School Visit
We believe that one of the most important aspects of synthetic biology is to try and educate the younger generations. To do this we organised a school visit with Montsaye Academy, where Chris talked to 16-17 year olds about synthetic biology and biology as a whole. He taught the students about how genetic engineering and microbial genetics works.After a quick lab safety introduction, Chris started out with a pipetting challenge where he told the students to pipette 5 PCR tubes with different coloured dyes. This helped the students learn how to use Gilson pipettes, and get a taste for the skills they will be using in the future.
He also demonstrated the use of GFP and RFP as reporter genes and how they can be used to draw glowing art! The final demonstration was a plasmid card game devised by us. This involved creating plasmids out of various components and teaching the students about genetic engineering and microbial genetics in a fun yet interesting way.
The students were excited about seeing how genetic engineering works through the creations they made using the game. By educating the younger generations, we feel as though they are more comfortable with the idea of synthetic biology since there is such bad press around this subject. We hope that after this visit the students have taken a interest in synthetic biology and will one day help in this subject.
Meet-Up
In order to take part in a possible collaborations, and to get meet other UK iGEM team, a few member of our team went to the London iGEM meet up, at Westminster University. At the meet up we were able to talk and get to know more about the other teams and their projects. The day was structured that we first had the opportunity to listen geneticist; Dr Tom Ellis from Imperial College London and Dr Vitor Bernardes Pinheiro from the University College London give talks on ‘Balancing biology with engineering to produce molecules and materials’ and ‘Directed evolution’. We then were able to walk around and view all the teams’ poster presentations, and have others view our poster. At the end of the day each team was given 15 minutes to present their project, and an additional 5 minutes to answer questions from other teams. The London meet up was a great experience and gave us presenting experience. We received great feedback from the other teams about our project and constructive feedback on presenting.
Open Days
In an effort to promote our message to prospective students of our university; our iGEM team had a stall at a number of open days across Summer and Autumn. Here, prospective students got the chance to learn how to use some of our equipment (we were not aware that autopipettes were such a crowd pleaser!). We had a wonderful time getting to know students eager to hear about the iGEM competition and our project, some even brainstormed ideas they might put forward as part of a 2017 team! It was very encouraging to learn that many students felt that an opportunity to take part in the competition might fill the void left by their pre-university education. This is because some believed that their enthusiasm for innovation in science was stifled by a rigid national curriculum.
Moreover, not only did we receive a lot of interest from students but also from parents, whom we helped learn a bit more about the scope of genetic engineering and what impact it might have on their lives. This was particularly pertinent for our project as our focal disease is osteoporosis. A few spoke about family members afflicted with the condition and were very excited to take our leaflets home to find out more about our iGEM team project through our various social media accounts.
Public Engagement
Another key aspect for iGEM is public engagement. This year we decided to integrate social media with our project in order to educate and understand the public’s views on synthetic biology. We made regular updates on our project using or facebook, instagram and twitter pages. We engaged with almost 1,000 people across all social media platforms.
To get an insight on public understanding on GMO’s, members of our team went into Leicester city centre to talk with the public. We asked them the following questions:
We got mixed results, most people had positive opinions about GMO’s while other had no idea what GMO’s were. People were supportive of our project and felt better after we explained to them how genetic engineering works and helps the public. We’re hoping that after talking to the public, public opinion will have improved in regards to GMO’s and synthetic biology.
Adventure
On the 15th of July, the toughest of our keen iGEM team, embarked upon a testing 28 mile trek through the East Midlands pastures, starting from our University to a town outside of Leicester, known as Market Harborough. This walk was not for the faint-hearted, but armed with our backpacks of snacks and hearts full of loyalty to our sponsors, whose monetary donations towards our project were deeply appreciated, we arrived at our destination in the evening of that very same day!
