>>Stephanie Vasko: So, I’m Stephanie Vasko,
I'm a third-year graduate student inmaterials
chemistry and I'm also enrolled in the dual
PhD program for nanotechnology and today I
am to be talking to you about the paradigm
shift in nanotechnology consequences ofstatus
quo lab attitudes.
so the first thing i wanna talk about are
some results from the McGinn survey of nanotech
researchers so if we look at how many people
are interested in ethical issues relating
to nanotechnology, we have a fair amount who
range from moderately to very and when it
comes to how important they believe that these
ethical issues are considered, we again see
strong correlation in the moderately to very
sector.
however when we look at the the question:
“in your opinion how does the importance
of the ethical dimension to the nanotechnology
field compared with the important of the science
dimension?”, the shift moves more toward
that science is important- more important
than ethics but we have a forty-three percent
who think it's just as important and so from
this question the most interesting question
to me from McGinn’s survey is a three-part
case study.
so he asks a an initial question which is:
“an experienced nanotech researcher, never
involved in a lab accident, plans to carry
out in a lab for the first time, what s/he...”
and then gives three options so the first
is “realizes is a potentially hazardous
procedure, and to do so without informing
the workers who share his or her bench”
and we see that most people find this to be
completely unethical. in the second case study
it realizes that it's a potentially hazardous
procedure and to do so without fully searching
the existing literature so we see a bit more
a different trend here.
we see that here some people think it's completely
unethical, some people think it's somewhat,
some people are ethically neutral and that
we get a large spike in ethics isn't relevant
to this action and in the third and final
option that was given for this case study
it said the scientist believes that it's a
non-hazardous procedure and will do so without
informing anyone involved and again you see
a wide range from completely unethical to
ethics and not relevant to this action.
so the motivation behind creating a case study
that discusses lab attitudes and how we were
look at nanotech in the lab is not about the
future of nanotechnology but more about the
present.
more about the graduate students who are currently
working on nanotech.
their PI's, the people who have to dispose
of the waste and everyone involved in the
life cycle of the nanotech.
so we'd like to get graduate students and
undergrads to think about their lab habits
and we also want to think about how we deal
with new types of classifications so the technology
we pick to focus on in this case study is
quantum dots because it's kinda the ubiquitous
nanotechnology that you hear a lot about from
books written by Michael Crichton to GI Joe
it's in popular culture so hopefully we at
least think that the public is somewhat expose
the idea what a quantum dot is.
so quantum dots show a lot of promise in varying
industries like solar power in vivo cancer
imaging and optoelectronic devices but on
the other hand they're also made of toxic
materials like cadmium, lead, selenium, and
tellurium so in the format of this case study
we look at a few common occurrences.
how do you dispose of waste in the lab, what
are the safety conditions, and how do safety
inspections work. and the case study follows
the decision tree format and so our case study
follows one tree and its the probably most
strict of the trees it looks at the worst
of all possible cases but for discussion purposes
you can choose to follow other decision trees
with this case study so we've got two characters
in a lab who produce exotically doped quantum
dots. we have Alex who's a new student and
Ben who's a fifth year grad student and also
the lab safety officer so Alex wants to know
how do you label your waste in the lab there's
no space on a label for a waste that's nanotech
and I'll show you an example this in a minute
so you go with the status quo of how the lab
is labeling their waste or you inquire how
one would actually label some nanotech waste.
so here we have a hazardous waste label from
the University of Washington this is what
you fill out whenever you want to dispose
of something and remove it from the lab. and
so you can see there are a lot of categories
that you can label your way status corrosive,
non hazardous, ignitable, toxic but there's
no space to label it as nanotech.
so what about working conditions let's say
that ben has a very messy fume hood and Alex
and Ben share space and Alex is really concerned
about his safety vis-a-vis this this fume
hood so what can Alex do?
you can talk to Ben, you can talk to his adviser,
or you can talk to the safety coordinator
the department so in red is what happens in
the actual case study so just to to follow
this decision tree everything as outlined
in red is what's written in the case study.
that a if nothing happens if alex talks to
ben or his adviser, what should he do? if
he considers whistle blowing the situation
what's the impact on this funding and what's
the future impact on his career so I'm sure
that some %uh view in the audience have seen
few clouds that look like this so if you're
Alex and you're a first-year graduate student
how comfortable do you feel working atmosphere
and environment like this so the other thing
that is really interesting are things like
EPA spot checks which happened to labs fairly
frequently just to make sure that everyone's
in compliance so in a spot check, Alex could
voice his concern about the nanotech study
or the nanotech situation or bens hood or
he can stay quiet and the EPA can cite the
lab depending on their own findings so if
Alex chooses to discuss Ben’s hood with
the agent, the EPA will do things like investigate
the background of the lab, investigate the
labs permits, look at the compliance’s of
the lab and possibly involve other agencies
such as osha and so in that case, if OSHA
and other agencies are involved you also bring
in RCRA, the resource conservation and Recovery
Act and so they're going to identify the pathways
that the waste you create takes and they can
either put a hold on your case and investigate
more information on it or start a full-blown
investigation.
So they’ll take samples, they’ll take
photos from your lab and a look at the pathway
of the waste so the way that legislation is
currently written is that the generator of
the waste is ultimately responsible for um
incident involving the waste during its life
cycle and Material Safety Data Sheets don't
distinguish Nano properties from the bulk
properties so in an EPA OSHA RCRA investigation,
in the final report, the students, the advisor,
if the department safety manager, the contract
with disposal company, and all of agents from
those organizations will be present and so
what can happen to you in this? well you can
be fined and they’ll detail your infractions
and you can be closed until you comply so
one of the interesting things involves disposal
of nanotech and labeling your waste.
currently there's no test for landfill disposal
of quantum dots but california is doing a
really interesting thing which i think is
important for the the application of this
case study and it's that they've got a department
of toxic substance Control and they find that
nanotech is going to become the new plastic
because it shows up in a lot of industrial
applications so they've started a partnership
with the industrial sector to develop an ecology
manufacturing stewardship approaches and also
they involve industry in developing analytical
tests for these nanoparticles.
so in this case study there are a lot of areas
for discussion what is your perception of
the events based on your gender, your expertise,
or your motivation.
what are your ethical responsibilities if
you're the first year grad student in the
lab. should you anticipate the dangers of
the situation that you see around you rather
than alert or do you wait until it becomes
an actual full blown problem and then deal
with it. and the last part is what affect
the gender roles have on the morals and views
that you hold on the situation and what is
your perceived retaliation of whistleblowing
in this case study.
so the one other place I wanna look is in
student resources.
if you're this first-year graduate student,
who can you talk to about the problems that
you see?
Well, you can talk to the safety liaison for
the department, you can talk to your PI, you
can talk to your graduate school adviser,
but probably the most interesting place to
go would be to talk to other students.
so at UW, you have students who are in related
organizations such as the nanotech Student
Association and students and engineering business
who have probably had experience with these
types of events and one thing I want to highlight
is graduate student mentors.
I think this is a really important idea is
to pair younger graduate students with order
graduate students in order to help them get
a feel for grad school and a feel for the
resources that they would have available.
the last issue I talk about are nanotech safety
classes so most universities when they train
students into lab and give them hazardous
waste training don't have specific nanotech
safety classes.
so who would pay for the development of this,
who would develop the curriculum, and would
it have to just be for first-year graduate
students?
Or would it be for custodians in the life
cycle such as the janitors to empty the trash
from the labs or the waste management companies
who work on the process?
We’d like to outline some some helpful teaching
aids for this case study so there's a review
on quantum dots that's listed with the case
study, two really interesting articles on
ethics and some articles on nanotech disposal
from the woodrow Wilson Institute center for
scholars and there's also um on the Woodrow
Wilson website a case study that discusses
just industry waste of nanotechnology and
how that's processed so with that I'd like
to thank marjorie and deborah for giving me
the opportunity to work on these case studies
ethan for help me figure out the uh, the issues
involving decision trees and my co author
Billy Butler.
Thank you
