Difference between revisions of "Team:OUC-China/Human Practices"

Overview

This year our team devoted to a novel regulation element, which makes great sense in synthetic biology but may be a little obscure for those who are unfamiliar with this field. Our regulation element works out through synthetic biology and then being acknowledged by the public. So our work was performed around three cores: our design, synthetic biology and public acknowledgement. And below are the diagrams of our project working mechanism.

We carried out our human practices in three parts:

1. Communicating and Improving: Consulted experts of synthetic biology to evaluate our project and improved our design.
2. Investigating and Promoting: Investigated the popularity and acknowledgement of our design as well as synthetic biology and devoted to promoting them.
3. Potential Application: Did some practical research and looked for potential specific proteins that can be applied with our design.

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PartⅠ

Communicating and Improving

At the beginning of our project design, we met a tough problem of choosing chassis. We had two choices, B.subtilis and E.coli. The B.subtilis is a kind of Gram-positive bacterium and is more similar to our prototype---C.cellulolyticum, but the E.coli is more versatile and widely used.

We summarized our doubts and consulted Dr. Xu Chenggang, an expert in C.cellulolyticum research. Then we got the advice of comparing more differences that related to our design and he recommended us several useful software. In the process of blasting and comparing enzyme system between the two, we found that E.coli has no exoribonuclease that can digest from 5’ termini, which will be of great benefit to our whole design. With the help of expert and our deep research, we made sure our chassis and went on with further design.

Figure 1. 2016 OUC-iGEMers with Dr. Xu

Then in September, we joined the CCiC (Conference of China iGEMer Committee) held by SYSU, which is a communicating platform for Chinese iGEM teams. About 30 teams and 300 iGEMers from all over China gathered together. We shared our design with other iGEMers and we were glad that we received many specific responses, from constructive project design to detailed data process skills. Then according to those suggestions, we modified our original design and added two supplementary proof experiments, which was essential to the integrity of our project.

Figure 2．Open ceremony of CCIC

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Part Ⅱ

Investigating and Promoting

Our novel regulation element reflects on synthetic biology as the realization of quantitative expression. To explore the potential promotion of our design, we firstly carried out a questionnaire survey about quantification and synthetic biology.

We analyzed the survey result, to our astonishment, most people were lack of basic perception about quantification. For example, among the more than 500 investigators, 40% people didn’t consider meals combination as an example of quantification, and more than half frankly said that they knew little about synthetic biology. Click here to see the survey result.

Figure 3 extent of the public knowing of synthetic biology

Given the insufficient popularization of quantification as well as synthetic biology, we focused on the spreading of basal knowledge. From campus to society, we used as much resource as possible to spreading synthetic biology and quantification.

StepⅠ Spreading around us

For people who are interested in nature science like university students, we designed series of activities for them to enjoy personal experience about synthetic biology.
Firstly, in our school, we held lectures and attracted about 100 students to introduce synthetic biology in details and got the feedback that they were interested in the newly developed subject and some were grouped together to explore more about it(Figure 4).
Then, we held an academic summer camp and invited about 20 students from different universities. We stayed together with them for two weeks and shared a lot with them. Besides basic communicating in literature and experiment skills, we also held a small academic jamboree activity, with integral presentation and poster sections(Figure 5). Moreover, after the camp closing, we received the feedback that they enjoyed this academic exploration very much and would share what they had learned with more people.

StepⅡ Popularizing to the public

For the public, we tried to publicize synthetic biology by using relatively easy words toward as many people as possible through our activities.
We went to communities and tourist attractions and met people from the young to the old. With the help of our distributed brochures, we explained basic knowledge of synthetic biology and the meaning of quantification in their daily lives(Figure 6).
We also posted our original video on website which used simple words and vivid flash to introduce the basic knowledge of synthetic biology(Figure 7).

StepⅢ Further communicating via social service organization

Other novel ways are come up to spread synthetic besides above traditional ways. We got connected with Qingdao Association for Science and Technology, a non-profit social service organization for popularizing science and technology knowledge to the public
At there, we got the chance to displayed scientific knowledge to visitors. For example, we held an academic lecture for a delegation from Tibet, Autonomous Region, where the economic and educational development is relatively backward (Figure 8). According to the feedback from them, they were willing to know more innovative things and encourages us to do more.

Figure8. We held a lecture to the delegation from Tibet

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Youth education

For people who are more interested in nature science like university students, we designed series activities for them to enjoy personal experience about syntheticbiology. We held a summer camp and invited about 30 students from different universities all over China, like Shandong Agricultural University etc. By holding jamboree to present posters, doing experiment of molecular biology, doing literature based on research, students enjoyed themselves in synthetic biology and achieved necessary skill for academic exploration. In our school, we also held similar academic activities to attract more potential students to join in synthetic biology. For example, we held lectures for about 100 students to introduce synthetic biology in details.

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Consulting with specialists

When designing our project in April, we went to visited researcher Chengang, Xu in Qingdao Institute of Bioenergy and Bioprocess Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences. At that time, we wanted to have the feasibility analysis of our design. More importantly, we met problems about chassis. We initially design our project based on B.subtilis, a kind of gram-positive bacterium but after consulting Professor Xu, who did research related to our project and suggested us to use E.coli, which would make our experiment more feasible. We then compared the enzyme system both in B.subtilis and E.coli and found that in E.coli there was no enzyme cleavage from 5’. Therefore, we finally determined to use E.coli, the more versatile chassis.

In September, we joined the CCiC( Conference of China iGEMer Committee), which was a platform for Chinese iGEM teams to communicate with each other. About 30 teams and 300 iGEMers from all over China gathered together this year and we got numerous responses from others, including suggestions on the thoughts of experiments, heated discussions on pathway design, and reflections on safety and application. Attendance of CCiC helped us acquire both reflections and inspiration from communicating, and improved our projects in the end.

Particularly, we consulted our project and experiment with Haoqian, Zhang, the co-founder of an iGEM startup in China named Bluepha. He was the former leader of Peking iGEM 2010 and had rich experiment of iGEM. At the beginning, he thought quantification had the significant meaning in synthetic biology as well. He then gave us lots of specific and useful suggestion. For example, he advised us to exchange the upstream and downstream proteins to make our project more powerful. We adopted this suggestion and modified our project when we came back from CCiC. Besides, we met problems with our modeling. Another former leader of OUC iGEM, Yang, Liu suggested us to solve these problems in other alternative ways, which would make our work more efficient.