Master’s student of biology at Uppsala university, focusing on ecology and genetics.
Main organiser for the local group EA Uppsala, and organiser for AI Safety Uppsala.
Cinephile.
Jesper Magnusson
Karma: 42
Thank you for writing up your thoughts and experiences, and making the materials available! I really like to hear about people trying out variations on commonly used resources and communicating the results. It seems like a lot of thought went into these modifications.
I’m really intrigued by the minimised preparation time for participants, since I imagine the original 2h commitment can be an obstacle for some and thus make such fellowships less inclusive. If the performance indicators here can be replicated by others, this could have a big impact on the best practices for local groups to get new members and participants.From reading the text, it is a bit unclear to what degree the tools and upskilling parts of this curriculum rely on your experience on those topics in order to be conveyed well. How easy do you suppose it is for a novice organiser to explain and give instructions on these parts? How would this be affected by the recommended adjustments you describe?
Read a great blog article on how much biotechnology has developed over the years, the role it plays in global health, and how it might continue to improve our lives. Unsure what the norms are around reposting another’s blog (I have no connection to the authors), so I’ll simply share the link.
“Reasons to Be Grateful for Biotechnology”, by Niko McCarty and Avadhoot.
Hello! I’m Jesper, I’m in a master’s program in biology at Uppsala University. I’m trying to test my fit for biosecurity and figuring out my career plan. I think biological questions will grow in importance in the future as biotech capabilities improve, and so bioethics will similarly be of increasing value.
I was also thinking of the high production costs as a potential area of intervention. A few minutes of browsing turned up some potential advancements in production methods of antivenom, e.g. using synthetic biology, and I would be interested in learning about the potential cost-effectiveness of implementing or scaling up such alternative production methods. It seems like many of them are still in the R&D-stage though, but this could be an area to keep a close eye on.
A recent article on the topic:
https://www.drugdiscoverynews.com/snakebite-antivenoms-step-into-the-future-15378
I think you are correct about the first point; tabling seems the most useful when you have something you can direct people to that is only a few days away. It was not something I deliberated on for this occasion due to a lack of time and resources.
Your fourth point seems worth exploring. I think I could have shortened the game to 1-2 minutes so that it mainly became a hook to draw people in, but there’s still the question if it would be an obstacle in some sense for a more detailed explanation of EA afterwards. I think it depends on how you design the game and formulate your EA-explanation in relation to it. This would need to be tested.