Homework

Week 1 HW: Principles and Practices
1. First, describe a biological engineering application or tool you want to develop and why. This could be inspired by an idea for your HTGAA class project and/or something for which you are already doing in your research, or something you are just curious about. I want to develop synthetic chemical compounds that enhance membrane visibility in electron microscopy imaging of neural tissue. Current EM images of brain tissue suffer from poor contrast between adjacent neurons, making boundary identification difficult for both human annotators and automated segmentation algorithms. This creates a significant bottleneck for large-scale connectomics. 2. Next, describe one or more governance/policy goals related to ensuring that this application or tool contributes to an “ethical” future, like ensuring non-malfeasance (preventing harm). Break big goals down into two or more specific sub-goals. Below is one example framework (developed in the context of synthetic genomics) you can choose to use or adapt, or you can develop your own. The example was developed to consider policy goals of ensuring safety and security, alongside other goals, like promoting constructive uses, but you could propose other goals for example, those relating to equity or autonomy. Primary Goal: Establish standards and oversight that ensure contrast agents are scientifically valid, minimize animal use, and create responsible pathways for technology adoption