Week 1 HW: Principles and Practices
1. Biological Engineering Application / Tool
Idea: Low-cost, field-deployable waterborne pathogen detection kit for rural and urban areas in South Asia.
Why:
- Waterborne diseases like cholera, typhoid, and hepatitis A are major health challenges in South Asia.
- Current testing infrastructure is centralized, expensive, and slow.
- A portable, easy-to-use kit allows local health workers to identify contaminated water and prevent outbreaks.
Conceptual Design:
- CRISPR-based or colorimetric paper-strip detection.
- Results in under an hour.
- Data can be uploaded to a mobile app or cloud system to track contamination hotspots.
2. Governance / Policy Goals
Big Goal: Ensure the tool contributes to a safe, ethical, and constructive future.
Sub-goals:
- Safety and biosecurity: Prevent accidental exposure from the kit.
- Accessibility and equity: Make the kit affordable and usable in rural areas.
- Data privacy and trust: Ensure digital results are handled ethically and securely.
3. Governance Actions
| Action | Purpose | Design | Assumptions | Risks of Failure / Success |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Option 1: Mandate biosafety protocols | Prevent incidents | Include disposable consumables; train local health workers | Users follow instructions | Failure if reused improperly; success reduces outbreaks |
| Option 2: Government / NGO funding & certification | Encourage adoption | Regulatory approval + subsidies for rural distribution | NGOs/government support; local workers trained | Failure if funding stops; success scales adoption |
| Option 3: Open-source kit design & data platform | Promote constructive applications | Online repository + app for reporting; community feedback | Users are tech-literate enough | Data misuse; success enables crowdsourced monitoring |
4. Scoring Governance Options
| Does the option: | Option 1 | Option 2 | Option 3 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Enhance Biosecurity | 1 | 2 | 3 |
| • By preventing incidents | 1 | 2 | 3 |
| • By helping respond | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| Foster Lab Safety | 1 | 2 | 3 |
| • By preventing incident | 1 | 2 | 3 |
| • By helping respond | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| Protect the environment | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| • By preventing incidents | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| • By helping respond | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| Other considerations | |||
| • Minimizing costs/burdens to stakeholders | 2 | 2 | 1 |
| • Feasibility? | 2 | 1 | 3 |
| • Not impede research | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| • Promote constructive applications | 2 | 2 | 1 |
5. Recommendation
- Prioritized Action: Combine Option 1 (biosafety protocols) and Option 2 (funding & certification).
- Reason: Field safety is essential, and support ensures the tool reaches communities most in need.
- Trade-offs: Training and strict safety may slow deployment; funding dependency is a risk.
- Assumptions: Users follow instructions; regulatory bodies provide support.
6. Ethical Reflections
- Ensuring accessibility without creating dependency on NGOs.
- Balancing data transparency for outbreak tracking with privacy.
- Addressing cultural or social barriers to adoption.
Proposed governance actions:
- Standardized training programs and consent for data sharing.
- Community engagement to build trust.
- Open-source documentation to ensure understanding of the tool.