Inclusivity is at the heart of our team's mission in synthetic biology. We are dedicated to creating an inclusive environment where more people can actively shape, contribute to, and participate in the exciting world of synthetic biology. Our efforts aim to provide new tools, knowledge, and opportunities that empower individuals and foster mutual learning and dialogue within communities. Inclusivity is the practice or policy of providing equal access to opportunities and resources for people who might otherwise be excluded or marginalized, such as those with physical or intellectual disabilities or belonging to other minority groups. That is one of the main pillars of our team, and it was essential for us to represent it in our iGEM team and our project.
As you will see below, we have implemented the notion of inclusivity in our team. But it was crucial for us to go further than that and implement it in our project, SuperBugBuster. Indeed, it was essential to have it at the center of our reflection, mainly when discussing education.
Our first under-project was our "Women in Science" one. This campaign was carried out on our Instagram account to reach more young people. We've created a series of Instagram stories highlighting the role of several famous women scientists and a post explaining our approach. Women's place in this field is essential, and their work needs to be sufficiently recognized.
We included the most people possible in our work by several little actions :
We tried to include most people on our IHP survey, including gender-neutral people and others on the spectrum.
We created our promotional video in several languages and subtitles to include disabled people and people from different countries and regions worldwide.
We wanted to include people from all over the world in the debate on antibiotic consumption, so we contacted the southern countries of the iGEM's leagues.
We created a visual model in order to popularize our mathematical modeling to the general public. However, this model relies on colored balls. The goal of this model was to make mathematics accessible to everyone, and this “all” was to include people with color blindness problems. We therefore created a version of our model with a color palette adapted to the 3 types of color blindness: Protan, Tritan and Deutran.
Colorblindness is not a total loss of color vision. Colorblind people can recognize a wide ranges of colors. But certain ranges of colors are hard to distinguish. The frequency of colorblindness is fairly high. One in twelve Caucasian (8%), one in 20 Asian (5%), and one in 25 African (4%) males are so-called "red-green" colorblind. It is commoner than AB blood group. There are always colorblind people among the audience and readers. There should be more than TEN colorblinds in a room with 250 people.
You can therefore find in our Model page a button allowing you to switch to colorblind mode, the colors are therefore adapted and the modeling has been redone in this mode!
We build up our team based on this aim. We wanted to include a specific diversity of people from different schools in Lyon to have diverse knowledge of the subject, different types of approaches, and different levels on several topics. That is why SuperBugBuster is an INSA, ENS, and Lyon 1 project. It is the collaborative work between the three that led to the project that we present today. Moreover, we surrounded ourselves with students from other fields besides biology, like social sciences students or informatic ones.
In the continuity of this desire to include most of the people, we tried to have equality in the gender quota of our team, or at least to promote the work accomplished by women that is too often underrated in the scientific field in general. That is why, in our team project, 38.5% of the team comprises men and 61.5% women. Equality for sure is not present, but for once, the men's quota is the littlest.
The number of women at the head of big projects and companies is meager. According to Statistica [1], in 2022, of the 500 most fortunate companies in the world, only 15% had a woman CEO. This score is increasing over time, but this needs to continue. That is why putting the accent on a woman at the head of our project was necessary for the team. Indeed, we chose Camille BACQUIE as a team leader. This is our contribution to the Sustainability goal of the WHO, to reduce inequality between genders.
The team's build made us realize that the group was LGBTQIA+ friendly. Indeed, with a few community members in our ranks, we stand up as allies in the fight for the equality of rights.
In building our inclusive team, we chose Camille as our team leader to support her. When she mentioned her disability, we did not see it as a brake to our work or a weakness. Indeed, she showed us, at multiple times, during the whole project, that she was totally capable of working her best, even the hardest of the team! Of course, when she needed it, we helped her the best that we could ! We adapted our work and team for her, and offered support when she needed it. To learn more about the place of disabled people in society and companies, we also invest ourselves in some research on validism. Validism is an oppression that can take the form of discrimination, prejudice, or unfavorable treatment against people living with a disability. It is present in societal norms and attitudes by prioritizing non-disabled persons over disabled ones. The problem is that it can take many forms and sometimes even unintentional neglect.
This has a clear reflection on the world of work and companies. According to a 2016 study in France, approximately 14% of the working-age population have a disability. Still, they are the tiniest minority represented in work and companies. Integrating disabled people into the labor market remains challenging. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, their unemployment rate is almost twice the average. This graphic from French government statistics [2] shows that disabled people are not included in companies.
In our SuperBugBuster team, minorities cannot be sidelined. That's why our team leader's disability hasn't hindered our team, and her inclusion is at the heart of it.
"Taking part in a challenge like iGEM when your health is fragile is initially very scary. I was afraid of not having my team's support, being unable to take on responsibilities, or of the fatigue that can result from the effort involved. The members of SuperBugBuster were there for me in a very natural way, which made the task much more accessible. I'm just another team member, but everyone understands when I need help, rest, or support. There have been times when I've been in pain during meetings, for example, and I've been able to count on my colleagues to back me up, support me, and help me carry out my care. This experience has shown me that my disability doesn't define me and that anything is possible !"
