EDEKA-Survey

To judge how extensive the public’s knowledge about genetic engineering actually is, we decided to do a survey in one of the local supermarkets. Topic of our survey would be food-product labels and what they mean and how important they are to the consumer’s decision-making in buying a product.
We printed out several labels of known food-product labels like “Vegan”, “MSC-certified” or “Ohne Gentechnik” meaning “Without the use of GMO” and arranged them in a six-part-scale from “Very important” to “Not important at all”. We deliberately decided to not include a neutral option on the scale to make sure the results of the survey do not get skewed by indecisive participants.
Another type of survey we ran, was to let the public decide, which so called “Ohne-Label” they feel is most important to them. We offered the study participants a selection of six labels like “Ohne Gluten” (without gluten) or “Ohne Konservierungsstoffe” (without preservatives), but also “Ohne Gentechnik” (without the use of GMOs) attached to bowls as well as marbles.
The participants were given three marbles in total and were asked to place a marble into the bowl of the label they deem most important. The participants had the opportunity to weight their choices by placing more than one marble per label. I.e. the marbles could be split equally between bowls or all three marbles were placed into a single bowl.

Radio-Interviews

To inform the public about our project, we were invited to a local radio station, Antenne Kaiserslautern, to give a quick introduction into our project and biotechnology as well as genetic engineering in general.
We wanted to paint a clearer picture of the environmental pollution caused by chemicals we use daily, but still cannot be broken down by most wastewater treatment plants in use nowadays. This way, these chemicals can reach the drinking water we all consume and cause illness linked to chronic exposure not just for humans, but also for the aquatic wildlife affected by the release of cleared wastewater into the environment.
While introducing our team and our idea, the radio-host, Ms. Nina Schober, was asking us questions like “What is the problem you are trying to solve with your project?” and “Why are these ‘CYP-enzymes’ you are talking about so great?”.
This way we were able to teach the public about how wastewater treatment plants still cannot clean up all of the toxins that might be reaching our wastewater and how we might be able to offer an eco-friendly solution to fix that problem. We also had the opportunity to give an update-interview about our project in the later stages, as we made progress in our experimentation. We were given the chance to present that we made progress in cloning the CYP-enzyme genes into Chlamydomonas reinhardtii and that we were testing the activity of the enzymes already.

We want to thank Antenne Kaiserslautern again for giving us the great opportunity to talk to the public about our project.

TV-Interview

We had the great opportunity to present our project nationwide in a TV-interview of the german broadcasting channel SWR in their evening news show “SWR Aktuell”.
We were given the chance to present our project “CYPurify” to the journalist, Ms. Alexandra Dietz, interviewing us, talking about how we want to use Chlamydomonas reinhardtii to clean up lakes, ponds, rivers and wastewater by using the catalytic potential of CYP-enzymes.
Introducing the journalists to the problem of wastewater not leaving the treatment plants devoid of all bioactive compounds like pesticides or pharmaceuticals, we have shown that our enhanced algae could prove to be a sustainable, eco-friendly and carbon-neutral way of cleaning up previously hard to break down compounds, improving water quality and enhancing the habitability of previously chronically exposed aquatic ecosystems. We wanted to present our project as an eco-friendly means of protecting the environment and engineering a method to clean up waste that previously could only be cleaned out of water at great financial- and energetic expense.
Finally we were able to show the journalists how we normally work in our lab on a day-to-day basis and talked about the iGEM-competition in general.
A recording of this interview was published on the 12. September 2023 and can be viewed in the ARD-Videoarchives, as well as the SWR webpage online.

We want to thank the SWR-team for giving us a chance to hold this interview.

Wastewater Treatment Plant

To educate ourselves about the methods currently used for treating wastewater and taking out toxins and impurities in it, we scheduled a meeting with one of the engineers responsible for planning and maintaining the purification systems of our local wastewater treatment plant. We held a short presentation, introducing our project to the technicians and were met with great interest and curiosity. We were in turn introduced to the wastewater treatment systems of the plant we were visiting and were told about methods like activated charcoal filter columns or ozone-gas treatment. However, we were told that these methods often aren’t financially viable for smaller treatment plants, leading to some parts of wastewater being reintroduced into our drinking water supply without having been properly purified and cleaned up.
We then did some more independent research, finding out that activated charcoal filters might be able to clean up toxins and bioactive compounds via adsorption, however the cleaning process of the filter column is very energy intensive if pyrolysis is used. Alternatively, the number of chemicals present in the environment if saturated detergent solution is used in the process of surfactant enhanced carbon regeneration (SECR) does not really decrease either, as the detergent solution only washes the chemicals off of the carbon, the chemicals themselves would need to be broken down in a specialized facility.
We also were offered the advice, that even while our project seems promising due to its eco-friendly and sustainable nature, we’d have to figure out a way to introduce our genetically engineered algae to the wastewater-plant without the possibility of cells leaving the purification system and reaching the environment.
One theoretical solution for this problem we came up with was to encase some of our algae cells in a semi-permeable nano membrane particle, enabling the chemicals present in the water to come into contact with the algae and thus be broken down, but the nano-particles could be affixed to a matrix holding the cells in place. This way no cells would be able to leave the wastewater treatment plant, however we’d also include a killswitch-mechanism to ensure that even if the containment membrane somehow malfunctioned, the algae cells would get killed to ensure that no GMO or their genetic material is released into the environment.

We would like to thank the team from the wastewater treatment plant Kaiserslautern for giving us a tour and for answering our questions.

Interview with Matthias Mieves, MP (SPD)

To educate ourselves on how genetic engineering is viewed from a political point of view, we were lucky to get an interview with the member of parliament, Matthias Mieves for the social-democratic party (SPD). We were able to ask questions on how he viewed the use of GMO as a means to ensure continued food availability in times of climate change, as well as how the implementation of our project for bioremediation and doing something good for the population could be accepted from a political point of view.
We also were able to ask questions about the misleading nature of the “Without the use of GMOs”-food label and if he thinks that it would make sense to change this label to be more informative. Mr. Mieves was surprised to hear that, while this label advertises the lack of any GMO-ingredients in the product, the legislation still allows a certain percentage of GMO as ingredients in the process of making this food product. For example it is allowed to mix in a certain amount of GMO-crops into cattle feed to make “Non-GMO”-certified meat products.
However, Mr. Mieves doubted the usefulness of reworking this label to be more accurate, as a label has to be informative to the customer in a way that they can gain any relevant information by a quick glance only. Trying to establish a label informing the customer about all of the relevant percentages of GMO used in making the product or the methods used to change the genome of the plants or animals used in making this product would be too complicated. Such a label would likely result in creating more confusion for the customer rather than giving them more easily accessible and easy-to-understand information about the product they are buying.

iGEM: "Because of the climate crisis we have been able to document, that, due to the last three extremely dry summers, large parts of crop harvests were extinguished. Do you think it could be a great opportunity to work on an expedited legalization for plants, genetically engieered to be especially resistant to drought or herbicides, which were created with new methods, like CRISPR/Cas9?"

Mieves: "Yes [...], I think this can help. We already have a climate causing earth to continually get hotter and more dry. At the same time the global population continues to increase and all of these people have to be fed. Because of this, I think it is important that we have plants at our disposal, which can grow and generate nutrients, despite of these harsh climatic circumstances. In many regions it already is complicated to farm conventional crops and I believe because of this, we need to take a look at the potential behind genetically engineered plants: How can they handle drought and heat better?"

"The potato has been influenced by humans for centuries. The potatoes we have on our plates nowadays don't really have anything to do with the potatoes nature created. Do they have to be specially labeled because of this? No. Thus I would rather ask the question: 'Which labels do you need to give the consumer an information, that actually corresponds with the quality of the prodict, what might be a risk-factor or a potential hazard. This should be marked well, but to go into even more detail about different steps in production or listing ingredients the consumer doesn't know anything about is effectively worthless.
The label 'Without GMOs' is doubly worthless in my opinion for the consumer, if firstly GMOs actually are allowed to be involved in making the product and secondly: 'What information do I have to gain if the product is labeled with 'Created by old genetic engineering methods' or 'Created using new genetic engineering methods'? What's the difference? Most of the time the consumer doesn't actually know, that's why to me it is most important to work out: 'What should be put on the product that actually is of use for the consumer?'
If, for instance, I take a look at poultry and see 'Caged' or the number '1' on the package, I know 'These chicken probably weren't too happy with their lives' and a '4' would mean 'free-range chicken and fed with good food' instead I could actually work witht this infotmation. In labels, such as we discussed earlier though I just don't see any gain for the consumer and thus I don't think they should be implemented or worked on."

We would like to thank Mr. Mieves for his time and for answering our questions.

iGEM-Team Stuttgart

To gain insight into how well the public is informed about genetic engineering, we collaborated with the iGEM Team from Stuttgart.
We gave them access to our survey and asked them to kindly distribute it amongst the population of Stuttgart. We also collaborated with the Stuttgart-team to analyse the data the surveys generated and Stuttgart kindly supplied us with a data processing software made specifically for surveys.
Thank you, iGEM Stuttgart for collaborating with us!

A farmer's point of view

To inform ourselves about the challenges farmers have to face during their seasons as well as their opinions towards using GMO crops and pesiticides, we talked to the spokesperson of the German Association of Farmers and Winegrowers.
We learned that Germany is the European country with the most heavy restrictions regarding the use of pesticides to protect crops.

“In Germany you are required to have a ‘Pflanzenspritzschutzgenehmigung’. This permit has to be renewed about every four years in a seminar and without it the farmer or agrarian technician is forbidden to bring pesticides onto the field. You aren’t allowed to purchase pesticides without this permit either.”

“For instance, if you would have to use pesticides on your plot of land which is located in a water protection area, you would be required by law to use special pesticides designated for the use in water protection areas. These kinds of pesticides are designed so they can’t reach groundwater. They contain additives meant to increase their adhesion on the plants and you aren’t allowed to bring these pesticides onto the fields when it rains either. Of course, these pesticides cost more, but the fines for disregarding these regulations are quite severe, up to 30.000€ for example.”

We learned that without the use of pesticides it would not be profitable for the farmer to farm a crop as the yield would also be too low to be able to feed a population with the products of the field. We were informed that noone wants to buy diseased crop, but that there are methods to minimize the use of pesticides:

“The population of rape pollen beetle (Brassicogethes aeneus) for instance has increased over the past few years, because the insecticides we use today aren’t as effective anymore. This of course has to do with the fact, that we nowadays are using special insecticides that are harmless towards bees and we have to protect them as our main pollinators and fruit bringers, but that means that we have to bring out the insecticides at a precise time to catch the beetles in a stadium they are vulnerable to the insecticides.”

“We did notice an increase in resistant weeds, especially tropical weeds. And we don’t really have any herbicide available against these anymore, except for glyphosphates. But these kill our crops as well, of course. We just have to live with it, but we are still innovating and thinking of new ideas, for instance the mechanical removal of weeds with GPS assisted sowing and then respectively removing any plant that previously hasn’t been registered as a crop plant.”

“The pressure caused by weeds actually increased because of the import of neophytes from Indochina and other countries. For instance, nowadays because of the climate change we can farm soy, but that also means that we imported new weeds in the soy seeds, like cockspur (Echinochloa crus-galli), which are resistant to the herbicides we can use nowadays. Another example would be the north American bullfrog causing great harm to the ecosystem Rhine. However, the old weeds and pests we know, like thistles and knotweeds (Persicaria sp.) are native to Germany haven’t left of course and we won’t be getting rid of them either any time soon.”

“There is the option to declare yourself an ecological farmer. That means you aren’t allowed to use pesticides as well as only a very limited amount of fertilizer on mineral basis. It is possible to be profitable as such a farmer, however you’ll have half the yield and you’ll have to have a buyer for your crop of course, since it can be contaminated with disease like mold. No customer in stores would like to buy moldy crop. And crops infected by mold might be toxic of course and would have to be chemically treated. If I were to use fungicides, I would only use them before the grain actually grew its fruit. The fungicide only works in that stage of the plant’s development and that way I can also limit the fungicide-residue left on the grain itself and I would have the sense of security that it most likely isn’t contaminated by mycotoxins.”

“Ecological Wine growers have to use copper solutions. Otherwise the infection of the grapes with fungi would be so great that they would be really toxic to eat, more toxic than being exposed to the copper salts. Of course, copper is a heavy metal and toxic in its own right, but this is a topic you could discuss for months.”

“In my opinion, a sensible use of pesticides is okay. And because the price for pesticides tripled in the last years most farmers use as little as possible, just enough to make sure they have a clean crop. For instance, I use a product to protect my crops against mildew for three weeks, but after this time it won’t work anymore. However, after three weeks the crop is fully grown anyway, so there’s no need for further protection as I can just harvest the crop then. Like this I don’t have to apply pesticide every week.”

“Years ago you used pesticide prophylactically. Nowadays you have to consider the damage threshold. This is a defined value set by experts telling you ‘Now you have to go out on the field and spray it with product, otherwise your loss will be great’. Below this threshold you just have to live with it. In the end, pesticides cost money and if you’d apply them below this threshold you’d lose money just as much.”

We also learned that farmers are not really rejecting the use of GMOs, however there just isn’t enough enthusiasm from customers to buy these products.

“Why should I sow seeds for a plant that ultimately no one is going to buy?”

“We have to do further research on pesticides as well as genetic engineering to find systemic solutions that only affect the pest we’re trying to fight but nothing else like bees. But in Germany we are still limited on that, while other countries can do lots of research in this matter.”

“I see a future in Genetic Engineering for farming in Germany. We could get advances in breeds that would normally have taken 20 years to breed naturally or resistant crops that in turn cause less pesticides to be used. Of course, controls are good so that no untested product gets released, but in the end genetic engineering just is an artificial speeding along of processes that can be achieved by natural breeding.”

“I think politically the responsible politicians would have to be educated more to generate more interest in legalizing the use of GMO crops in Germany.”

We would like to thank the association's spokesperson for taking time to do an interview with us.

Laut’rer Kehrwoche

To lead with a positive example, we participated in the so called “Laut’rer Kehrwoche”, an event to mobilize volunteers to help the public service authorities to clean up the city from trash. According to one of our principles to try to prevent the production of waste rather than clean it up, we tried to introduce ourselves and our project to anyone who was interested in having a conversation with us during our cleanup-efforts.