Prostatus - Synthetic Biology
I have chosen to include my involvement with this project to demonstrate my knowledge and skills in interdisciplinary collaboration, ideation, and adaptability.
Moreover, you will see examples of my skills in project management throughout this project.
This is the promotional video for the Prostatus project, to help you understand what Prostatus is all about before I proceed to explain my involvement with the project.
The team
Displaying the members, supervisors and acquired prizes.
In this project, my team and I tackled the exciting field of synthetic biology, a subject outside my area of expertise. However, my multidisciplinary skills allowed me to contribute to several critical aspects of the project's development.
The team consisted of 20 talented individuals with diverse professional backgrounds, each assigned to one of five main categories: Laboratory, Design, Modeling, Human Practices, and website creation. While the majority of the team focused on laboratory-based responsibilities, I utilized my skills in Design and Human Practices to deliver a comprehensive solution for human use.
I am excited to present my portfolio case, which showcases my contributions to this project and highlights my capability to collaborate with a multidisciplinary team to achieve a common goal.
My contribution
As previously mentioned I choose to work with Design and Human Practices. I will now explain what I did and the impact of my work.
This model was used in the project to illustrate the process from idea to prototype.
Idea generation workshop
In this project, I took on the role of facilitating the ideation phase of the project. As a team, we had members from diverse backgrounds with varying interests and passions. In order to structure the ideation process, I facilitated a post-it clustering workshop where we were able to organize and categorize our ideas using affinity diagramming. This method allowed everyone to be heard and inspired each other's creativity.
To select the most promising idea, I implemented a democratic approach using idea screening through a simple voting system. Through this process, we collectively decided to pursue a prostate cancer self-test concept. My experience in project management and facilitation helped to guide the team towards an effective ideation process that led to a successful outcome.
Human Practices
I recognized the importance of gaining a deep understanding of end-users before embarking on the prototyping process. I took the lead in organizing and managing this crucial aspect of the project, drawing on my experience in conducting qualitative research and interviews. I equipped the members of the human practices sub-team with relevant knowledge and literature to ensure they were well-prepared for their tasks.
We conducted 10 semi-structured interviews and transcribed the audio recordings for hermeneutic analysis. After individually analyzing the interviews, we compared our findings through hermeneutic interpretation to identify frequently emerging topics and categories. Our approach was explorative and inductive, and the end product was a comprehensive summary that incorporated the most crucial aspects of our product development. This process was essential in ensuring that our product was tailored to the needs and preferences of our end-users.
I assessed that the project would benefit from collaboration with the citizen science expert Thomas Kaarsted from the University of Southern Denmark. So I reached out to him and arranged a collaborative seminar with him and the team to enlighten us towards the consideration regarding citizen science. The seminar laid the foundation for our further work on connecting publicity and science as well as understanding how the science we produce fits into the world. This preliminary reflection process ensured air time on Danish national radio, DR, and later a gamification campaign with men in the climacteric age as the target audience.
From the citizen science seminar. (Apologies for the low resolution)
The prototype designers followed the guidelines that our research and my insights provided and ended up using 3D printing in order to craft a user-friendly and sustainable prototype.
Design
As the saying goes, sometimes life takes unexpected turns, and my participation in this project is a perfect example of that. While my initial expectations were to contribute primarily to the prototyping process, I soon realized that my unique set of skills could be better utilized in the realm of Human Practices.
By assessing the strengths of my teammates, I recognized that my expertise in understanding end-users could provide invaluable insights to our engineers and industrial designers. Working closely with my subteam, we gathered essential information that informed the design of the prototype, ensuring that it would meet the needs and desires of our target audience.
Although I played a minor role in the actual prototyping process, I was able to offer valuable insights into sustainable materials that would ultimately be used in crafting the final product. The prototype designers took note of my recommendations and followed through with incorporating these materials into their work.
Reflections
I had the distinct privilege of being the first and only individual with my particular professional background to join a prestigious annual project culminating in the unofficial world championship in Synthetic Biology held in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. The project involved competing against 4,800 participants from 249 teams across the globe, and I am proud to say that our team emerged victorious.
My involvement in this project was the result of being personally headhunted by a respected professor who recognized that my unique profile and skills could make a significant contribution to the project's success. Initially, I was overwhelmed by the complexity of the natural science involved, but I quickly found my niche and gained confidence in my ability to apply my strengths and skillset to specific aspects of the project. This experience taught me the value of leveraging my strengths in a challenging environment and how to quickly adapt to new situations. It also demonstrated the importance of being open to new opportunities and taking risks, even when faced with uncertainty.
Thanks to the team's hard work and dedication, we earned two gold medals and received three nominations, a testament to our collective expertise and commitment to excellence. Looking back, I still marvel at how my skills were applied to this project, and I believe that the skills and experiences gained will continue to benefit me throughout my career.
A snippet from the member descriptions displaying my motivation for joining the project from the initiation of the project.