Reflection on the ethics of the project

Our project raises a lot of ethical and technical questions : Can we "free" genetically modified bacteria in the environment, how can we prevent the potential spreading of these bacteria, how will people perceive our project ...

So, we decided to divide our reflection on the ethics of the project in two parts :

1. Evaluation of the public perception of our project and of synthetic biology.

2. Reflection on containment protocols that we could use to prevent our modified bacteria to spread into the environment

Finally, to help our reflection on our project, we met with the Evry team and discussed each team's project.

Evaluation of the public perception of our project and of synthetic biology

Because synthetic biology may have impacts on everyone's life, and because if our project aims at decontaminating soils and waters from PCBs, it also involves the manipulation of living organisms that could be intentionally or not released into the environment, we wanted to try to have an idea of how our project will be perceived by the french population. We therefore decided make a poll in Paris during one afternoon. In this poll we tried to ask specific questions to see if the French are aware of the consequences of the pollution of water and what they think about our project.

Reflection on containment protocols that could be used to prevent our GMO bacteria to spread into the environment

PCBs are mainly found in soils and waters, so we had to think of a system that could allow decontamination without releasing GMO bacteria in the environment. We thought about developing a bacterial filter that can be used in water-treatment plants and that prevents the spreading of bacteria.

Moreover, to understand the water cycle, the way water is cleaned and recycled, we have visited the Parisians Sewers during an afternoon.

Meeting the Evry team

We met the Evry's team during an afternoon in August. During this meeting, we presented the various aspects of our respective projects : the scientific part, the human practice part and the modeling part. After each presentation we debated, asked questions, and proposed solutions to improve the other team's project. At the end of the day we had a big 4 o'clock tea.

Writing by Caroline