Human Practices
Introduction
Is agriculture the backbone of the society but a curse to the environment?
Humans invented agriculture. Looking back into the history of humanity, the very first civilisation came about when humans discovered that they could domesticate food crops, instead of migrating towards food sources. Fast forward to the 21st century, the institutional foundation that our thriving society now build upon, is quietly eroding the quality of nature and life.
Attributing to the invention of agrochemicals like fertilisers and pesticides, agriculture production has managed to sustain a certain level of stability, in terms of crop cycles and crop yield, which has contributed towards income stability and food security for society as a whole. However, just like every other economic activity that boomed over the past millennium, it came with an environmental cost that no common man would have foreseen; nor did it give any economic incentive to take them into account.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
At Pyre, we hold our environmental and socio-economic values at the core of what we do. The Human Practices team at Pyre focuses on reinforcing and implementing these values throughout our project. Acknowledging the importance of agriculture productivity, we challenged ourselves to reimagine a new possibility for the industry.
Balancing Agriculture Productivity and Environmental Sustainability
Inspired by the concept of the Doughnut Economics, developed by economist Kate Raworth, there are 2 boundaries that helped us think about the impact that our project should have on the real world – the ecological and social boundaries of humanity.
We believe that our project should help cushion the social foundations while protecting the ecological ceiling that sustains a functioning and thriving society. As we have all experienced the COVID-19 pandemic and the importance of food security, we therefore propose a solution which accommodates the increasing food demand, without imposing additional stress on the environment.
Our overarching goal is to develop a bioremediation system, which is both accessible and environmentally responsible, specifically by providing affordable rapid testing and degradation of toxic pesticide for areas that need it the most.
Our Strategy
Human Practices work shall have the express objectives to:
- Demonstrate efforts made towards understanding the world (of agriculture, conservation, socioeconomic landscape)
- Detail the acute understanding acquired from our interaction with relevant stakeholders across all levels of our project i.e., status quo of pest management, E. coli chassis engineering, aquatic conservation, passing of legislation
- Lastly, assess the impact (or lack thereof) of our project in the context of this newfound information.
Based on these objectives, we can divide our Human Practices work into 3 parts:
Part 1: Exploring the context beyond lab in which SynBio and our project exists
The team carried this out through a very early internal discussion of the big-picture context, in which our project will relate to the world. One of the biggest questions we then had was: “who would this technology appeal to?” – who, specifically, in this profit-driven society, would care enough to implement this technology if it was not enforced by the law? This conversation led us to realise that, from the very beginning, we had subconsciously assumed the responsibility of “cleaning up the environment” to fall on farmers. The team came to realise that we were putting an extra burden on agriculture workers, both in terms of labor and costs.
In that eureka moment, we understood that we needed to expand our horizon in which our technology exists. We took into account external players and drivers beyond the agriculture lands and then formalised this conversation using the PESTLE analysis, which lays out the political, economic, sociological, technical, legal and environmental factors that would directly or indirectly influence the way we think about our project.
| Aspects | Relevant context | Informed project decisions |
|---|---|---|
| POLITICAL | Current GMO legislation carried forward from the EU law remains exceptionally strict. The UK government intends to reform GMO legislation to promote the R&D of synthetic biology. [1] | We decided to go ahead with the development of whole-cell biocatalyst which requires the release of GE microbes considering the advantages that it can bring. |
| ECONOMIC | Since all food crops are non-GMO in the UK, official reports show a substantial increased use of λ-cyhalothrin as a substitute following the ban on neonicotinoids.Water companies will need to deal with diffuse pollution from fertilisers and pesticides. | We saw the value in proposing a bioremediation method for the specific target, λ-cyhalothrin. We realised that water companies could be our potential client. |
| SOCIAL | Farmers in the UK are well-educated and resource-equipped compared to the rest of the world. Since farmers generally understand the environmental and economic implications of pesticide use, they are less prone to overusing it. | WThis informed the team to put emphasis on expanding positive externalities rather than internalising negative externalities. |
| TECHNOLOGY | Existing solutions to regulate pesticide levels in water are limited and ineffective. Existing testing methods are expensive, time-consuming, and less accessible in low-income countries. | This validated our decision to develop pesticide degradation technique using synthetic biology. This expanded our project scope to include a testing method that is cheaper and more accessible. |
| LEGAL | Current GMO legislations only account for “deliberate release of plants” (for non-marketing purpose) and “contained use of microbes and animals;” regulations for the release of GMMs do not exist. [2] [3] Agriculture is heavily regulated in the UK compared to the rest of the world. There is no strict legal limit on any agricultural pesticide spraying. | We understood that the UK is still far from creating a conducive research environment for the progress and development of Synthetic Biology. When asked what we can do, Dr Bryn Bircher from HSE suggested that public education is utmost important in pushing for reformative changes. Comparatively, the agriculture industry is well-regulated and progressive enough to accept new technologies and solutions. |
| ENVIRONMENTAL | Synthetic pyrethroids are highly toxic to aquatic invertebrates including fishes, which may pose long-term risks to aquatic ecosystems. However, the actual cost to the environment is difficult to quantify. Industrialised agriculture risks biodiversity loss, which would feed back into even lower quality of soil and water. | We decided to speak to environmental agencies to understand how they measure and assess their environmental impacts. |
Part 2: Identify and understand our network of stakeholders across all levels
By taking into account the external players and drivers beyond the agriculture lands, the team set out to construct a 3-level stakeholder relationship model to map out our multilateral relations across different sectors of the economy. This helped us to quickly identify our connection to the real world, the opposing forces across all levels of interactions, and where do we place ourselves in this highly intertwined economy.
According to this model, the team acquired a rather interesting observation: farmers are our end users, but they are not our clients. The rationale behind this hypothesis is that farmers do not have the apparent incentives to invest in and implement such remedies. However, the interactions between each stakeholder will directly or indirectly influence the behavior of farmers.
Our subsequent bulk of Human Practices work would then be oriented around testing this hypothesis. The team went on to speak to all relevant academics, industrial representatives, government agencies, non-profit organisations and the general public to understand their views, values, needs and motivations. Each round of conversation led us to new insights and reflections, which played a significant role in shaping the progress and direction of our project. Some of this newfound information was also fed back into our PESTLE analysis to refine our understanding of the context of our project. Essentially, which we only found out later, the team has been undergoing multiple cycles of Anticipate, Reflect, Engage and Act (the AREA framework) to ensure that our project is good and responsible for the world.
A major turning point occurred when we discovered a fascinating trend of market-based interactions between various industries, that would promote the adoption of Pyre in the most economically sustainable way. This allowed us to identify a healthier distribution of power and responsibilities, which would sustain the future development of Pyre, and its mission to promote agriculture productivity and environmental sustainability. The detailed outcome of each interview is documented on the Integrated Human Practices page, presented in chronological order.
Part 3: Conducting a thorough assessment of our project and its outlook
Based on the refined findings, both within and beyond the lab, the team began to put all pieces of information together and conducted a thorough and transparent assessment of the positive and negative aspects of our project using the SWOT analysis:
| STRENGTHS | WEAKNESSES |
|---|---|
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| OPPORTUNITIES | THREATS |
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Our Reflections
The SWOT analysis helped us to identify what areas need to be improved, potential developments going forward, and what actions do we need to take to address future challenges. By incorporating all our stakeholders’ feedbacks and our research results into the SWOT analysis, we were able to objectively review and reflect on these findings. For example, one topic that we have consistently brought up in every single stakeholder meeting and internal team discussions was the potential risk of backward incentive. As an environmental project, the last thing we want is to have Pyre impeding the long-term development of environmental sustainability in agriculture. Some say that we should find ourselves a place in the broad realm of Integrated Pest Management, others do not believe that it is a risk that we need to be concerned of. In hindsight, it was clear that each of their opinions were shaped based on their own interests and values, through their own lenses. In the end, our engagements with different stakeholders still pushed us towards putting the vast responsibility of protecting the environment onto farmers.
Again, it doesn’t have to be this way.
As we begin to wrap up our Human Practices work, we want to challenge the world to have a fairer distribution of environmental responsibility. Instead of selling Pyre to farmers and water companies, we want to incorporate Pyre into existing agrochemical products. Essentially, we want pesticide producers to internalise the external cost of environmental damage from agrochemical applications. The result is a level playing field where conventional and integrated pest management systems are both comparable, both in terms of price-competitiveness, and their impact for the environment.
Certainly, we are nowhere near to achieving that milestone. More rigorous research and repeated engineering cycles are required to achieve the practicality, modularity and reliability that is required in our degradation system. We would need a system that tackles a wide range of active substances, which could easily be incorporated into existing agrochemical products. Modern agrochemical companies, like Syngenta, realises the value-added advantages of developing environmentally friendly products. However, it remains unclear how the future of the industry will play out, and whether a state intervention is necessary to steer its development towards a socially optimal outcome.
The Goal
The goal is not to make Pyre dominate the entire agriculture industry, but to maintain agriculture productivity, while promoting environmental sustainability. The more we learn, the more we understand that Pyre, just like any other technologies in the world, is never a silver bullet to the happily-ever-after, perfectly sustainable economy. After all, we can only hope that Pyre would serve as one of the many solutions to help perpetuate society towards this ultimate goal.
Integrated Human Practices
This section will detail, from start to finish, all our Human Practices work and illustrate vividly the continual integration of feedback into the project's development. We can split this process into 3 different phases:
Phase 1
- Develop a project which is responsible and good for the world
- Ensure the project has our morals at its core
- Guided by literature and academics in our early ideation to ensure the work we do was relevant and had the potential for global implications from a local problem.
Phase 2
- Repeated engineering cycles to help form the foundation of our project
- Identify specific targets and troubleshoot our plans with experts
- Ensure our goals are achievable within the iGEM timeframe and make compromises where necessary
Phase 3
- Engage with relevant stakeholders to understand their values and needs
- Incorporate their feedback into our design process hence informing our project decisions
- Reflect on and assess how each component of our project could be refined to ensure we achieve our overarching goals
PHASE 1 | MAY
Initial Project Ideation and Consultation
At Pyre our initial project ideation started in early February. In the months that followed, multiple project idea ranging from fatberg degradation to electronic waste use were considered, designed, and reviewed through literature reviews and gene circuit designs. Overtime, all these ideas were disregarded for a range of reasons such as time constraints to ideas not aligning with our overarching vision. Development of our pesticide degradation project began in early April, with organophosphates being a primary target, although we found great candidate degradation pathway, we were aware the by-product of this degradation had been noted to be toxic. Organophosphate use is also being phased out with 34 bans in the last decade, the latest in 2018. We found that the use of organophosphates as our degradation target would have limited potential to be good for the world, since they are not persistent in the environment. However, the team did find pesticide degradation to have potential, and wanted to find another viable target. We decided to contact Dr Gary Bending a Warwick academic with expertise on pesticide use in the UK in hopes to validate our thoughts and discuss new targets.
University of Warwick – Dr Gary Bending
Professor
During early May, we spoke with Dr Gary Bending, a professor at the University of Warwick. We hoped to have an open discussion about whether our initial project idea of complete pesticide degradation was a project with potential real-world applications.
Dr Bending has experience working across a range of natural and agricultural systems often within an interdisciplinary approach. He was also a member on the UK Government’s Expert Committee on Pesticides. Therefore, this meeting provided us an early opportunity to ensure our project was responsible and good for the world.
Together, we discussed the current methods of controlling pesticide levels in water, identifying that there is a chronic lack of solutions to regulate levels of any toxic compounds. This problem is usually tackled through simple clean water dilution to bring the concentration down below regulatory levels, coupled with slow sand filters which are not always effective – a clumsy solution at its best.
He also raised concerns around the lack of economically viable testing methods. The current method requires specialised equipment such as mass spectrometry and gas chromatography that require samples to be sent to labs. It is expensive, time consuming and not viable for low-income countries where access to such equipment is limited. This informed our decision to expand the scope of the project to include the sensing of our target.
As we ruled out organophosphate as our viable target based on earlier literature review, we discussed neonicotinoid use in the UK and its method of action. He provided great insights into the potential of neonicotinoids which was then followed by a literature review by the team.
Overall, we were provided with valuable insight into the current state of the industry, while being made aware of chronic lack of cheap sensing methods. We find this to be a potential target for the entrepreneurial element of the project.
Our response:
Following our discussions with Dr Bending, the team went back to the drawing board, hoping to implement some of our learnings and address potential concerns. A detailed literature review was conducted with guidance from our PI’s. We quickly identified that neonicotinoids were not a viable option for us due to the lack of available research to form the foundation of our project. This led us to pyrethroids and specifically λ-Cyhalothrin, a species for which genes with degradation potential are well characterised. It is also a widely used active compound following the ban on neonicotinoids.
PHASE 2 | JUN - JUL
Brainstorming and Troubleshooting
With a firm target in mind, the team ran through multiple engineering cycles, considering cell-free and whole cell degradations alongside different expression methods such as secretion or cell surface display. For the sensing part, we considered different options and decided on an aptamer-based sensing approach which we believe was the most promising due to the lack of a natural protein biosensor and the presence of a readily characterised aptamer sequence for λ-Cyhalothrin.
Understanding Our Scientific and Technical Decisions
University of Warwick – Dr Richard Napier
Professor
During early July, we continued to utilise the resources available to us at the university as we spoke with Dr Richard Napier, a professor at the University of Warwick with prior publications on biosensors for quantifying hormone concentrations and use of aptamers in forensic detection. Due to his expertise in similar fields, we got in contact with him to discuss any technical issues with our designs and seek for his feedback on our chosen approach.
Dr Napier suggested we move to cell free aptamer-based sensing approach as it would be cheaper and easier to implement, therefore better accommodating the user. In addition to that, he also suggested that we employ a cell-free approach which can be adapted to provide a visual colour change in-field without the need for any machines. This combination of techniques directly complemented our overarching goals for the project.
Our response:
Following further discussions and literature reviews, we realised that we had to make certain compromises over our project design. Our initial plan was to develop an integrated whole-cell sensing and degradation system, where aptamers are bound to the membrane and binding can be used to stimulate a secondary messenger. However, switching to a cell-free sensing approach meant that such integration would be impossible and we would end up with 2 isolated systems. In the end, the team decided to make this compromise as it aligned better with our goal for accessibility. In fact, isolating both systems will allow us to extend the application of our technology to a wider context.
After another engineering cycle, Dr Napier suggested we get in touch with Professor Matthew Gibson from Warwick Manufacturing Group and a Professor in the Department of Chemistry to further discuss a gold nanoparticle coupled aptamer approach.
University of Warwick – Professor Matthew Gibson
Professor
Following our discussion with Dr Napier regarding a sensing approach involving the application of aptamers, we carried out a comprehensive literature review to establish an accessible system for the biosensing of the specific pyrethroid pesticide we are targeting, λ-cyhalothrin. The main method we came across following thorough literature review, using aptamers, involved the utilisation of gold nanoparticle (AuNP) aggregation, in combination with PDDA polymer, to develop a red to blue colorimetric biosensor. As this technique was new to us, with no relevant specialists in the School of Life Sciences we could consult, we reached out to Professor Matthew Gibson. Prof. Gibson is a professor at the University of Warwick and the lab head of the Gibson group, working jointly between the Department of Chemistry and Warwick Medical School. Specialising in glycosciences and biomaterial sciences, he works with AuNPs, focusing on its application within lateral flow, surface enhancement and aggregation analysis. Prof. Gibson agreed to be our advisor, ready to counsel with things to consider and if we have concerns during the wet lab stage for when we start implementing the gold nanoparticles within the sensing component of λ-cyhalothrin.
Prof. Gibson’s guidance proved to be incredible beneficial in the latter stages of our wet lab, as unfortunately the original stock of AuNP we were working with at the time started to aggregate, as noticed by the shift from a crimson red colour (free AuNP) to a deep purple-blue colour (aggregated AuNP). Due to this sudden unexpected situation, we immediately contacted Prof. Gibson, who advised us on potential strategies to sonicate the aggregated AuNP. However, due to our sonication attempts failing, Prof. Gibson advised us to order a new stock of AuNP. He provided us with further instructions on how to correctly handle our new stock of ordered AuNP, to decrease the likelihood of our new stock to aggregate again in the future.
McKelvey Institute – Dr Tae Seok Moon
Professor
During early July, we had a brilliant opportunity to formally present and discuss our project with one of the leaders in the field of synthetic biology. Dr Moon is an associate professor at the McKelvey Institute focusing on engineering microbes to solve a range of global problems. His research focuses on gene regulation, design and construction of synthetic metabolic pathways, biosensors and kill switches.
Following our pitch on our project idea and dry lab plans, Dr Moon was very receptive to our work. He believed pyrethroid degradation to be an increasingly relevant problem, and one which is responsible and good for the world. He raised concerns around our plan for environmental release of GMOs and its legislative barrier in the EU and UK. This led him to emphasise the importance of improving public opinion on GMOs and promoting education of SynBio. He advised us to carefully assess and rethink how we shape the narratives around GMOs when engaging with the public.
Regarding the technical aspect of our project, he suggested that we develop a kill switch based on his work i.e., using a CRISPR-based switch which is targeted, long-lasting and reliable. The team was initially elated with the idea but then quickly discovered that this implementation would be highly challenging and complex to be conducted within the scope of the iGEM timeline. We thought this would have been a dead end to our development of kill switches, but an opportunity to partner with Concordia University shed us a new light. Find out more about our partnership.
Our response:
Following Dr Moon’s advice, we received support from the Warwick Institute of Engagement and the Warwick Integrated Synthetic Biology centre to develop a diverse education and outreach plan which encompasses a wide range of age groups and backgrounds. The team underwent multiple rounds of design thinking and reflections to ensure that our public engagement activities are well-designed and serves the right purposes. Find out more about our outreach.
Aston University – Dr Alan Goddard
Reader and Senior Lecturer
Dr Alan is a specialist on membrane and cell surface proteins. We consulted him to inform our technical decisions for membrane expression. He suggested we use SignalP and TMHMM software to visualise and understand how our protein anchors to the membrane. These systems function on using charges and topology of secondary structure to simulate membrane insertion.
We discussed E.coli secretion systems, and lipid structures to better understand how our protein could potentially enter the membrane. He highlighted that our cell surface expression is likely limited by translocon availability rather than transcription rates. Furthermore, he provided valuable advice to the lab team, suggesting we incubate at lower temperatures and with a low inducer as this aid membrane expression.
Overall, he believed the project followed a right school of thought. Although membrane expression is difficult, it provides advantages in turnover number and stability compared to cytoplasmic expression or secretion. He further noted a lack of modelling available for membrane expression in the field, and our project could be a driver of future change. This once again reinforced our project was good for the world and provided good development in the field of SynBio.
Our response:
We followed his advices and made changes to our design of experiment. Find out more about our design.
National University of Malaysia – Dr Hamidun Bunawan
Professor
We were presented an opportunity to discuss our project with another expert in the field – Dr Bunawan, a professor from the Institute of Systems Biology at the National University of Malaysia. He expressed great interests in our selected approach to tackle the chemical residue problem, but raised concerns regarding the practicality and its market value when compared to potential non-synbio solutions.
Our response:
In our following interviews with industrial stakeholders, the team made sure to address relevant questions to grasp the marketability of our project if it were to be commercialised.
PHASE 3 | JUL - SEP
Approach and Engage with Stakeholders
As introduced in the Part 2 of our Human Practices Strategy, we have mapped out a network of stakeholders that will be directly or indirectly affected by Pyre:
Based on this 3-level relationship model, we went on to contact each of these players and managed to interview most of them to obtain a holistic understanding of the industry. In order to better illustrate their varying viewpoints, we have grouped each interview based on the sectors that they represent:
Agri-tech Business and Science Community
Crop Health and Protection (CHAP) – Dr Victoria Woolley
Research Assistant, Genomics and Molecular Diagnostics
Dr Woolley represented CHAP, a UK-based Agri-tech science and business community. As an IPM specialist, she has worked with the interaction of entomopathogenic fungi metabolites with insects and how they could be used in integrated pest management. When discussed about the long-term goal of our project, Dr Victoria prompted us to revaluate our narrative. Instead of proposing a bioremediation strategy for chemical pesticide, she inspired us to consider incorporating our technique into the broad realm of Integrated Pest Management (IPM), in which a pesticide degrading protocol can be implemented when chemical substances are used as a last resort. The key idea is to prevent our bioremediation strategy from creating a skewed incentive within the industry which would end up doing more harm in the long run by promoting more chemical use. She also made suggestions to reduce the burden on farmers through incorporation of our product into existing spraying technology and formulations, hence minimising hardware costs and spraying cycles for farmers. This would minimize crop disturbance and maximise the likelihood of use by farmers.
Our response:
We re-evaluated our project narrative to ensure that we are promoting responsible and sustainable agriculture and set out to further discuss and explore our options for deployment techniques with industry experts.
The Voluntary Initiatives (VI) – Dr Neal Evans
Operations director
Following our introduction to IPM, we furthered our understanding of the field by speaking to Dr Evans who works with agriculture businesses to promote sustainable farming practices through the adoption of integrated pest management. We discussed the current state of IPM and the challenge it faces, such as the economic viability and complexity of adoption in different farmlands. Overall, he expressed great interest in our project and believed that a pesticide remediation strategy is relevant and have potential to be good for the world.
Our response:
Based on our refined understanding, we realised that Pyre will only find itself in a rather insignificant position under the broad umbrella of Integrated Pest Management. Though it guaranteed a positive use of Pyre without risking a skewed incentive, we agreed that it would not be the main context in with Pyre will be applied due to its limited use. We then shifted our focus to the government and the industry, hoping to look for new and better insights.
Government
DEFRA (HSE) – Dr Bryn Bircher
Policy officer
As someone who is responsible for regulating pesticide use in the UK, Dr Bircher explained the logic and reasonings behind the approvals for current pesticide use. He mentioned that the persistence of chemical residue in soil is a consideration factor. As such, a method for degradation could potentially be helpful in minimising the environmental impact while compromising for the macroeconomic aims and objectives.
In terms of GMO legislations, he pointed us to the 1107/2009 Regulation and other related articles to inform ourselves about the legal procedures for testing and release of non-food GMO-products. He added that GMO use and development is gaining momentum in the UK despite its slow progress.
Our response:
Based on his guidance, we found that the law currently requires that testing and release of plant protection products containing GMOs should comply with both the Directive 2001/18/EC and 1107/2009 Regulation in the EU. However, we believe that this is not an accurate description of Pyre. In fact, the Directive 2001/18/EC which describes the legal procedures for deliberate release of GMO would suffice.
Pesticide Producer
Syngenta - Dr Dave Hughes & Dr Robin Oliver
Technology Scout at Crop Protection R&D, Soil Specialist
We met with Dr Hughes and Dr Oliver from Syngenta in hopes to better understand the technicalities of our degradation system and discuss optimal deployment methods, following our previous meeting with CHAP.
We had a fruitful discussion surrounding bioavailability of λ-Cyhalothrin. As the compound is highly lipophilic, it tends to bind tightly to soil particles and is therefore adsorbed. This is a potential limiting factor for our degradation rates, as we are restrained by how much of the compound is bioavailable. This was an important factor which was initially overlooked, we later incorporated this into our existing models to provide more realistic and relevant degradation rate predictions in situ.
In terms of deployment method, Dr Hughes suggested that we look into post-harvest soil spray. He pointed us towards employing techniques for precise application – a technology that is gaining its popularity in the agrochemical industry. Specifically, we would utilise our aptamer sensing technology to map the presence and concentration of chemical residue in the field. We would then release our product at precise locations using a modern sprayer with variable rate technology for maximum efficacy.
Syngenta as the primary producers of λ-Cyhalothrin had the best insight as to the properties and interactions of the compound with microbes and the environment, we used this to inform our biosafety decisions. They highlighted the compound can readily diffuse into cells; this was vital information which we communicated to our partner iGEM team at Concordia University. This allowed a change in direction for our kill switch as the compound could directly affect the promoter regulating the toxin, it greatly simplified the development, while making it more robust. This ensured our project was also safe and responsible both in and out of the lab.
Overall, they believed our project has good feasibility and is desirable with further potential applications in clean-up of pesticide spills during production or transport.
Our response:
We followed Dr Hughes’ suggestion on deployment method and went on to develop a proposed implementation plan. Inspired by the variable rate spraying technology, our engineering team went on to develop a spatial model to visualise this deployment method.
Water Company
Severn Trent – Dr Alexandra Cooke
Principal Catchment Scientist, Severn Trent Water Ltd.
Severn Trent is a water company that supplies millions of households and business across the UK Midlands and Wales. We reached out to them with the intention to explore the desirability of our project and compare our approach to existing solutions for testing and removal of pesticide residue in water.
Dr Cooke supported our project as we proposed a cheap testing method, showing signs of positive market demand. Current testing for pesticide residue is a long, laborious, and expensive process involving running mass spectrometry/gas chromatography after collecting 500mL samples from multiple sites. Our aptamer-based testing system is rapid and provides clear results with only a few drops of sample required with no additional machinery. As our project idea was desirable, we continued our discussions aiming to “close the loop” and provide a product which is best able to meet their needs. We aimed to adapt the sensitivity of our aptamers to better match the legal limits in drinking water; identified through legislation suggested by Dr Bryn. This would provide a novel testing method which is vastly better for rapid detection where detailed analysis is not required.
The degradation part of our project was also considered desirable, although some compromises had to be made. Pesticide residue clean-up is currently specific to each treatment facility and based on GAC. GAC is an active carbon-based filtration system which can bind to organic molecules to remove them from water, these filters however must be regularly cleaned and replaced, making this an expensive although effective solution. We discussed potential methods to implement our whole cell remediation system, initially discussing incorporation into existing technology such as slow sand filters. However, Dr Cooke suggested we design an independent system due to non-standardised facilities across different plants, making a general solution difficult to incorporate. Although an independent system raises costs and design time, we believe this was a compromise worth making.
Apart from that, we went on to explore the strong dynamic between water treatment and the farming industry. Dr Cooke demonstrated that the economic incentive for the uptake of pesticide remediation need not be inherited by the farmers. In fact, water treatment companies could be our primary propellers in the industrial implementation of our project. Due to their strong incentive to minimise costs, Severn Trent has been able to influence and improve local agriculture practices in the past. Her story managed to give us a brand new and refresh perspective on how our project would affect the world, and how the world would affect us.
Overall, our discussion with Severn Trent informed our technical decisions regarding sensitivity and deployment in water treatment industry and provided a great opportunity for us to close the loop and provide a product which truly meets the needs of the consumer.
Our response:
We reflected on our conversation with Dr Cooke and realised that the implementation of Pyre was not viable in water treatment facilities due to the technical challenges in this environment. These include but are not limited to; varying temperatures and pH, lack of growth medium and high flow rates which limit application of biological systems degradation would be a relatively slow process.
Severn Trent – Peter Bowman
Agriculture Advisor
Following our conversation with Severn Trent, we shared a mutual interest to better understand how Pyre could help reduce pesticide build-up in water. We organised a visit to Draycot Reservoir and had the opportunity to visit farmers in the local catchment area around Avon and Leam. Peter’s day-to-day job consists of knocking on doors to speak to farmers. He proposes solutions to encourage better farming practices that would improve water quality and biodiversity. He helped us understand it is in Severn Trent’s best interest to prevent pesticides reaching water sources, due to the costs associated with the removal of chemicals. This directly aligns with our goals at Pyre and therefore working with Severn Trent was a mutually benefitable endeavour. He highlighted the use of our sensing system to narrow down locations within the catchment area where pesticides use is high. This could directly be used to highlight the runoff of pesticides to farmers, and therefore encourage them to act, serving as a tool to keep farmers accountable for their impact on the environment.
Environmental Conservatory Body
Warwickshire Wildlife Trust – Ian Jelley
Director of Landscape Recovery
Our conversation with Ian aimed to understand current methods of environmental protection and gauge if Pyre could aid conservation efforts.
The Warwickshire Wildlife Trust (WKWT) focuses on promoting sustainable agriculture by limiting the impact of pesticide residues on water bodies. They work with farmers to implement vegetative barriers that reduce chemical run-off. However, this is a new strategy, and its effectiveness is unknown. This raised a potential application of PyRe where our cheap detection methods can be used to quantify the effectiveness of vegetative barriers and therefore changes can be made to optimise them. We also discussed potential deployment of our degradation system into these buffer strips to minimize the residue-runoff in water.
Our response:
We extended the use of our sensing system to cater for the need of environmental conservatory bodies to test and quantify the impact of their conservatory initiatives, hence producing stronger evidence to support their causes.
Farmers
National Farmers Union – Dr Chris Hartfield
Senior Regulatory Affairs Adviser, NFU Plant Health Unit
Dr Hartfield works closely with regulatory authorities and is highly involved in the regulatory process of pesticide use in the UK. We discussed the paradox of law-enforced farming practices and the implication of agriculture workers and businesses. Based on his experience, the environmental benefit that the society can gain from new regulations is very difficult to quantify, since the effect is indirect and has no apparent market value. He raised that we need to be weary of the approach that we use to promote the adoption of our technology, stressing the importance of understanding the economic context in which our project is placed.
Our response:
He gave us interesting food for thought about the general efforts towards environmental sustainability. As policy makers, how do we prove that a new proposed regulation would create enough social benefit that it outweighs the added cost of implementation on agriculture workers? When consulted Dr Lory Barile, an environmental economist at the University of Warwick, she said there are tools and techniques in place to ensure that a cost and benefit analysis is as fair and transparent as possible. Nevertheless, an environmental benefit will always be just an estimation.
Radbourne Manor Farm – Mark Smith
Farmer
We had the opportunity to speak to Mark Smith, a farmer based in Warwickshire, England.
In his experience, he has found that pesticide residue can have an adverse effect on crop growth years after the initial spraying, even though chemical producers claim that the compounds will be naturally degraded within months. Therefore, he said that a simple biosensor could help him assess the condition of the soil before sowing new seeds for the next crop cycle. This helps them protect their yields and provides an opportunity for application of our degradation system to remediate inarable soil, thereby giving farmers a tangible incentive for the use of Pyre.
Our response:This newfound information showed that there is an economic incentive for farmers to adopt our technology. Therefore, it has overturned our direct relationship with farmers which we initially assumed and hypothesised. The team went back to focus our project to best cater the needs of farmers, and making soil regeneration the main goal for Pyre.
The Public
Our team conducted a voluntary, anonymous short online survey targeted to the general public. The survey link was distributed through the official Warwick iGEM 2022 Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and emailed to School of Life Sciences SLS undergraduate students at the University of Warwick. The study aimed to assess public awareness and opinions of genetically modified organism (GMOs) and pesticides. More specifically, opinions on which GM organisms (crops or micro-organisms) are supported, and for what purpose (as an alternative to pesticides or to break down pesticides). The survey was fully anonymous, filled with 11 multiple choice questions and be hosted via Qualtrics.
To take a look at our survey click here.
Due to the channels, we distributed our survey link through, our results are heavily skewed towards university and young adult demographics, and therefore, not an accurate depiction of “public” opinion. This is only a speculation and cannot be confirmed due to the anonymous nature of the survey. Furthermore, the sample size collected of 340 results is likely too small for the population size. At 95% confidence level and 5% margin of error, a sample size of 340 is best for a population size of around 2900, which is smaller than 18,250, the population of undergraduates in the university. Nonetheless, we believe the results are still a valuable glimpse into the issue of GMOs and Pesticides.
Public at Warwick University
Results:The initial questions gauged participants awareness and opinions of pesticides, GMOs and their potential effect on the environment. The results of these questions can be seen in the graphs below.
As seen from (1) and (3), most participants were aware of pesticides (97.72%) and GMOs (85.81%). Then from (2), it can be seen that most participants (75.57%) believed that pesticides were harmful and contaminated the environment. On the other hand, it can be seen from (4) that most participants (39.86%) believed that GMOs may be harmful and contaminate the environment. Comparing this to (2), a larger percentage believed that pesticides were harmful as compared to that of GMOs. It can also be seen that the opinions of GMOs were more spread out (4) than those of pesticides (2). This suggests that participants were more confident with pesticides and their negative impact on the environment as opposed to GMOs. It therefore can be speculated that participants do not have strong opinions nor knowledge to judge the consequences of GMO use on the environment.
The graph below shows the participants initial opinions on the type of GMO used (plant, microbes)
From (5), it can be seen that most participants support the genetic modification of crops and (45.75%) and slightly less for microbes (39.08%). This suggests that the participants are more comfortable with the idea of genetically modified crops as opposed to microbes.
This result was further supported through results from graph (6) below, which elucidates whether participants support the use of GMOs as a pesticide replacement.
As seen from (6), most participants supported the use of GM pest resistant crops to replace pesticides (43.02%). More participants supported the use of pest killing GM microbes (33.49%) as opposed to pesticides (14.19%). This is an interesting result as it suggests that the participants are more comfortable with the idea of GM use as opposed to pesticides.
Graph (7) which further examines the opinions of participants from (6) shown below, further reinforces the results seen in (6).
As seen from (7), most participants support (42.42%) and strongly support (29.17%) the use of GM pest resistant crops. Similar to (6), more participants supported the use of pest killing GM microbes (11.36% strongly support, 37.12% support) than pesticides (3.79% strongly support, 23.11% support) . This reinforces the idea that participants are more comfortable with the idea of GM use as opposed to pesticides. Interestingly, of the 3 options most participants (27.27%) were against the use of pesticides.
Following the questions on GM as a pesticide replacement, graphs (8) (9) (10) show the results of participant opinions towards GM to degrade pesticides.
Graph (8) below clearly shows that most participants believed that pesticides should be treated or broken down after use (76.89%).
From graph (9), the participants opinions on the method of treatment are elucidated.
Interestingly, most participants supported the use of GM microbes to break down pesticides (34.39%). Though this was only slightly higher than those supporting the use of GM crops to break down pesticides (33.90%). This result shows support towards the degradation part of our project. It also shows that participants are more supportive of GMO technology than the use of traditional treatment.
To further elaborate on the opinions from graph (9), graph (10) below shows a more detailed picture of the participant opinions toward GMOs used to treat pesticides.
Results from (10) support those of (9) where most participants strongly support (17.42%) and support (43.56%) the use of GM microbes to break down pesticides. Similar to (9) , the support for the use of GM microbes was only slightly higher than the support for the use of GM crops to break down pesticides (12.12% strongly support, 43.18% support). From these results, it can be seen that more participants supported the use of GMO technology than the use of traditional treatment. Instead, most participants (23.11% ) were against the use of traditional pesticide treatments. These results are similar to that from (7) were participants also showed more support towards GMO technologies than traditional pesticide counterparts.
To conclude, participants were asked to consider the future of these genetic technologies, and the results of which are shown in graph (11) below.
Finally, as seen from (11) most participants believe that more genetic technologies should be developed in the future with regulations (71.97%). This paints a hopeful picture for the growing world of synthetic biology, showing that there is support for the work being completed.
Conclusions:
While the results of this survey are not representative of the public, they provide a positive initial glimpse, showing that there is support for the work that our team is conducting. This survey shows that participants are more comfortable with new foreign GMO technologies than current opinions towards traditional pesticide. Assuming the university demographic, this result may be due to the conception that most university students are forward-thinking and environmentally conscious. Nonetheless, we believe this survey has provided an interesting glimpse into the complexities of participant opinions towards GMOs and pesticides.
Our response:
This survey was run in tandem with our educational content. Since both educational content and survey link were distributed through the same social platforms, it is likely that participants may have watched and been influenced by our content. In turn, their collective opinions influenced the educational content we created. From videos on the negative history of GMOs to insights into pesticides and genetic technologies, we created content to better inform viewers about GMOs, the double-edged sword that may soon change the future.