{% extends "layout.html" %}
{% block title %}Project Description {% endblock %}
{% block lead %} {% endblock %}
{% block page_content %}
<div class="pagecontainer">
<div class="title2">
<span>Human Practices</span>
</div>
<div class="pagebody">
<div class="pagenav">
<div onclick="goTo(document.getElementById('one'))"><span id="subtitle1" style="color: #62D881;">Introduction</span></div>
<div onclick="goTo(document.getElementById('two'))"><span id="subtitle2" style="color: #62D881;">Our responsible innovation approach</span></div>
<div onclick="goTo(document.getElementById('three'))"><span id="subtitle3" style="color: #62D881;">Value-Sensitive Design</span></div>
<div onclick="goTo(document.getElementById('four'))"><span id="subtitle4" style="color: #62D881;">Stakeholders we talked to</span></div>
<div onclick="goTo(document.getElementById('five'))"><span id="subtitle5" style="color: #62D881;">Reaching out to stakeholders</span></div>
<div onclick="goTo(document.getElementById('six'))"><span id="subtitle6" style="color: #62D881;">Integrated Human Practices</span></div>
<div onclick="goTo(document.getElementById('seven'))"><span id="subtitle7" style="color: #62D881;">IHP: Final implementation</span></div>
<div onclick="goTo(document.getElementById('eight'))"><span id="subtitle8" style="color: #62D881;">IHP: Techno-moral Scenarios</span></div>
</div>
<div class="pagecontent">
<!-- 1 -->
<div class="h" id="one">
<div class="h1">Introduction</div>
<p>In the Human Practises (HP) part of the project, our team aimed to assess the impact of our project on the world. We considered the environmental, social and economic impact. Since our idea is bold and revolutionary and uses synthetic biology in agriculture, it was very important to us to shape our design in a responsible way and think of all the potential risks in case our technology was to be implemented in society. Hence, we applied the notions of Value Sensitive Design and conducted stakeholder interviews.</p>
</div>
<!-- 2 -->
<div class="h" id="two">
<div class="h1">Our Responsible Innovation Approach</div>
<p>We started by using the Value-Sensitive Design (VSD) approach. [1] We chose this approach because it helped us <strong>to identify our project in relationship to problems and values and build a discourse around what these values mean between team members</strong> and stakeholders, and how to carry out a responsible approach. [1]This entailed thoroughly anticipating both positive and negative impacts of our project and thinking of security or ethical, social and legal problems created by its potential application. </p>
<p>The steps of our HP and Integrated HP approach, based on the VSD analysis, is shown in Figure 1. The VSD consists of three main phases namely conceptual, empirical and technical part. We applied these stages in our HP work. In the conceptual part we assessed who are the stakeholders impacted by our idea and what values are at relevance. This way, we gained a better understanding of whom to engage with and what questions we wanted to ask The empirical part consisted of reaching out to some of these stakeholders with different backgrounds, and to experts that could help us think about the different fields of impacts mentioned before. During the technical part we integrated all gathered information from the conceptual and empirical parts to minimise potential risks associated with our project and to come up with alternative approaches. This also meant that we had to make compromises between conflicting design choices. </p>
<div class="img-pagestyle" style="margin-top:5px;">
<img src="https://static.igem.wiki/teams/5054/accessability-value-hierarchy.png" alt="">
</div>
<div class="h2">Understanding the Problem</div>
<p>As we learned from the conversations with different stakeholders, defining to what problem our idea serves as a solution is very important from the aspect of responsible innovation. It was also the first step of our VSD analysis. This way we can emphasise the benefits and better communicate it to different stakeholders but also identify potential risks.</p>
<p>We are a team from the Netherlands and even though many of us are international students, we care about the environment we live in. In the Netherlands, pollution from reactive nitrogen deposition is a major problem and immediate action is needed in the short and long term to restore nature and allow new economic activities to be pursued.[2] We felt an obligation to find a solution that could help local people and the agricultural sector, a driving sector of the Netherlands.[3] A sustainable solution for agriculture is not only important locally but globally as well. There is growing global food demand by rising populations where agricultural productivity must be doubled by 2050 to feed the world.[4] However, sustainability in agriculture is already a problem, so the question is <strong>how can we achieve a drastic productivity increase sustainably?</strong> </p>
<p>We chose a synthetic biology approach to answer this question. We were looking for a solution that is environmentally and socially sustainable, that helps solve food security problems, is accessible and of course safe. This is a big task and at the beginning of our project we were wondering what if our idea is merely a <strong>techno-fix</strong>? This means that while a technology serves as a solution, it mostly addresses the (unwanted) effects, rather than the root of the problem. [5] This is the question where our Human Practices (HP) and Integrated Human Practices (IHP) journey started. </p>
<p>Done Scott describes philosophical and practical criticism of technological fixes in his article “ <strong> The Technological Fix Criticisms and the Agricultural Biotechnology Debate </strong>”. [5] He summarizes that “The practical criticisms of technological fixes serve as a warning against the inherent dangers of addressing complex, multifaceted problems with narrowly conceived technological fixes. The philosophical criticisms seek to undermine a worldview that sees technological fixes as the primary means to advance civilization and social welfare”. To respond to the potential practical criticisms raised against our project, we clarify that we are aware that our solution might not solve the social and political challenges underlying nitrogen pollution and food security. But it can clearly serve as an extra option for different actors to use to tackle above mentioned challenges while giving more time to deal with the root problem. As Dr. <strong>Britte Bouchaut </strong> – who is an Assistant Professor at the Safety & Security Science group at TU Delft – mentioned in her presentation at the Dutch iGEM meet 2024 (organized by The Centre for Living Technologies and supported by iGEM WUR and iGEM TU/e)<strong> it is okay to design a techno-fix, if we think about the impact and the consequences of our technology </strong>. This way we can better avoid creating new problems by our technology. </p>
<p>Putting this into practice, we assessed the environmental and social impact of our synthetic biology idea, we talked with relevant stakeholders and implemented the information we learned in our project by making design choices based on the input we got and on our VSD analysis. (see IHP page).</p>
<p>Therefore, we believe that, although our idea can be regarded as a technological fix, it can serve as a great solution that was designed responsibly.</p>
</div>
<!-- 3 -->
<div class="h" id="three">
<div class="h1">Value-Sensitive Design</div>
<p>As mentioned in the Responsible Innovation section, we used the VSD (Value Sensitive Design) analysis as a tool to guide our design process, ensuring it is both responsible and centered on human values. This approach translates values into technological norms and design requirements. By creating value hierarchies, we make the decision-making process behind our design specifications more transparent, especially to external stakeholders. A value hierarchy (see Figure 2) consists of values—principles that promote the common good, such as freedom and sustainability—and norms, which are the rules for achieving those values. The most relevant norms are end-norms, which can also be viewed as objectives, goals, or constraints.</p>
<div class="img-pagestyle" style="margin-top:5px;">
<img src="https://static.igem.wiki/teams/5054/piramid-2.svg" alt="">
</div>
<p><strong>In the conceptual phase (see Our responsible innovation section) of our VSD we thought how our nitrogen fixing plant would contribute to the problem.</strong></p>
<p>The engineered plant would require little to no nitrogen fertilizer, which would prevent soil acidification and reduce ammonia production, thereby lowering CO2 emissions. Additionally, there would be minimal or no reactive nitrate leakage into freshwater bodies and coastal regions, helping to protect the environment and biodiversity. Fewer nitrogen oxides would be emitted into the atmosphere, contributing to a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.</p>
<p>The reduced need for fertilizer would lower growing costs globally, especially given the dramatic rise in fertilizer prices in recent years. [7]This impact would be even more significant in countries with lower food security and limited access to mineral nitrogen fertilizers. At the same time, theoretically, crop yields would remain high compared to conventional fertilizer use, allowing for more sustainable food production to meet the demands of a growing population.</p>
<div class="h2">Actor map</div>
<p>Stakeholders are all individuals or institutions that have an interest connected to our self-fertilizing plant technology. Below is a power-interest grid with the most important identified stakeholders associated with our project in the Netherlands.</p>
<div class="img-pagestyle" style="margin-top:5px;">
<img src="https://static.igem.wiki/teams/5054/actor-map.png" alt="">
</div>
<div class="h2">Values</div>
<p>The identified/relevant values were food security, accessibility, social/environmental sustainability, safety. The value hierarchy of the two most important values safety and accessibility can be seen in Figure 4 and Figure 5 as an example.</p>
<div class="h3">Safety</div>
<div class="img-pagestyle" style="margin-top:5px;">
<img src="https://static.igem.wiki/teams/5054/safety_value_hierarchy.png" alt="">
</div>
<p>Safety was found to be an important value for the European Union but also to the Dutch Government and the public. Safety can be divided into environmental and food safety. During our HP work we mostly dived deeper into the question of environmental safety related to our idea. Figure 3 shows how norms such as ‘No risk for the environment derives from the value safety and what are the certain design requirements such as ‘the genetically modified (GM) plant shouldn’t outcompete native species’ to satisfy those norms in our design. We later rediscussed these design requirements and modified them according to the information we gathered from interviews we conducted. Making design choices related to safety were difficult. The design requirements for safety often clashed with the ones derived from accessibility. This is discussed later.</p>
<div class="h3">Accessibility</div>
<div class="img-pagestyle" style="margin-top:5px;">
<img src="https://static.igem.wiki/teams/5054/accessability_value_hierarchy.png" alt="">
</div>
<p>Accessibility was an important value identified related to farmers and NGOs. NGOs like Greenpeace argue that the Agro and Seed industries main priority is profit (by patents and seeds that need to be rebought every year) rather than to make their technology and products accessible for all farmers and serve their local needs.[8] The design requirements shown in Figure 4 are interesting ones related to patenting and ownership, but also touching the core of our whole design. Other important questions for farmers are how expensive the GM seeds are. Is it affordable or cheaper compared to the non-GM type that needs fertilizer? Will the farmers have to buy the seeds every year? These questions related to accessibility touch the question of ownership and safety which are discussed in the IHP part.</p>
<p>See what design adjustments we made regarding these questions after interviews.</p>
</div>
<!-- 4 -->
<div class="h" id="four">
<div class="h1">Stakeholders we Talked to</div>
<p>When our team came up with our initial approach and design, it was very exciting and seemed like a great solution that the Netherlands and the world could hugely benefit from. Talking with Tyler Coal and Jonathan P. Zehr helped us with our first design idea. First a big question was the feasibility of the project. Therefore, we thought of a roadmap what essential steps would be needed to make a crop plant successfully incorporate the nitroplast organelle and fix nitrogen from the air. To discuss our approach and receive a critical view we talked with scientists from seed companies like KWS seeds. Then our concern became that we are creating a GM plant by means of synthetic biology, and whether that would really be a great solution or a techno fix? (see the teams view on this at <strong>Our responsible innovation approach </strong>) To answer this question, first, we talked to Martijn Schaap from TNO to learn more about the nitrogen problem/pollution in the Netherlands. Then we contacted RIVM and Max van Hooren from COGEM to talk about environmental safety and what measures could be applied to our project. We also discussed aspects of risk assessment. Then we had a discussion with Amrit Nanda, who is the Executive Manager of Plants for the Future ETP on how our idea could be applied in Europe and how to communicate our project since GMOs are not popular in Europe currently. Meanwhile with talked with dr. Zoë Robaey (WUR) about responsible innovation and the social impact of our project.</p>
<div class="h3">KWS SAAT</div>
<p>We had the opportunity (with the kind help of TU Delft AgTech Institute) to have a critical discussion with four scientists from KWS SAAT SE & Co. KGaA about our idea and experimental approach. KWS is an international seed company. We thought it is relevant to talk about the feasibility of our idea and approach with experienced scientist from a company that is relevant to seed development.</p>
<p>During our talk with the scientists we discussed additional aspects that are important to test for our idea in the early phases. Therefore, we included additional experiments and approaches for the fusion experiments but also for characterising our uTP peptide. More details can be found on the Future wet-lab experiments page. Additionally, they raised their concerns about the feasibility of our idea. They highlighted that it is important to think of alternative approaches and how our idea could compliment already existing solutions for improving nitrogen-fixation in plants. Reflecting to this we discuss these possibilities under Alternative approaches. </p>
<div class="img-pagestyle" style="margin-top:5px;">
<img src="https://static.igem.wiki/teams/5054/KWS_logo.png" alt="">
</div>
<div class="h3">Martijn Schaap</div>
<p>Martijn Schaap is a Professor at Freie Universitaet Berlin on Air Quality and Principal Scientist at the Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research ( TNO ). TNO is an independent research organisation that aims to create innovations while collaborating closely with governments, universities and the private sector. [TNO website]</p>
<p>Since Martijn is an expert on reactive nitrogen emissions and deposition we could learn more about the situation in the Netherlands, what are the main sources of ammonia and nitrogen oxide emissions. Since he is a researcher at TNO which is a Dutch organisation, we learned how the Dutch government approaches the problem. He also gave his opinion on ideas that could help solve the problem, these are also discussed in the alternative approaches part.
</p>
<div class="img-pagestyle" style="margin-top:5px;">
<img src="https://static.igem.wiki/teams/5054/tno_martijn_schaap_picture.png" alt="">
</div>
<div class="h3">Zoë Robaey</div>
<p>We wanted to implement the notion of responsible innovation during our project. That is why we contacted dr. Zoë Robaey who is currently an Assistant Professor in Ethics of Technology at the Philosophy Group of Wageningen University. Her work investigates moral responsibility under conditions of uncertainty in the field of biotechnology in agriculture.
</p>
<p>We learned that it is not enough to have a potentially revolutionary idea that we think could do good. It is a fundamental part of being responsible that we think of how our idea or product will be used in society, who will own it, what exact problems our innovation will solve and what consequences can be anticipated to different choices. We developed our idea and thought of its application with this mindset all along.</p>
<p>As a result of our discussion, we came up with different types of responsible ownership models that could be applied to our project and what benefits each could have. Also, we thought more about our final product, do we want to create GM seeds in the end with specific crops, or just have a ‘nitrogen-fixing traits’ that could be used as a technology by others. You can see more on the ownership page and Entrepreneurship page about how we imagine our final idea.</p>
<div class="img-pagestyle" style="margin-top:5px;">
<img src="https://static.igem.wiki/teams/5054/Zoe_Robaey_picture_source_X.png" alt="">
</div>
<div class="h3">National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM)</div>
<p>During our interview with the RIVM GMO office, we learned about environmental risk assessment and what are the steps for commercializing a GM crop in the EU and the Netherlands. Our main question was what the relevant aspects in the assessment of field trials are and how we can mitigate potential risks connected to our GM plant. We learned that risks and containment measures depend on the characteristics of the GMO and the environment it is grown in and are therefore case specific. So, choosing a plant is essential for specific details. A bioinformatics blasting module was discussed to assess safety better.
</p>
<div class="img-pagestyle" style="margin-top:5px;">
<img src="https://static.igem.wiki/teams/5054/rivm-logo.png" alt="">
</div>
<div class="h3">Max van Hooren</div>
<p>We followed up our RIVM discussion about environmental safety by reaching out to Max van Hooren to get more specific information on safety related to our design. He is a member of the scientific secretariat of The Netherlands Commission on Genetic Modification (COGEM). COGEM is an advisory board that provides advice on work involving genetically modified organisms. </p>
<p>We discussed the environmental safety aspects in more detail such as competitive advantage and genes spreading via seeds. Also, important question was, what design would be best; to genetically engineer the host or not or the question of not making the organelle viable on its own.</p>
<div class="img-pagestyle" style="margin-top:5px;">
<img src="https://static.igem.wiki/teams/5054/max-va-hooren-picture.png" alt="">
</div>
<div class="h3">Amrit Nanda</div>
<p>Amrit Nanda is the Executive Manager of Plants for the Future ETP which is a Non-profit membership-based organization bringing together academia, industry and farming communities to promote the flow of innovation to market in the plant sector. She helped us learn more about GMO legislation in Europe and what possible changes could be proposed to promote the implementation of synthetic biology ideas like ours. We also talked about how important science communication is for the acceptance of GMOs in the public.</p>
<p>This helped us improve how we present our project to the public during different public activities. We talked about the difference in GMO legislation approach between Europe and other countries. Resulting, we discuss a potential approach how in Europe the application of GM crops could be looked at. </p>
<div class="img-pagestyle" style="margin-top:5px;">
<img src="https://static.igem.wiki/teams/5054/amrit-nanda-interview-screenshot.png" alt="">
</div>
<p>Disclaimer! Statements made during this interview are the personal opinions of Amrit Nanda and do not represent the positions of Plants for the Future or its members.</p>
</div>
<!-- 5 -->
<div class="h" id="five">
<div class="h1">Reaching Out to Stakeholders</div>
<p>Reaching out and talking to stakeholders was always in a respectful manner. The team applied for the approval of our project by the TU Delft’s Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC) since our work involved Human Research Subjects. For this we needed to fill out a form and identify potential risks connected to our activities involving Human Subjects (interviewees), create a data management plan approved by the Faculty Data Steward and write an Informed Consent Form. Prior to all interviews, the Informed Consent Form was sent asking for consent for posting and eventually sending the interviewees the transcript of our conversation for their approval for sharing the information on the wiki webpage.</p>
</div>
<!-- 6 -->
<div class="h" id="six">
<div class="h1">Integrated Human Practices</div>
<p>In our IHP part we tell how we integrated the ideas from the interactions with stakeholders. You can read about each interview and what we learned from it in <strong>Stakeholders we talked to</strong>.</p>
<div class="h2">Safety/Environmental impact</div>
<p>We prioritised the value environmental safety in our product design. First it must be noted that a GM nitrogen-fixing crop engineered with our idea wouldn’t be possible to cultivate in the Netherlands or Europe according to the current legislation. This we discuss in more detail at the legislation part. Even for field trial experiments it could be hard to get a permit. Regardless we wanted to know more what environmental safety measures we would need to think of or implement in case we would have our technology ready for testing. We would be obliged to conduct an environmental risk assessment if we aim for commercialisation of our product on the market.</p>
<p>What we learned from the interviews with <strong> RIVM </strong> and <strong>Max van Hooren </strong> from COGEM that environmental safety – including containment measures for field trials – of GM crops or plants is very case dependant. It is important to know what plant in which environmental conditions we would want to grow. This is relevant for two main reasons; one is the <strong>crossing </strong>of our GM <strong>crop with native species </strong> therefore spreading the genetic information, the other is the <strong>spreading of our GM crop in the environment </strong>. In the light of these two aspects, we had to think of the target country and location. Originally, we were thinking of the Netherlands where there are relatively harsher winters so for example corn couldn’t possibly survive them so spreading wouldn’t be a problem, nor cross pollination neither because there aren’t many relative species native to the Netherlands. However, rapeseed would be a poor choice for example because it is widely cultivated in the Netherlands and there are native species as well.</p>
<p>Additionally for a market application we need to characterize all genes and inserts in our final GM plant and examine the genetic information surrounding the inserted genes. For this we should look at <strong>bioinformatics </strong> (like <strong> blasting </strong>) for toxicity and also compare if the plant would perform or be similar to the wild type. At the same time, we should look for possible mutations in the gene and around the gene so that we know if any unwanted characteristics appear</p>
<p>When talking about the spreading of our GM plant in the native environment, the main reason could be the <strong> competitive advantage of our plant compared to the wild type species </strong>, as Max van Hooren highlighted. There is good reason that a plant that can efficiently assimilate nitrogen from the air and is independent from the nitrogen assimilation in the soil by bacteria can outcompete those that don’t have this trait.[] We thought this could be especially relevant in regions where the soil has poor nitrogen content. This carries a risk that our GM plant becomes invasive and can cause the extinction of native species thus would disrupt the balance of the ecosystem. [] However, if we work with crops, this aspect could be less relevant because crops usually require extra nutrients, pesticides, and herbicides compared to wild relatives. </p>
<p>For the other aspect – which was the spread of the genetic information of our GM crop – it is important because wild type species could acquire the foreign genes []. Counterargument could be that this could happen naturally as well [] but we are directly introducing a trait that normally could require millions of years of evolution. This could happen by <strong> gene transfer </strong> or <strong>cross breading </strong> by pollination. Gene transfer between plants happens very scarcely.[9] Cross pollination would have a bigger chance then horizontal gene transfer therefore potentially a bigger risk. We discussed with Max van Hooren that if the nitroplast would be successfully incorporated as an organelle, probably the pollen would not contain it so the nitroplast itself wouldn’t spread by pollination thus nor the nitrogen-fixing trait. However, if the host organism itself also has inserted genes to have the ability to incorporate the nitroplast, then these inserted genes would still be transferred by the pollen to native relatives.</p>
<p>So, the conclusion we came to is that for containment measures regarding the design of our GM plant, it best would be that 1) <strong>the host doesn’t have foreign genes inserted that could spread with the pollen </strong>. Then the organelle being transferred by pollination introduced wouldn’t be a concern 2) <strong>the organelle wouldn’t survive on its own </strong>. This could mean that it is dependent on the host so it cannot be transferred easily. This is inherent to our original design. Additionally, we could test the spreading of genes by cross pollination with <strong>direct crossing experiments between the wild type plant and our GM crop </strong>. </p>
<p>Another safety measurement option is either a genetic modification added so that the <strong> seeds are not viable </strong> or make a <strong>hybrid seed </strong>, so the resulting plant is infertile. These methods haves been applied before by companies like Monsanto and raised many ethical questions most mostly due to their commercial model. [10]</p>
<p>When we were thinking about uncertainties related to GMOs, we were told by RIVM that the EU directive … [] requires that risks are reassessed every 10 years after a product is on the market, this means <strong>monitoring of the cultivated GM crop </strong> to check unforeseeable affects must be applied. To have more meaningful data and to be able to track the spread of the genetic material of our GM crop we thought to engineer a marker into our host plant and our nitroplast. This could be important also for traceability of our GM crop in the food chain. []</p>
<div class="h2">Ownership and IP, accessibility/ Or Social Impact</div>
<p> <strong>‘Thinking of ownership, patenting and who will use and how our GM seed product is part of responsible innovation. </strong>’ We were curious how we can manage these questions responsibly. dr. Zoë Robaey explained that the question of patenting always comes when we think about GM seeds. We wanted to design our idea accessible so the ones in need can benefit from it like farmers that don’t have access to mineral fertilizer [11] or for farmers or governments that could use it in regions where reactive nitrogen emissions are a big threat for the environment</p>
<p>However, the first question who is going to bear the costs of the development of nitroplast seeds and what will the developers ask in return? We read about cases where the seed sector and GM seeds caused legal and ethical issues. [8], [12] Zoe emphasised the problem by raising the question if only rich farmers can pay for our technology, ‘we just create a new socio-economic problem.’ We know that the development of such nitrogen fixing plants is costly and would take at least tens of years of research [13]. So how do we make this seed available at a reasonable price that farmers could benefit? Zoë Robaey suggested that ‘We should make our design in a way that it gives something to both farmers (the public) and the ones that create it’. This could be achieved by implementing an appropriate ownership model or by developing partnerships and cooperating with public actors. However, we must select the plant we want to engineer and look who are in charge of that crop</p>
<p>Thinking about ownership is important not just because of the value accessibility but also when it comes to thinking about responsibility. Zoë Robaey in her review paper ‘Rethinking ownership of genetically modified seeds’ describes that preventing costs and consequences from the uncertain risks of GM seeds can be achieved by a different set- up in the distribution of rights and responsibilities then current usual ones where solely a company owns the seed with a patent on it. Difference can be achieved by involving users like farmers and not just scientists or the company that created the GM seed as owners and by stating that all users have forward looking moral responsibility to reduce environmental and societal risks from the use of the GM seed. Key point here is that owners have access to knowledge about the seed and to create cooperation among different owners. Zoë mentioned that the case of the introduction of GM eggplant in Bangladesh is a good example for a alternative ownership model where GM seeds are indeed owned by multiple actors at the same time as the pest resistant technology was donated to a public research institute, and the seeds were given to farmers. Additionally, farmers can keep and re-use seeds, may be even continue breeding them. [14], [15]</p>
<p>For implementing an adequate ownership model for our project, is a similar one that happened in Bangladesh. Another possibility could be that we patent our technology so there is return for our investment, but we also provide free licences to potential partners which could be NGOs or local research or breeder institutes. A good example for this model how Wageningen University handled there CRISPR Cas technology. [16]</p>
<p>Additionally, a different approach that Zoë brought up is to make our project open source. This is a relevant idea because of the scope of this project thus collaborations between different research groups is needed. This way there would be free access to information on how to develop such nitrogen-fixing plant trait and the trait could be faster adapted by researchers to different local weather conditions in different crop varieties and the needs of farmers. This way the return on investment could be managed by donations or partnerships. One example of such an open source is the iGEM wiki. An idea is that we can use the iGEM wiki as an open-source platform to help people learn from our project. There has been other attempt for adopting the open-source model for seeds such as the Open Source Seed Initiative (OSSI), which is an organisation dedicated to maintaining fair and open access to plant genetic resources. An option is to adopt the license of the Open Source Initiative for our project.</p>
<p>We also learned from talking with Zoë Robaey that for the social impact of our project traceability of the nitroplast GM plant is very important. Traceability is relevant for food safety and environmental safety. To detect our GM plant easily one approach could be to engineer the expression of a marker gene that would be more abundant so it’s detection would be easier.</p>
<div class="h2">Legislation and regulations in the European Union</div>
<p>When talking with Amrit Nanda, she advised us that if we want to implement our idea we should focus outside of Europe. There have been very strict rules on genetically modified organisms (GMO) since the 2000s and after the adoption of the GMO Directive, no GM plant variety has been approved for cultivation in the EU. On the other hand, we were curious what new regulations could be proposed to change that situation to bring our idea to Europe? Amrit explained that in the EU, the approach to starts from the perspective that a GMO has potential risks on the environment and health and the benefits are not looked at. It is very expensive and cumbersome to conduct enough studies to prove that the new GMO does not pose a risk. Therefore, small companies cannot afford to create GM plants for example that could be useful for society. It is important to mention that we are talking about cultivation here, not import. The EU imports a lot of GM plant products. However for cultivation, there is only one GM plant variety grown in EU and only in Spain and Portugal.</p>
<p>What could be improved is that the focus moves from the technology used, to looking at the final product: the plant variety. The benefits of the variety should be given more emphasis. Good examples of enabling legislation can be found in many non-EU countries, including the USA and Canada. In this way it could be possible for smaller companies to also develop GMOs for the EU market.</p>
<p>We asked the question <strong>How to possibly bring about change </strong>? After the conversation with Amrit, we concluded that people should rely more on science and understand the benefits so less opposition would be there to change the strict GMO rules in the EU and its member states. This means there should be more science-communication between research and society. When we asked how we should communicate our projects she said ‘the benefits should be mentioned first. We need to say what can our project help achieve and why does it matter, and why it wouldn’t work with what we already have. People are open to genetic modification if it’s for a greater good.’</p>
<p>We also asked how farmers approach the GM crops in Europe. Farmers are generally not against the notion of GMOs (the ethical side). The possible opposition is more about the ‘practical side than the concept’. The main interest for farmers is the benefits of the plant variety e.g., more resistance to disease or drought. It would be of interest for farmers if we prove that we can reduce the price of cultivation by reducing the fertilizer needed, but only if the price of the seeds was still affordable compared to yield. However, GM plant products need to be processed and separated from non-GMOs because of the traceability and labelling requirements in the EU. This adds extra costs and makes it difficult to sell, as processors and retailers do not want to use or sell such products.</p>
</div>
<!-- 7 -->
<div class="h" id="seven">
<div class="h1">Final Implementation</div>
<p>From the discussions and elaborations on different values and impacts we came to some points and designs that we can implement in our idea. Instead of having a final product in our project we are elaborating on a roadmap with the essential steps to create our imagined nitrogen-fixing crop. Our experiments are telling information about the beginning of two steps of this roadmap as a foundation for future research lines. Therefore most of the applicable ideas in our IHP work are relevant for a potential product, which we thought to be GM seeds potential plant genetic trait. These ideas tell us about how we imagine to mitigate risks that could be social or legal, or environmental problems when this future product is developed. We believe that our idea could serve as a solution for sustainable farming regarding the nitrogen problem. However, we are aware it could be very hard to get a viable crop plant that successfully incorporates the nitroplast and needs less fertilizer than the current breeds while maintaining sufficient yields. Therefore, based on the conversation with KWS Seeds, we thought of an alternative approach that could potentially more easily lead to the same result. Additionally further approaches are also discussed. </p>
<p>Note: in this section some part the term nitroplast is used in general for a nitrogen-fixing organelle, but in other parts of our wiki it solely refers to UCYN-A</p>
<div class="h2">Safety</div>
<p>To reduce the environmental impact of such nitrogen-fixing crops we thought of the following implementations we can make in our design.</p>
<div class="h3">Blasting (bioinformatics)</div>
<p>Since Candidatus Atelocyanobacterium thalassa (UCYN-A) the nitrogen fixing organelle also referred to as ‘nitroplast’ and B.bigelowii are not well studied organisms not much are known about their genome and expressed proteins. However, for a market application all genes and inserts need to be characterized and also after successfully transforming the host organism examining the genetic information surrounding the inserted genes are also necessary. Using bioinformatics tools, we would look for toxicity for example or for possible mutations in the inserted genes and around the genes This could be relevant for environmental and food safety as well. Additionally, this could also help assess if the plant would perform or be similar to the wild type.</p>
<div class="h3">Test for crossing</div>
<p>In order to make sure that the GM crop cannot spread easily in the environment we imagine doing crossing tests with closer or further wild type relatives to our plant. This is important because the spreading of inserted genes is unwanted due to the unpredictable the effects on the ecosystem are.</p>
<div class="h3">Non-reproducing seeds</div>
<p>Since no engineering method for the containment of more complex GM organisms exist – such as kill-switches or containment in a gel for microorganisms – a possible solution for the spreading of our plant is non-viable seeds. However, this could raise ethical problems since farmers would have to buy seeds every year so they would be vulnerable to the seed provider company and this could lead to exploitation. Also traditional farming practices are violated. On the other hand note that many farmers are using hybrid seeds that are not GMOs and these seeds need to rebought every year as well to produce high yields.</p>
<div class="h3">Viable on itself or non-viable nitroplast?</div>
<p>A big question related to safety that came up during our interview with Max van Hooren is that should the nitroplast survive on its own outside the host or not? This is a relevant question because if the nitroplast could survive on its own, that means it doesn’t require proteins and enzymes imported from the host plant cell. This means that there might be a way to only change the plant cell genetic material and not introduce foreign genes. Therefore the trans-genes (genes from non-relative species) will only be in the nitroplast in a contained organelle. Most important consequence of this would be that no foreign genetic material will be spread by pollen hence the nitroplast assembly would only be inherited by the germplasm similar to mitochondria or chloroplast. This would not only make the environmental risk assess less complicated but would significantly reduce the possible risks of cross pollination between native relatives. It must be mentioned that it might occur that genes are adopted by the host cell from the nitroplast as observed before in plastids. [Balint citation] This design would go along with the suggestion of KWS Seed scientist to choose a less dependent cyanobacteria candidate for a potential nitroplast so the cumbersome and difficult introduction and expression of the many essential proteins that UCYN-A must import is not necessary.</p>
<p>The other side of the story on the other hand is that if the nitroplast is independent from the host, there is a chance that it can survive outside the plant for example in the soil and potentially spread in the environment. This could have many consequences one for example the alteration of soil microbial communities that also effects the wellbeing of plants. One solution to the spreading of a less host-dependant nitroplast is engineering a kill switch so when it gets out of the host cell somehow, due to the change of the environment or the lack of nutrient the nitroplast starts a cell death mechanism. From the engineering part (incorporation of the nitroplast by fusion) the size problem must be considered as well since other cyanobacteria species are in general bigger than UCYN-A.</p>
<div class="h3">Engineer marker</div>
<p>We thought of a marker that we would introduce into our GM seed that the plant contains when growing, so we can track better the spread of the genetic material in the environment and the GM seed in the food chain. The marker can be introduced either in the host cell or to the nitroplast organelle itself. The uTP sequence we came up with and tried to test during our project could a marker that indicates the spread of the transgenes introduced into the crop.</p>
<div class="h2">Ownership</div>
<div class="h3">Giving access to non-profit partners</div>
<div class="h2">Choosing a Suitable Crop</div>
<div class="h2">Alternative Approaches</div>
<div class="h2">Future Wet Lab Experiments</div>
<p></p>
</div>
<!-- 8 -->
<div class="h" id="eight">
<div class="h1">Techno-moral Scenarios</div>
<div class="img-pagestyle" style="margin-top:5px;">
<img src="https://static.igem.wiki/teams/5054/instastories.svg" alt="">
</div>
<ul style="text-align:justify; font-family:AccidenzCommons; color:#185A4F; font-weight:400; font-size: min(1.5vw, 22px); font-style: normal; line-height: normal;">
<li> list 1
<li> list 2
<li> list 3
</ul>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<script>
var TopDistance = 120;
let elements = [document.getElementById('one'),
document.getElementById('two'),
document.getElementById('three'),
document.getElementById('four'),
document.getElementById('five'),
document.getElementById('six'),
document.getElementById('seven'),
document.getElementById('eight')];
window.goTo = function(el){
document.documentElement.scrollTop += el.getBoundingClientRect().top - TopDistance;
}
function Highlight(el, subtitle){
if (el.getBoundingClientRect().top < TopDistance + 1 && el.getBoundingClientRect().bottom > TopDistance){
subtitle.style.color = "#62D881";
}
else{
subtitle.style.color = "#185A4F";
}
}
function HighlightCheck(){
Highlight(elements[0], document.getElementById('subtitle1'));
Highlight(elements[1], document.getElementById('subtitle2'));
Highlight(elements[2], document.getElementById('subtitle3'));
Highlight(elements[3], document.getElementById('subtitle4'));
Highlight(elements[4], document.getElementById('subtitle5'));
Highlight(elements[5], document.getElementById('subtitle6'));
Highlight(elements[6], document.getElementById('subtitle7'));
Highlight(elements[7], document.getElementById('subtitle8'));
}
window.addEventListener("scroll", HighlightCheck);
</script>
{% endblock %}