Difference between revisions of "Team:BNU-China/Engagement"

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           <h2>Investigation of <i>Taxus yunnanensis<i></h2>
 
           <h2>Investigation of <i>Taxus yunnanensis<i></h2>
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             <p>As to our project this year, we modified the homo sapiens tubulin alpha 1a , connected it with luciferase report gene’s N terminal or C terminal , and we put the modified α-tubulin and β-tubulin into E-coli to reduce them . Then we will get a kit containing the tubulins and buffer which has the appropriate condition verified by experiments. We call the kit “taxolight”, and it can do these things:</p>
+
             <p>The most famous microtubule-stabilizing medicine is taxol, which comes from extraction of taxus trees. However, since the great performance in curing cancer was discovered, yew trees in Yunnan have experienced a period of massacre, which caused a sharp decrease in yew population. So, in these years, the government has taken measures to protect them. Then we are wondering whether those measures truly work and how is everything going with yew trees now in Yunnan. So we spend several days this summer in Yunnan investigating the yew trees there. We went to some places including Yunnan Hande Biotechnology corporation which is the first producing souce of taxol in China, Yunnan Acadamy of Forestry (YAF) and Kunming Institute of Botany (KIB), Chinese Academy of Science. Besides, we carried on some population survey in Heilongtan Park, Yunnan University and Kunming Botanical Garden.</p>
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            <h4>1. drug screen</h4>
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             <p>Through our survey, we learned that there are more and more yew tree plant bases coming into being in Yunnan and they are mainly allocated at sipsongpanna, Wenshan, Diqing, and so on. The distribution of wild yew trees is dispersive and in small population, for both natural and human reasons. In the YAF, Dr. Jinfeng Zhang and his fellow said that it’s important to nurture artificial yew forests, especially from the angle of economy and forestry. The yew tree and its wood are both valueable so the artificial forest is a great protection of wild trees. He said that, the yew tree do have other value in addition to anticancer. For example, it can be used to treat diabetes, skin desease and sore throat. Besides, its wood is also precious (Though we can’t agree with some of what he said.).</p>
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             <p>Anti-cancer agents especially paclitaxel have showed their magnificent power in clinical application, but also are a little unsatisfactory. We still need to look for new drugs that more effective.</p>
+
 
             <p>The existing method to screen anti-microtubule agents needs purifying tubulins of mammalian brains. It relies on the features of tubulins that the solution turbid will increase when then polymerize in vitro under 37℃ centigrade. So using this method, we can get a polymerization curve shaped sigmoid formed by the liquid OD value to the soaking time, correspondingly, we can also get a de-polymerization curve when putting the tubulins into ice. When adding different anti-microtubule agents, polymerization of "S" type curve or pour de-polymerization of "S" type curve has different effects, and we can determine the role of the drug according to the change of curve. The defects of this method are as follows:</p>
 
             <p>The existing method to screen anti-microtubule agents needs purifying tubulins of mammalian brains. It relies on the features of tubulins that the solution turbid will increase when then polymerize in vitro under 37℃ centigrade. So using this method, we can get a polymerization curve shaped sigmoid formed by the liquid OD value to the soaking time, correspondingly, we can also get a de-polymerization curve when putting the tubulins into ice. When adding different anti-microtubule agents, polymerization of "S" type curve or pour de-polymerization of "S" type curve has different effects, and we can determine the role of the drug according to the change of curve. The defects of this method are as follows:</p>
 
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Revision as of 16:34, 13 October 2016

Team:BNU-CHINA - 2016.igem.org

HUMAN PRACTICE

Human Practice

Preface

Why We Do This

In recent years, cancer has become one of the most serious killers threatening human health. Morbidity and mortality raising continuously, cancer is becoming a primary death reason and a significant public health problem. As is reported by Chinese Cancer Statistics 2015, there will be more than 4 million new cancer cases and nearly 3 million deaths of cancer in 2015. It has become one of the most serious problems facing by China, even globe, to treat cancer effectively.

Aiming at different kind of cancers, different medicine and treatments have been developed based on different therapy principles. However, the detecting and screening of medicines now is conducted based more on chemical methods, which is sometimes complex and time-consuming. Inspired by the properties of microtubule-stabilizing agent taxol, we developed a method to screen medicines based on the microtubule stabilization. If microtubule-stabilizing molecule exists, our engineered protein will polymerize and show light which can be detected through microscope. We expect it to be a more sensitive and effective system screening anticancer agents.

Our Human Practice is based on the project and included interviews, investigations and games we designed

PREPARING BEFORE BEGINNING

Mini-iGEM

We organized the Mini-iGEM competition, which took a month, before our project began. As its name, the competition is for small iGEM projects designed by ten groups. They worked as iGEM’s pattern and designed a project or solve a problem using principles of synthetic biology. Then we invited some professors to score these projects and give their advice. Through this competition, we found some inspiring ideas and on the other hand deepened students’ understand of iGEM.

Here are some of posters of Mini-iGEM.

Fig.1 The poster of Mini-team Ark which won the Mini-iGEM and becomes BNU-China later.
Fig.2 One of Mini-teams which focused on bio-product of hydrogen. And it provided a nice idea
SEEING IS BELIEVING

Investigation of Taxus yunnanensis

The most famous microtubule-stabilizing medicine is taxol, which comes from extraction of taxus trees. However, since the great performance in curing cancer was discovered, yew trees in Yunnan have experienced a period of massacre, which caused a sharp decrease in yew population. So, in these years, the government has taken measures to protect them. Then we are wondering whether those measures truly work and how is everything going with yew trees now in Yunnan. So we spend several days this summer in Yunnan investigating the yew trees there. We went to some places including Yunnan Hande Biotechnology corporation which is the first producing souce of taxol in China, Yunnan Acadamy of Forestry (YAF) and Kunming Institute of Botany (KIB), Chinese Academy of Science. Besides, we carried on some population survey in Heilongtan Park, Yunnan University and Kunming Botanical Garden.

Through our survey, we learned that there are more and more yew tree plant bases coming into being in Yunnan and they are mainly allocated at sipsongpanna, Wenshan, Diqing, and so on. The distribution of wild yew trees is dispersive and in small population, for both natural and human reasons. In the YAF, Dr. Jinfeng Zhang and his fellow said that it’s important to nurture artificial yew forests, especially from the angle of economy and forestry. The yew tree and its wood are both valueable so the artificial forest is a great protection of wild trees. He said that, the yew tree do have other value in addition to anticancer. For example, it can be used to treat diabetes, skin desease and sore throat. Besides, its wood is also precious (Though we can’t agree with some of what he said.).

The existing method to screen anti-microtubule agents needs purifying tubulins of mammalian brains. It relies on the features of tubulins that the solution turbid will increase when then polymerize in vitro under 37℃ centigrade. So using this method, we can get a polymerization curve shaped sigmoid formed by the liquid OD value to the soaking time, correspondingly, we can also get a de-polymerization curve when putting the tubulins into ice. When adding different anti-microtubule agents, polymerization of "S" type curve or pour de-polymerization of "S" type curve has different effects, and we can determine the role of the drug according to the change of curve. The defects of this method are as follows: