Team:Tokyo Metropolitan/Human Practice

Introduction

Methods

Targets, Terms, and Places

・Students

July 1 - September 26 at Tokyo Metropolitan University

July 30 - September 26 TMU team member’s friends ・Others

June 30 – July 2, Bio EXPO at Tokyo

July 16, Public forum on Education development project at Tokyo Metropolitan University

July 18, August 20 Opened lab at Tokyo Metropolitan University

September 18, 19 “Mitaka science and technology fair” at Tokyo

August 7 – September 26 TMU team member’s family and acquaintances

Questionnaire

Results

Discussion

Q1, More adults avoid “genetically modified food” than students. Especially, we think, full-time house makers have a lot of interest in food safety because they go shopping and buy foods nearly every day.Mean while, students worrier about the price than about the safety. And they are from different generations. Students today have studied about “genetic engineering” before.

Q2, The top three are ”Clone”, “GM crops(foods)” ,”DNA” in any jobs. “Genome” is lower than we thought. Include “iPS cells, ES cells”, these are academic language. So these are little understood popular expect students in sciences. Among students in arts, there are remarkably few people who think that “genetic engineering” or “biotechnology” is associated with closer to their lives, for example, medicine and cosmetic. In others (not students), they don’t know academic language well, but they know it is associated with their lives.

Q3, Q1 and Q3 show the same tendency. Adults think to avoid using it.

Q4, There is not much difference between answers on genetic engineering and biotechnology. And students today don’t have a bad impression of genetic engineering. From as far back as they can remember, these technologies have used.

Q5, The answers on genetic engineering are more negative than biotechnology. We think that there is an effect of mass media. They have established a public image of genetic engineering is not good.

Q6, There is not much difference between students and others. We must do actively to popularize genetic engineering and biotechnology because of the answers are half “Yes” and half “No”

Q7, Many respondents answered they think the research on genetic engineering or biotechnology should continue!! The image of genetic engineering is not good ( Q1, 3 ), but more than 80% of all respondents recommend the research. We think, this means it is depending on what research.

<the research should continue> Students in science think it is interesting as academic. Managerial Position anticipate a new business , literally. Overall, they anticipate “be useful for food crisis”, “be applied to medicine”, “potential”.

<the research should not continue> There is not much difference between answers on genetic engineering and biotechnology. Most of them are concerned about effect of genetic engineering or biotechnology on environment and humans. Students in arts feel somehow uneasy. We think it can improve by awareness activities.

Q8, There is not much difference between students and others. Overall, person who knows “Synthetic Biology” is few (10~20% of all respondents). So, we need activities to convey this.

Conclusion

We take the view that genetic engineering is not good impression by ordinary Japanese (expect students) from the questionnaire result. So, we had some activities to improve this.

・@Mitaka science technology and science fair (at Tokyo) September 18, 19

We communicated “What is DNA?” and “What is genetic engineering?” to the public. Many civil came, and we could talk to them.

・@Science café(at University of Tokyo) May 29, 30

Some of iGEM Japan team( UT-Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka ) had the Science café.We could talk to let people know Synthetic biology and iGEM!

And our participation in some fairs after iGEM jamboree has already decided.

・Teaching experiments to junior and senior students with UT-Tokyo.

・Doing a poster presentation with UT-Tokyo and Kyoto at Science Agora in Tokyo.

・Teaching experiments to students collaborated with Leave a nest co., ltd.

We want to continue such awareness activities, and spread knowledge of genetic engineering.