Obesity is a major global health issue that causes a host of potentially fatal chronic diseases, but tackling it with SynBio inevitably raises a host of questions and concerns from both scientists and the public. Should we focus on prevention, or work on a direct cure? With societal focus on body positivity and acceptance, would our project be considered unethical or fatphobic? How can we be sure that our project has a positive societal impact through commercialization and communication with the general public?

We divided our questions formed and received throughout the development of the project into 3 major groups: scientific feasibility, bioethics considerations, and societal/commercial impact. Then, we reached out to different experts and stakeholders in these specialties to gather their expert opinions and guide our project design, education efforts, and experiments.

Throughout these dialogues, we were able to enter the feedback we received back into the project, “closing the loop” and developing a more feasible, ethical, and safer dual-therapeutic for the prevention of obesity.

(created in BioRender.com)

In the process of developing a scientifically feasible anti-obesity cure, we first thought of using hormonal therapy as learned in our classes plus a non-invasive skin patch. However, after talking to different experts, we realised that there were issues concerning successful targeted delivery as well as safety and side effects. We continually refined and honed our project, taking advice from many experts listed below and integrating it into our project design, finally reaching the dual-therapy method we have today.

A flowchart of this process is as follows:

(created in BioRender.com)

Below is a comprehensive list of all our human practices efforts and the feedback of different stakeholders, as well as how we integrated their opinions into our project.