Difference between revisions of "Team:BIT-China/Collaborations"

This year, Jilin_China mainly helps us to improve and construct a model of substance changes about the experiment circuit (Fig. 1). We provide them the conditions and equations of each stage of chemical reaction and they are responsible for the realization of the equations and the whole regulating process.

BIT-CHINA construct the modeling equations preliminarily. The difficulty which we meet is how to identify the equations are right, how can we realize equations by modeling software and how to draw an image to reflect the whole process of the change of the substances. Because some members of Jilin_China, they are majoring in physics, math, computer science and chemistry, they have much experience in differential equations, application of MATLAB and designing of computer programs. With these resources, they have helped us solve our problems successfully.

Firstly, basing on the equations we provided they initial modify some of the equations.(Fig. 2).

Secondly, after several discussions with us, JLU understood the background of our modeling part and the problems they were about to settle. Because of some parameters in the equations is hard to measure, they reduce some unnecessary equations and change the number of the variables, which make the process through linear equations. The first picture is about the equations to describe the chemical reaction processes between the enzyme and substrate made by BIT-CHINA (Fig. 3). The second picture has two parts, the one part is about the equations replace by other symbols (Fig. 4), another part is about the linear equations to avoid measuring the parameter (Fig. 5). So we can use our experiment results to fit the equations by some modeling software.

On September 18th, 2016, we met and exchanged ideas with members of teams from Lanzhou by the Beijing Institute of Technology. After the meeting, we confirmed our collaboration relationship. To further extend our system, we asked them for helping us constructing the new BioBrick of our gene circuits.

They helped us finish the "another inhibitor" system (arac+pBAD+B0034+TetR+B0015+pTet+B0034+RFP+B0015)

In this system, pBAD is one of the inducible promoter (fromBBa_K808000) which can be induced by arabinose. B0034and B0032aretwo kinds of strong ribosome binding sites (RBS) and the strength of B0032 is only 33.96% of B0034. pTet promoter is constitutively ON and repressed by TetR repressor.

The "inhibitor" system is very important for our project, we use the concentration of inhibitor proteins as a signal indicating the plasmid numbers, and it can trigger the downstream reaction by activating the killer gene while the plasmid concentration reduce the threshold. So, in this circuit, we use the red fluorescent protein (RFP) to simulate the threshold of the pTet promoter.

CIEI-BJ is a high school team and it’s their first time to participate in iGEM competition this year. In the middle of July, team CIEI-BJ came to visit Beijing Institute of Technology and communicated with our team BIT-China.

As an undergraduate team, we shared the core concept of our project this year and explained a little bit about how we have exchanged ideas among the team members and how to assess the feasibility of our design as a reference for high school students.

Later, team members in high school also shared their fascinating ideas. However, some plans are not that practical due to the objective reasons. A lot of questioned were raised by members of BIT-China to help shape the project of team CIEI-BJ this year. The considerations refer to the practical meaning and the possibility of conduct for an appropriate project. What’s more, some suggestions are given to optimize the details like designing an experiment to prove a concept.

After the discussion, we showed high school students around our lab and explained the brief function of some experimental instruments. Besides, we introduced them to the previous projects of our team with the aid of posters preserved.

We help them design the basic gene circuit. In the next few months, the guidance of BIT-China to CIEI-BJ are not only limited to the project itself, but also extended to the details about the competition procedures. We have been in touch with CIEI-BJ through the Internet and give advice on many aspects, like how to present our iGEM program to potential sponsors and how to achieve the requirements for deliverables.

In September 17th, 2016, some members of BIT-China are invited to share their experience on how to design the wiki page. A few examples were given to explain the good elements in introducing the project in a simple way. What should be put on the wiki were also discussed during this meeting. Considering the web fluency and in order to design a clear page, notes are listed for high school members to pay attention when they are working on their wiki.

In the process of mentoring a high school team, we also benefited a lot. Not only did we engage in the competition, but also we had a better understanding of the community connected by iGEM.