Team:USTC/Engagement
Engagement
Engage syn-bio with society
Leaders
USTCers believe that scientists must take the responsibility of science and technology propagations among the public. Our iGEM team established a club in our university called Encoding Life Association (ELA), especially for the popularization of science among children in China.
This year Team USTC, along with ELA, delivered human practice activities for the public. In our human practice section, we combined general biology, molecular engineering and synthetic biology with public health, policies, art, public engagement, education, biosafety, environment and society.
In our minds, human practices are not only to clarify what is our synthetic biology, what is our daily work or the common phenomenon of scientific reason, but also to take people into a more in-depth thinking.
If a human practice can encourage people to think further, lead them into a new field of scientific research, or even make they become the new scientists, the human practice would seem more precious. Human practice works can also climb up to the highest level of science hall. In fact, it reflects more scientific issues.
During the Science and Technology Week of our school, we introduced iGEM and synthetic biology to public and our schoolmates by showing posters about the iGEM projects that Team USTC had done, and we also conducted a survey about synthetic biology at the same time.
Team USTC members and Team USTC-software members worked together to give presentations to the public, including professors, students, children and the citizens. Everyone showed great interest to our projects, and we had lots of discussions about the cutting-edge research of biology. During the presentations, we surveyed the public about their knowledge of biological science, gene engineering, bio-safety and in particular, synthetic biology.
Before holding the presentation, we had done a lot of research and basically determined the theme of our project. So, besides introducing the work of Team USTC in previous years, we also introduced our result of investigation and the rough direction of our project. So the public could know what we were doing.
Bacteria and DNA are what we commonly work with in synthetic biology. And we also frequently talk about them in our daily life. However, the public usually don't have accesses to know them closer,so we managed to make them accessible.
Attempting to attract more citizens, especially children, to know more about biology, we designed a simple experiment to extract DNA from fruits with kitchen materials.
Experiment procedures: 1. Grind the fruit(strawberry, watermelon, peach or kiwifruit) with NaCl into paste. 2. Add 5ml domestic detergent and keep stirring for 1min. 3. Filter it. 4. Add 10 ml EtOH into filtrate. 5. Nodular DNA shows.
We do hope our human practice can attract kids to think further, lead them into a new field of scientific research, or even make they become new scientists one day. It turned to be a great success. The experiment taught kids basic konwledge on synthetic biology and molecule biology. In the experiment, children have to choose the finest fruit to extract DNA. So it also stimulates their interests on the process of research.
"With this experiment we--both me and my kid--have learned a lot about biology. I have never expected that I can SEE DNA with my own eyes." said a parent,"It's quite amzing. I'll do it again with my kid in our own kitchen!"
Environmental sustainability concerns the natural environment and how it endures and remains diverse and productive. Since natural resources are derived from the environment, the state of air, water, and the climate are of particular concern. To protect our planet, the waste of plastic, or 'White Pollution' for more exact, must be settled down. As a synthetic biology lab, we first studied a lot about 'plastic's biology decomposition'. Though we didn't choose it as our project at last, we found synthetic biology a useful tool to deal with white pollution in the future. Then we held about 3 conferences to discuss what and how we can do to deal with plastic waste with synthetic biology. During the discussion, we came out with some practicable solution. A bright future with no more white pollution is showed in front of us. After that, we held a environmental friendly event called 'Plastic for Plants' combined with some popularization of science. We asked college students to collect their used plastic things for about 3 months and bring them to us then. We would send these bottles to the plastic recycling center and we would give students some plants as a reward. Integral elements for a sustainable development are research and innovation activities. From the recycling center, we were told that the percentage of plastic that can be fully recycled, rather than downcycled or go to waste can be increased when manufacture technique improves. On the other hand, the use of biodegradable plastics is increasing. As future synthetic biologic scientists, we are determined to green the economy and the society as a whole so to achieve a truly sustainable development in the future.
We invited a group of high school students to see our laboratory and tell them something about synthetic biology and our project. In this way we hope to share some knowledge of science and attract them to devote to themselves to the process of discovering mysteries of nature in the future.
A lecture on general molecular biology, synthetic biology and iGEM was held in July. We introduced the basic molecular biology mechanism and iGEM to high school students who were deeply intrigued in biology.
In the beginning we introduced iGEM to students using 3 interesting iGEM projects as examples. Then we held a small class for the students: we exquisitely prepared a presentation specifically for students to introduce to them the basic knowledge of DNA and genetic engineering with simple words and lovely pictures.
We talked about the scale, location, function, discovery and shape of DNA based on history and researches as well as knowledge of genetic engineering introduced by a project done by USTC in iGEM 2014.
We also included a brief history about the development of synthetic biology in the lecture, hoping to impress them about the mechanism in biological world and thus they might be attracted into the field of biology in the future.
After that we showed them around our laboratory and introduce our equipments to them. In addition, procedure and some rules of using peptites were also taught to them. Many of the high school students showed strong interest in our project and biological experiments.
Then we played a video describing our daily experiments in laboratory, which was transcribed in advance. The video consists of four parts, plasmids extraction, making mediums, digging out single colonies and electrolysis, which were completed by four of our team members, respectively. With that video, high school students could gain more detailed and comprehensive knowledge of our experiments and project. In this way, we aimed to enhance their interest about synthetic biology.
Finally, since it is the 10th year that we have attended iGEM, the history of USTCers' participating in iGEM was told to them. We encouraged them to study harder to join us one day, so that our glory will be continued by THEMSELVES.
Although nowadays it become difficult for public to catch up with the rapidly developing science, we still believe few can influence many with their constructive suggestions and going into action so that one day people in China, even all over the world, will go forward with science shoulder by shoulder.
In the beginning of this semester we held a lecture for freshmen of our university to introduce iGEM competition as well as our project to them. By holding this lecture we wish to encourage those new students who are interested in synthetic biology and likely to choose biology as their major to try to learn more about this field and participate in iGEM competition next year.
Kaiyue Ma, the leader of Team USTC, gave them an introduction about molecular biology told them what the scientists do with the technique of synthetic biology. During the lecure, we tried to show that scientists hire the cutting-edge technology to explore the complex metabolic process of organisms and creat new applications for practical use such as Genetically Modified Organisms and treatment for diseases at the same time.
The lecture also included brief introductions of our project this year. The leader shared with them information about the spliting of GFP protein and the aggregation of prions. In addition, he talked about the iGEM competition and our trial and errors and of course achievements in our experiments and researches. In this way we hope to evoke their passion to biological science, passing on knowledge and enthusiasm to them, which might encourage them to work hard and try to make innonations in this field in the future.
It seemed that they were very interested in our project and synthetic biology. Some of them asked questions about our project about the details and others communicated a lot with our team members after the lecture. We were glad to share our ideas and experiences with them. We wish they could improve their knowledge and ability during their courses and maybe next year, they will take part in the iGEM competition for themselves.
