Human Practices

Overview


The core of our project is to benefit the lives of cattle farmers by aiding in the management of Bovine Tuberculosis, a detrimental and destructive disease. The needs and experiences of cattle farmers was central to the decisions we made when creating Bovitect, consequently making human practices the center of our project. On this page, you will find a breakdown of the main values that form the pillars of our project design and execution, as well as an explanation on the implementation and impacts they had on our project. Furthermore, this page outlines how our conversations with different stakeholders have been integrated into our design process, with a detailed timeline, breaking down each interview.


You can also SKIP STRAIGHT to our Integrated Human Practices (award) section


Values in our project


During the design and course of our project, many foundational values were crucial to the decisions that we made. Most notable were social, ethical and scientific values as explained in detail below. The nature of our project in exploring a disease that is destructive to the livelihoods and well-being of many farmers meant that we had to handle external engagements sensitively and respectfully. In this way, social values as well as ethical and moral values were integral to these interactions. Furthermore, our project deals with a virulent disease which meant we had to handle our laboratory work with sound scientific values in mind to not put any researchers at risk. In addition, this is an area of development that has been explored by many researchers before us. Therefore, being respectful of these developments made by others that we may be building upon and maintaining honesty was vital.

Social Values

An icon for social value - a hand with figure of people in its palm

Farming communities and their work are critical to the functioning of society. To put it simply, everyone has to eat, and the stability of a society is underpinned by the success of farming communities. In 2024 alone, UK cattle farmers produced approximately 917 million kilograms of beef and nearly 15 billion litres of milk [1,2]. The south-west (where Bovitect is based) contains 33% of England's cattle, producing £572 million and £1.6 billion worth of beef and milk respectively[3]. Our project aims to support the work of local, national, and international farmers by contributing to the management of an incredibly disruptive disease – bTB. In this way, our project works to preserve the livelihoods and wellbeing of cattle farmers, their families and their communities, supporting the farmers who support us.

Access to information is a key value we had in mind with designing our project. We realised integrating human practices would be a vital part given farmers are our target end-users. Because this demographic may not be familiar with complex scientific procedures nor have a controlled environment to run tests within, we had to ensure we bridged the gap between the lab and the field by making the test as easily accessible and usable as possible. This consideration is ultimately what led us to pursue the Integrated Human Practices Award, as the success of our project is almost entirely dependent our team making a test that farmers can and want to use on the field. This sentiment was practiced primarily through interviews with local farmers but also extended into day-to-day work as we often had members of our iGEM team in non-traditional science degrees acting as sounding boards - ensuring that any information passed onto external non-expert participants was comprehendible to those less familiar with lab work.

Furthermore, utilising the position of some members of the team who did not come into the project with scientific expertise and background was key to this. In this way, they acted as a sounding board to ensure that any information we passed onto external non-expert participants was comprehendible.


Who did we consult?


Socially, engaging with external participants helped to ensure that our test was actually going to benefit farming communities and cattle. We soon became aware that the bTB testing regime and skin test affects many different actors throughout its chain of use. We, therefore, felt it was important to engage with stakeholder from each of these stages of use to accumulate not only all their different views and experiences, but how they might be affected by a new test that we develop. These participants included beef and dairy farmers, vets, the National Farmers Union and Members of Parliament.

Moral and Ethical Values

An icon for moral and ethical value - a scale

We also designed our project with moral values in mind. As our project aims to reduce unnecessary slaughter of cattle and prevent the spread of infection, the ethical values of preserving animal welfare were present throughout our project design. Additionally, moral values were critical in our engagement with external participants. This involved various ethical considerations including informed consent documents before any participation and being clear about how their information and input may be used. Furthermore, we always gave our external participants the option to withdraw their consent and not have their information published as well as always feeling able to decline answering any questions they were not comfortable with. Given the detrimental impact of bTB for the livelihoods of many farmers, it was crucial that we handled these conversations with the sensitivity and respect that they deserved. Additionally, by consulting experts in this area of research, we hope to be considerate to those researchers who have dedicated years to this research and not use any of their knowledge without permission. In this way we aimed to continuously practice honesty and transparency, this is similar to scientific values that were foundational to our project.


Who did we consult?


To ensure that our ethical and moral values were substantiated, we consulted the ethic department of our university in order to gain ethical approval. Furthermore, through consulting this department we developed sound regimes in order to receive properly informed consent for any external engagement. This included an information sheet about our project and how any information will be used as well as a clearly outside consent form that was signed by any participants prior to interview. This allowed any information collected and used by external participants to be responsibly and ethically implemented into our project.

Scientific Values

An icon for moral and ethical value - a scale

Honesty and transparency are key scientific values that were fundamental to our project. We know it can often be frustrating not having success in the lab, but we aimed to always report our failures as these are still signs of progress. Furthermore, amalgamating other research and collaborating is a natural part of scientific research, but accurately accrediting these sources is equally important. Therefore, we are always transparent throughout our project as to where we have built off of the work of other researchers.

A key value of scientific research is also safety. Given our project was based around a virulent disease, we made careful considerations to be able to conduct accurate research while also being safe. For example, no virulence factors were created or brought into the lab and no positive samples of bTB were used. Instead we were creative in identifying non-virulent factors to ensure our test was still sensitive while being safe for researchers.

Additionally, we worked to our best ability to conform to the 3Rs (Replacement, Reduction, Refinement) [4] to ensure responsible use of animal products in the lab. Beginning with replacement, we began by using synthetic blood to try and avoid using real animal products. However, we found that we needed to test compatibility with red blood cells so we worked to reduce the amount we used. We ordered the minimum amount of blood we could. Furthermore, in attempts to refine any impact on animals, we used blood from a local abattoir (an existing byproduct) ensuring that no additional harm was done to animals.


Who did we consult?


In designing the content of our project, we sought the advice of our Principle Investigators (PIs) to ensure that our research in the Labatory was morally, ethically and scientifically sound and safe compounds were being used in the lab. This also included processes such as lab inductions for all the team and guidelines around working alone in the lab. Additionally, consulting our PIs regarding any substances used in the test so that nothing is harmful to end users.

The Impact of our Project


Through this thorough engagement with each stage of use of the current skin test for bTB, we gained an informed understanding of the shortfalls of the test and what areas our test would work to benefit. Using the specificity of the skin test as an example, by engaging with many different stages of use we can see the extensive impact that a more sensitive test (as we are working develop) would have.

Using sensitivity as an example, beginning with researchers and developers such as Prof Rees and Actiphage ® we understand the difficulties around increasing the sensitivity of the test. Then speaking with dairy and beef farmers we understood that the low sensitivity of the skin test is problematic as it can miss infected cattle and make it difficult to truly cleanse that farm of bTB. Furthermore, low sensitivity means that inconclusive results are more likely and retesting needs to be carried out, as David Cotton explained . From vets, we then understood the implications for them that low sensitivity makes it difficult to definitively say if a herd is TB free or not. Then from unions (like the National Farmers Union) we understood on a larger scale the low sensitivity creates hostility between farmers and government testing regimes as well as greater difficulty in ridding the disease from endemic areas like the Southwest. This makes the culling that is occurring much less valuable if infected cattle remain in the herd. Then finally, the government implications mean that with low sensitivity, more testing needs to conducted for Inconclusive Reactors as well generally more testing as the disease is harder to get rid of if testing is not specific. This costs the government more money and requires more labour. Furthermore, hostility also builds between farming communities and members of parliament as complaints accumulate of inaccurate mandatory testing, as Ian Roome explained. In this case, it is clear that understanding the true extent to which shortfalls and consequent changes we hope to make to the testing regime affect all users of this testing and its results.

pipeline from research and development to government with all the different actors we have interviewed

Ultimately, there are two main groups of actors that we hope our test will most positively impact:

For cattle farmers, it will do this by more accurately and effectively testing for and managing a destructive disease infiltrating their most precious asset – their cattle.

For the government, it will aid their mandated testing regime and hopefully save them money by helping to eradicate the disease sooner as well as ease any hostility between them and the farming communities. Ultimately, there is no corner of society untouched by farming communities as they fuel the people that make it up. Consequently, more effective management of the natural capital of farmers will undoubtedly have a widespread positive effect.

On a wider scale, our project has the potential to reduce badger culling. At the moment, badgers are thought to transmit TB to cattle and are culled as a result [5]. If we could test badgers and declare them TB free, this could have a positive effect on their populations and help to preserve natural wildlife.

There is also evidence that our project is responsible and doing good for the world. Sustainable Development Goal 3 is 'Good Health and Wellbeing' [6]. Within this, there is a sub goal (target 3.3) to 'End the epidemics of AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, neglected tropical diseases and combat hepatitis, water-borne diseases and other communicable diseases'[7]. With eradicating TB as one of the UN's Sustainable Development Goals, we are hoping to contribute to this by aiding in the management of bTB. In this way, this supports the fact that our project is doing good for the world by conforming to the SDGs.

To ensure that our project is responsible, leaning into our social and ethical values will allows those who will be impacted by a change in the testing to voice any concerns that we may not have considered. We also have the guidelines outlined by iGEM that we have carefully conformed to. Furthermore, we have used a developed framework from UK Research and Innovation for responsible research [8]. This has allowed us maintain responsible research with external participants in relation to our project.


Use and Implementation of our Project


By engaging with stakeholders further down the user pipeline, like Ian Roome as a Member of Parliament, we are able to get a more realistic image of how our test could be implemented in the real world. Here, Ian explained that engaging with the farming minister to try and arrange a pilot scheme would be an important way to try and implement our test. *add more after attomarker interview.

As previously mentioned, there is scope for our test to be applied to wildlife conservation to reduce badger culling. This would rely on safe capture and release of wild badgers to be able to test them, in the case that a blood sample is required. Otherwise, with further development perhaps a dung sample could be used. This would helpfully help to reduce tensions between conservationists and cattle farmers.

This project will hopefully also encourage the current testing scheme for bTB in the Southwest to be reviewed and improved by adding to this conversation and helping with momentum for change. Furthermore, this test and research has the potential to be used by other countries internationally that struggle with bTB.

Given the nature of our project as diagnostics research, future iGEM teams or researchers may be able to use our project to help inform theirs. For example, our contributions of contamination curves may be useful.

Physically using the test, our end users will be veterinary practitioners. Or in the case that we can get approval for our test to be used privately, this could be cattle farmers themselves.




Integrated Human Practices


IHP Research Framework

We used a framework for responsible research and innovation to structure our engagement with external participants for integrated human practices. We took inspiration from the AREA framework developed by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). These involved the stages Anticipate, Reflect, Engage, Act. We consulted as a team and slightly altered this framework to better suit the kind of external engagement we were undertaking, as seen in the second cycle. These stages include Intention, Contribution, Conclusion and Direction. These cycles ensured that we properly prepared, analysed and implemented any external feedback and information we recieved.

two frameworks for responsible research and innovation: first the AREA framework developed by UKRI and then our teams rendition of this (ICCD): Intention, Contribution, Conclusion, Direction

Human Practices Journey

Below is a chronological timeline of our interviews and feedback from external participants and how this effected and altered our project journey


Prof Rees Interview


26 July 2024 test

Prof Cath Rees, a Professor of Microbiology, and her team have been working to develop an alternative bTB detection system and consequently has experience working with Mycobacterium bovis specifically. She was therefore able to be an invaluable sounding board for our project as her expertise is extremely relevant to our project.

Main Outcomes: We contacted Prof Rees' vet connection for an interview as well as local MPs to discuss legislative issues further.










Warwick iGEM Meetup


26 July 2024

Collaboration and a multidisciplinary approach is what underpins modern scientific advancement. In recognition of this, iGEM encourages collaboration between teams alongside healthy competition. Our team attended the UK iGEM synbio meetup, and as a result had the opportunity to establish links with other UK teams alongside attending workshops and lectures on reproducibility, synthetic biology, presentation skills and ethics. As a result, we decided to more closely pursue collaborations both in the UK and abroad, as well as refine our outreach efforts.

Main Outcomes: We contacted the Oxford iGEM team as they were also working with Cas to have a conversation about their project, as well as the Penn State University team. Instilled weekly team meetings to allow for more successful progress.










National Farmers Union (NFU) Interview


12 August 2024

We were lucky to speak with the Tuberculosis team at the National Farmers Union (NFU). By speaking to the union we were able to hear an accumulation of the opinions of cattle farmers from all over the country. From this, we received crucial information about issues with current skin tests, legislative issues and preferable samples.

Main Outcomes: We decided to cease looking into dung as a possible sample and decided to not pursue any developments of separate testing for dairy and cattle farmers.










Ian Roome (MP) Interview


22 August 2024

To explore the legislative barriers and solutions to implementing our test, we had the privilege of speaking with Ian Room, a member of parliment (MP) located in North Devon. His close involvement with local farming communities effected by bTB paired with a comprehensive understanding of the legislative framework made him a vital source of knowledge for our project. We were pleased to hear his positivity and support towards our concept and reiterated how beneficial it would be for farmers. His support in the case that we bring our product to government would be indispensable.

Main Outcomes: We reached out to the contact that Ian provided to try and arrange an interview. Gained clarification on how our test would work within the legislative framework.










Attomarker Interview


3 September 2024

Attomarker are a rapid diagnostics development company within the field of medicine and personal health. Their diagnostics mechanisms are designed for use in many different settings from pharmacies to homes. Given their experience in the field of diagnostics, we hoped that by speaking to members of this company we could learn from their experiences and gain advice on our project. Shivali and Phillip who we spoke to provided us with some great points of development for our testing as well as some advice on scaling up in the future and public engagement.

Main Outcomes: We explored the equipment that vets use so that our hardware can most effectively fit into that existing system, e.g looking at monovettes. We also explored implementing repeats into the hardware and using clotting to reduce the opacity of our blood samples.












David Andrews TB Testing Farm Visit


10 September 2024

David Andrews, whom we had spoken to and visited his farm before, kindly invited us back to his farm to observe his cattle herd being tested for bTB. We were able to learn and experience a lot about the importance of the relationship between the cattle and the herdsmen as well as the stress this puts on the cattle. Furthermore, we gained a greater understanding of the level of bureaucracy associated with the testing process. Overall, understand all the different stages of testing, beyond administering the injection, that need to be managed was critical to our understanding of the impact of the testing process as a whole.

Main Outcomes: We got a unique insight into the administrative side performing the TB testing which helped us in formulating the design of our app which could be used to upload results to a central database.










David Andrews Interview


26 July 2024

David Andrews (of Warson farm) is a carbon-negative beef farmer dedicated to creating high-quality and local beef, as well as breeding bulls with prime genetics. As our team strives to develop a test that gives farmers more agency over their own farms, David agreed to provide a beef farmers perspective on our plans for a novel bTB test. This resulted in us further developing our perspectives on the needs of the farming community, and the avenues we can take to address them.

Main Outcomes: We arranged to visit David's farm during their bTB testing to better understand the process. We contacted CheCS to try and arrange an interview with one of their members and explored hardware options that do not involve crushes.










David Andrews Farm Visit


8 August 2024

To gain a better idea of the operational framework that surrounds bTB testing and cattle health management, as well as the day-to-day operations of a beef farm, our team visited Warson farms in Devon. From this visit, we gained both a wide and narrow lens into the challenges bTB causes for local farmers, and the impact this has on both cattle and farming staff. From this, we decided to further investigate the relationships between different kinds of farmers, vets, governmental organisations and legislative bodies, and what impact bTB has on these relationships.

Main Outcomes: Refocusing our efforts to look for a DNA target that doesn't require blood to be taken while ensuring that the rate of false positives remains at an absolute minimum.










PSU iGEM Team Meetup


14 August 2024

In order to maintain our attempts to collaborate with other iGEM teams following our meetup in Warwick we arranged to meet (virtually) with Pennsylvania State University's (PSU) iGEM team. We were hoping to learn a bit about each other's projects and experiences doing iGEM. We were interested to hear about how bTB is prevalent in their area as well and how their team dynamic varies to ours.

Main Outcomes: We maintained out weekly whole team meetings and maintained contact with PSU to hopefully obtain an interview with some local cattle farmers in Pennsylvania.










David Cotton Interview


30 August 2024

David Cotton is a dairy farmer based in Sommerset who gave us a very useful alternative perspective on our project. Up to this point, our main input had been from beef cattle farmers but dairy farmers are still subject to the impacts of bTB and its effects. From David we learnt about how bTB effects dairy cows differently, how he has dealt with repeated infections on his farm and his experience with badger transmission. As a result of this conversation, we are more confident that our test will be equally suitable for dairy farmers and gave slightly more preference to our Cas12a testing mechanism.

Main Outcomes: We were more confident that our test will be equally suitable for dairy farmers and gave slightly more preference to our Cas12a testing mechanism as well as using a blood sample.










Piers Pepperell Interview


30 August 2024

Piers Pepperell is an experienced bTB vet whom was able to give us a fascinating insight into the practicalities of carrying out the testing regimes and offer a slightly different view from that we have received from farmers. He gave us a really insight into the areas of concern as well as ease for vets, which seemingly differ to that of farmers. For example, although crushes are perhaps more dangerous for herdsman and cattle, they are safer for vets. Furthermore, he expressed the importance in having an independent actor involved in the testing regime. Following this interview, we had more confidence in the equipment we were hoping could be used in the field as well as the demand amongst vets for a new binary result test but wanted to speak to more vets to get some second viewpoints on Piers' statements.

Main Outcomes: Shifted towards the idea of vets as primary users. Re-introduced the idea of using a centrifuge as we learnt it was a more feasible on-site piece of equipment than we had envisioned.

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