Education | BOKU-Vienna

Overview

At the BOKU-Vienna iGEM team, we’re driven by our mission to tackle pharmaceutical pollution in aquatic ecosystems through innovative synthetic biology solutions. Our project this year focuses on reducing harmful pollutants like ibuprofen, diclofenac, and estrogen from municipal wastewater using immobilized laccase enzymes. We are also developing a biosensor system to detect these pollutants, enhancing environmental monitoring. But alongside our lab work, we’ve prioritized education and public outreach, as we believe that engaging the community is just as crucial as scientific discovery.

Vienna is renowned for its commitment to water quality, and as a team, we feel proud to contribute to this effort by raising awareness and inspiring a diverse audience about the impacts of pharmaceutical pollutants and the potential of synthetic biology. From hosting podcasts to visiting summer workshops for children, we’ve aimed to make this complex topic accessible and engaging for all.

Our Objectives

1

Raise Awareness about Water Pollution:

Through diverse outreach methods, we inform the public about the environmental dangers of pharmaceutical pollutants like NSAIDs (ibuprofen, diclofenac) and how our project aims to address this issue.
2

Engage with the Community:

We strive to connect with the general public, children, and people from different backgrounds to foster a broader understanding of environmental sustainability and synthetic biology.
3

Promote Interest in Science:

We are passionate about making synthetic biology fun and approachable, especially for younger audiences, by providing easy-to-understand content and hands-on experiences.

Our Initiatives

Podcast

We launched an episode on Die BioteXperten, the podcast of the Austrian Centre of Industrial Biotechnology, which allows scientists to explain their work and its impact to a general audience. In our episode, we discussed the iGEM competition, the challenges we faced as a team, and how we came to develop our project. We also explained the biological background of pharmaceutical pollution, particularly focusing on NSAIDs like ibuprofen and diclofenac, and presented our solution using immobilized laccase enzymes. Additionally, we highlighted how the public can help by disposing of NSAIDs correctly, reducing their harmful effects on the environment. This episode aimed to make the science behind our project accessible and relevant to everyday , while also raising awareness of water pollution issues.
Social Media Outreach

Our team used social media to communicate our project in an engaging and accessible way. We collaborated with BOKU (University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna) to create a short video explaining our project to university students, making the scientific aspects of our work relatable and easy to understand. Additionally, we recorded a video for the launch of our podcast episode, which was shared on the Austrian Centre of Industrial Biotechnology (acib) Instagram account, helping us expand our audience. To raise awareness about water pollution in Austria, we developed informational slides on the current state of wastewater, the medications found in it, and their environmental effects. We also provided a clear overview of the iGEM competition to ensure everyone could grasp the significance of our work. In creating these slides, we focused on making them easy to comprehend by using simple language, fun graphics, and presenting just enough information without overwhelming the viewer. Our goal was to make complex scientific issues accessible to a broad audience, encouraging engagement with environmental sustainability topics.
Multilingual Survey
Recognizing the cultural and linguistic diversity of Vienna and Austria, we aimed to create a survey that would reach a representative audience of the population. With over 40% of Vienna's population having a migration background and a wide range of languages spoken, we understood the importance of inclusivity in our public outreach efforts. To ensure that we could connect with as many people as possible, we translated our survey into 11 different languages, including Chinese, Hungarian, Romanian and more. This enabled us to gather insights from a broader cross-section of the population, ensuring that we could capture diverse opinions and experiences related to pharmaceutical pollution and water quality. The survey focused on several key areas:
- Awareness and Concern: We aimed to gauge the public’s awareness of pharmaceutical pollutants in waterways and their level of concern about this issue.
- Knowledge of Pollutants: We explored how familiar respondents were with specific pharmaceutical pollutants, such as ibuprofen and diclofenac, and their understanding of these substances' impact on aquatic ecosystems.
- Disposal Practices: We assessed how people typically dispose of unused or expired medications and whether they know the proper disposal methods. This information helps us understand current practices and areas where additional education might be needed.
- Health and Environmental Impact: We inquired about public perceptions of the potential effects of pharmaceutical pollutants on both the environment and human health.
- Behavioral Insights: We looked into personal drug use habits and whether learning about environmental impacts might influence future behaviors.
Through this survey, we sought to not only understand the public’s awareness and attitudes but also to gather feedback on our project. We value the opinions of our community and wanted to see how our efforts resonate with them, as well as to identify any gaps in knowledge or areas where we might improve our outreach. This feedback is crucial for refining our educational and enhancing our impact on environmental sustainability.
Kinderuni Workshop

We partnered with Kinderuni, a summer program offering educational workshops for children in Vienna. During our visit, we hosted hands-on activities and a simplified version of the iGEM Vienna 2024 project, ByeBuprofen, was introduced to young researchers aged 10 to 12.

To ensure that all our young participants are on the same level and to engage their interest, we started discussing when patients should use Ibuprofen and then continued with a quiz about the proper disposal of medications. We concluded by explaining how a superhero, called Laccase, can save our water bodies by binding to certain medications, like Ibuprofen, making them less harmful and helping to protect water quality.

We then engaged the young researchers in an interactive game based on the superpower of a superhero, called Laccase. In the game, our superhero was added to polluted water, which changed color to demonstrate how it can neutralize harmful substances.

Additional interactive activities included "fishing" waste out of a simulated water body, where the participants had to choose the correct disposal method. These moments are captured in the following pictures.

Life is Science Fair

We also had the opportunity to participate in the Life is Science fair, an interactive event organized by the Austrian Centre of Industrial Biotechnology (acib) as part of the European Researchers’ Night. Held both online and in-person at the bisy GmbH location in Gleisdorf, the event offered visitors a glimpse into the fascinating world of Life Sciences and how scientific research connects with everyday life. The fair focused on key topics such as health, food technology, and renewable resources, featuring science shows, lab tours, panel discussions, and interactive workshops. At our booth, we introduced our iGEM project to attendees, explaining how we aim to reduce pharmaceutical pollutants like ibuprofen and diclofenac from wastewater using laccase enzymes. We also demonstrated how our biosensor system can help detect these pollutants, emphasizing the potential real-world impact of our work. Visitors were able to engage with us through hands-on experiments and interactive activities, allowing them to explore the environmental challenges posed by pharmaceutical waste and discover the innovative solutions that synthetic biology can offer. The fair provided an exciting platform for us to engage with people of all ages, raise awareness, and share our passion for science. Building on the Kinderuni Workshop, an additional station was set up for our young researchers, featuring hands-on activities and a simplified version of the iGEM Project 'ByeBuprofen.' This station aimed to spark interest in wastewater and demonstrate how pharmaceuticals enter the water system—whether through flushing them down toilets or sinks, seeping into groundwater from landfills, or being released in small amounts during production or disposal by hospitals, clinics, or pharmaceutical companies.

School visits

Engaging future researchers and raising awareness about the wastewater problem was one of our primary goals. In addition to the workshops and events mentioned, we reached out to young audiences in Vienna's schools by delivering interactive presentations that highlighted the wastewater challenges both in Austria and globally. We explained the origins of the disposal issue in detail and engaged students in discussions about how we aim to find solutions.

By reaching them in their classrooms, we sought to spark curiosity and inspire them to think creatively about how they might address the problem. This approach brought a real-world issue—often overlooked in textbooks—into the classroom, fostering further discussions and encouraging deeper exploration of the topic.

Michigan iGEM Environment Symposium

Picture with People in an online conference

We were fortunate to present our project at the iGEM Michigan Environment Symposium, where we shared our work and preliminary findings with over seven other teams. Following our presentation, we exchanged feedback, discussed areas for improvement, and outlined our general strategy for the weeks leading up to the Grand Jamboree.

Participating in this collaborative mini-conference not only allowed us to educate other teams on our topic but also gave us valuable insights into the projects they were passionate about. Additionally, we identified similarities in other teams' approaches, leading to a productive exchange of tips and ideas.