our project aims at improving the efficiency of gold-recycling, we concluded that we should gain an understanding of the current methods to recover gold and discuss the potential of our gold recovery approach with experts in this field. Hence, we set up a visit of a delegation of our team to a professional gold-recycling company TBM Edelmetall Recycling. This visit will take place in October, as they are working short time over the summer.