Difference between revisions of "Team:Bordeaux/Integrated Practices"

 
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            <h1>What causes sleep disorders ?</h1>
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            <p align="justify">Our main problematic concerns the sleeping troubles. The project <b>Sleep with EpiC elegans</b> tried to propose another solution to treat these disorders instead of use medications. In this part, we decided to be interested in the <b>potential causes of sleep disorders</b> by creating <b>two forms</b> that we diffused on streets and internet. We also considered the <b>non-medication alternatives</b> helping to decrease sleeping troubles. Finally, we also want to know the <b>difficulties for people suffering from sleep disorders</b> and we sucessed to have some interviews of them.</p>
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        <h1>Street Interviews & Surveys broadcast by social networks</h1>
  
 
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      <p align="justify">In order to make people know about our iGEM project, we have created two surveys which were carried out with the aim to:</p>
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      <ul>
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          <li>learn more about what non scientist people think about synthetic biology</li>
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      <li>know their opinion about drugs created with this technique</li>
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      <li>know if they were aware about sleep disorders.</li>
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      </ul>
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      <h3 style="text-align:center">Our first study: How sleep people?</h3>
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      <p align="justify">In the first survey, <b>279 answers</b> were obtained thanks to <b>social networks</b> and <b>street interviews</b>. Most of them are french student (69,1 %). </p>
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      <h4>Can you easily sleep during the week or the week-end?</h4>
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      <p align="justify">69.5% people from our survey get easily to sleep whether it is during the week or the weekend. When they have sleep troubles, only 5% use sleeping pills.  When we did our street interviews, many people said that they prefer to avoid drugs for sleeping because they don’t like their side effects. </p>
  
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      <h4>1. How often do you awake in a night?</h4>
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      <p align="justify">66% sleep on average 6-9 hours.  Among them, <b>65% feel tired</b> during the day and in 52% it leads to trouble for staying awake. Moreover, people prefer to consume stimulants such as <b>coffee or tea for</b> half of them, rather than taking a moment  to have a nap, even occasionally for a third. And this, despite the fact that these sleep disorders representing 16 %, <b>have an impact on their mood in half of the cases.</b></p>
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      <figure>
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          <img src="https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2016/6/63/T--Bordeaux--durationSleep.png"
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          style="display:block;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;width:50%;height:auto" title="Duration of sleep">
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          <figcaption align="center"><b>Duration of sleep for our panel</b></figcaption>
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      <h4>2. About synthetic biology</h4>
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      <figure><img src="https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2016/3/34/T--Bordeaux--synBio.png"
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          style="display:block;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;width:50%;height:auto" title="Knowing synthetic biology">
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          <figcaption align="center"><b>Do you know synthetic biology?</b></figcaption>
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            <h1>What is the synthetic biology?</h1>
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            <p align="justify">Synthetic biology is part of your daily life and you might not even know it. It is present in
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sectors such as the industry, health, energy or even agriculture.</p>
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<h3 align="justify">But what is synthetic biology?</h3>
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<p align="justify">Synthetic biology appeared in the XXth century. It is one of the fields that studies life
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      <p align="justify">Synthetic biology is an unknown word for the majority of interviewee (62%). Most of people <b>don’t found it is dangerous for health (64%)</b> or more dangerous than drugs created by chemistry (91%). However, there is reluctance at the idea of taking synthetic biology drugs for 58 % of interviewed people.</p>
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sciences. It blends knowledge from fields such as biology, genetics, chemistry and engineering disciplines (mathematics models and computer simulations in particular). <br>
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Synthetic biology ensures the creation of reliable biological systems with complex functions. <br><br>
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These approaches are used in research to solve mysteries that surround certain mechanisms, but also in the industry where organisms are genetically modified in order to provide a molecule of interest. For example, antibodies used in the vaccine Lymphoma© are produced in large-scale quantities in the tobacco plant.<br>
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Two major approaches exist :</p>
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<ul>
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<li>the <b>“top-down” approach</b> consists in simplifying a pre-existant biological system to understand it's basic functioning. For example, removing chaperoning proteins allows visualization of the effects of a damaged protein in a metabolic pathway. <br>
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Chaperonins are proteins that are found in a cell and that ensure the correct folding of other proteins, an essential step for a smooth functioning of these proteins in the cell.</li>
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<li>The <b>“bottom-up”</b> approach consists in building bio-bricks, which are DNA segments that where modified from synthetic or existing sequences with defined functions in an organism. These new sequences are then assembled, like a Lego game, and the functions in the newly obtained biological system are observed. This procedure is applied by thousands of researchers and students, notably during the annual <i>International Genetically Engineered Machine</i> or iGEM contest.</li>
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<h3 align="justify">What are the tools used in synthetic biology?</h3>
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<p align="justify">Amongst the key tools used in synthetic biology, need to be mentioned DNA sequencing and bio-computer sciences. The combination of these two techniques allow, for example,
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to identity positions and functions of a gene of interest. Huge databases are available, namely the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) and Protein Data Bank (PDB), that compose an essential source of information when setting up a synthetic biology project.</p>
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<img src="https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2016/f/f7/T--Bordeaux--Biofuel.jpg"
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style="display:block;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;width:15%;height:auto"
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title="Biofuel">
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<p style="text-align:center"><i>Synthetic Biology can be used to create biofuel</i></p>
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<h3 align="justify">What is the use of synthetic biology?</h3>
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      <h5>In conclusion: This first survey was interesting to know if our project could be useful for people. Even if people of our survey didn't suffer from chronic sleep disorders, it is important to know how they feel  about our initiative. Moreover, we can determine if people know  synthetic biology in order to give them more explanations.</h5>
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<p align="justify">Synthetic biology has allowed many advancements. A first example is the modification of <i>Saccharomyces cerevisiae</i> (beer yeast) in order to increase the production of artemisinic acid, the precursor involved in the anti-malaria treatment <i>(High-level semi-synthetic production of the potent antimalarial artemisinin, Nature, 2013)</i>. This permitted a reduction
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by half of the costs and an increase in the treatment availability. A second example is the production of hydrocarbon. Genes in <i>E.coli</i> where modified and permitted the synthesis of a bio-fuel <i>(Escherichia coli Genetic engineering of Escherichia coli for biofuel production, 2010)</i>. Its metabolism was then improved to produce these hydrocarbons in greater quantities.</i>
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<div class="square">
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      <h3 style="text-align:center">Our second study: What cause sleep troubles ?</h3>
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<h3 align="justify">In conclusion</h3>
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<p align="justify">The field of synthetic biology is currently expanding, especially in France, in the United States and in Japan. It gives high hopes for numerous industrial applications in the fields of health (more efficient therapies), energy (bio-fuels), materials, the environment (waste management) and agriculture (soil adapted crops). Full of promises, synthetic biology has proved itself, but still has a long way ahead of itself. <br>
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      <p align="justify">In the second survey, 115 answers were obtained and only through social networks. Once again most of interviewed people  are students.</p>
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The most recent advancement of synthetic biology goes back to March 25 th 2016. An article published in Sciences caused an uproar in the world of synthetic biology. Indeed, a team in the United States built a bacteria cell with only the minimum genes necessary for sustaining the cell in a live state. This study is a huge step forward in the understanding of the functions of numerous genes.</p>
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<p style="text-align:right">Linejy & Maurene – iGEM Bordeaux</p>
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      <h4>1. Sleep disorders and stress</h4>
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      <p align="justify">We would like to know if stress may impact sleep. <b>Most of people (55.8%)</b> declare to <b>have problems to get sleeping.</b> If they answered yes, they mostly explain it is by <b>stress and anxiety (42%).</b> Indeed, 77,9 % of interviewed people proclaim being often stressed. Furthermore 89,8 % of them think that their stress has an impact on their sleep. </p>
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      <figure><img src="https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2016/9/93/T--Bordeaux--sleepAndstress.png" style="display:block;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;width:70%;height:auto" title="Sleep and stress">
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          <figcaption><b>Questions on sleep and stress</b></figcaption>
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          </figure>
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      <h4>2. What are the cause of their stress</h4>
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      <p align="justify">When we asked them what the causes of this anxiety, 77 % of interviewee proclaims that it is linked to their <b>studies or their jobs.</b> Moreover, 11 % use <b>sport to help them to distress</b> in the evening while half try to relax in order to sleep.<b> To relax they read books, practice relaxation, breathing exercises or even use alternative medicine such as essential oils.</b></p>
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      <h4>3. Activities used for helping to sleep</h4>
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      <!-- Image --><figure><img src="https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2016/d/df/T--Bordeaux--therapyGraph.png" style="display:block;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;width:60%;height:auto" title="Alternative therapies">
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          <figcaption><b>Alternatives therapies for helping to sleep</b></figcaption>
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          </figure>
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      <p align="justify">We proposed to people several activities to know if they have already tried it in order to sleep better.<br>
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63 % answer they do nothing, 13,7 % aromatherapy, 6,3% Yoga, 5,3% Sophrology, 5,3% Osteopathy, 3,2% sleep medicine, 1,1 % Hypnosis.
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</p>
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      <h4>4. About our project</h4>
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      <p align="justify">In the final questions of our survey, we decided to present <b>our iGEM project</b> and we want to know if people are interested to use our treatment if they have sleep troubles.<br>
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We saw that almost <b>half percent of people are agree to use it and the other half are against this treatment.</b></p>
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                <ul>       
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                    <li>For those in favor for this project, 47.5% say they will use our treatment because it is a <b>natural molecule found in human </b> and it's a great idea. 15% will use this to replace sleeping pills, 15% will use this as a trail, 22.5% will use this to improve their sleep.</li>
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                    <li>For those against this project, 60,4% will not use our treatment because it's a drug, 20,8% are afraid of side effects, 18,8%for others reasons.</li>
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                </ul>
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          <h5>In conclusion: This second survey made us realize that sleep troubles are mainly induced by stress. Lifestyle influenced our way to sleep and each people has his own way to manage their sleep troubles. Our panel had not a relevant position concerning our project. Both side has his own arguments to use or not our treatment. </h5>
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<br><br>
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      <div class="square">
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             <h3>In conlusion</h3>
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      <p align="justify">Our survey was very instructive, but it was skewed because many students answered to our surveys, so our panel was too specific. In majority, they declared issues to get to sleep because of stress. It is mainly linked to their jobs or studies. In majority, they resort to relaxation or even alternative medicines to help them to sleep. Moreover, most of them ignore what synthetic biology means. When we give them information about our project and the drug it could lead to, they seems really interested. Nevertheless, opinions are divided when we ask them if they were ready to take our treatment...</p></div>
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        <h1>iGEM Bordeaux tried for you ...</h1>
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            <h3>Yoga</h3>
 
              
 
              
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             <div id="memory">
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             <p align="justify">Since we were working on sleep, we have been also interested in non-medicinal means to solve sleep disorders. After some investigations, we met professionals that work everyday on the human body and sometimes their own body. That work is known as an efficient way to find a solution against sleep difficulties.</p>
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            <h1>How does memory work?</h1>
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             <p align="jusitfy">From March 14th to 18th 2016, in Bordeaux, took place the week dedicated to the brain with numerous workshops, film projections, and conferences. In order to correctly honor the human brain, its incredible talent – memorization – must be mentioned.</p>
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             <img src="https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2016/8/86/T--Bordeaux--Yoga.jpg" style="display:block;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;width:30%;height:auto" title="Patrick Boulon, our yoga teacher">
  
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             <p align="justify"><b>But what is memory?</b> It is our brain's capacity to store information concerning past events, with the aim of recalling them later if necessary. This is why we feel at ease with known people or in a familiar environment.</p>
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             <p align="justify">First, we had the opportunity to attend a <b>yoga session</b> with <b>Patrick Boulon</b> as the leader. We learnt a different way to breathe called <b>« fire breath »</b> used jointly with movements and postures related to a specific type of yoga called <i>Kounda-lini</i> (“royal yoga”). During this session, we were invited to do some meditation with songs called Mantra originally from India. It seems that yoga is beneficial against sleep disorders as long as the daily pressure causes them. The energy that is released when we combine a posture of tension with a strong breath help to evacuate the stress. We had a very good time trying out something different as it was our first time. <br>
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With the yoga session, we discovered a way to relax by working on our own body. But some professionals also use to work on the body of someone else in order to find the origin of pain or tension. </p>
  
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            <p align="justify">There are two types of memory. The first one, called <b>immune memory</b>, is associated with the immune system. When our body is attacked by a foreign entity, a virus for example, our immune system stores its characteristics and the actions that were taken to fight it off. In case of a re-infection by this same entity, our immune memory allows a more rapid and more efficient response. <br>
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            The second one, called <b>cerebral memory</b>, can be split in three major categories:</p>
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                <p style="text-align:center">
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                <img src="https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2016/4/45/T--Bordeaux--Yoga1.jpg" style="padding-right:10px;width:30%;height:auto" title="Yoga1">
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                <img src="https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2016/7/71/T--Bordeaux--Yoga2.jpg" style="padding-right:10px;width:30%;height:auto" title="Yoga2">
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                <img src="https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2016/6/6a/T--Bordeaux--Yoga3.jpg" style="width:30%;height:auto" title="Yoga3">
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            <ul>
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<p align="justify">We also had the opportunity to interview a chiropractor, <b>Pierre Henri Champaud</b>, and a student in osteopathy, <b>Anouk Antrig</b>. Both practice a very manual work on the body.</p>
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                <li>sensory memory stores information gathered thanks to our five senses (vision, audition, smell, touch, taste)</li>
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                <li>short term memory allows us to act thanks to our brain's analysis of collected sensory information from the outside world. A typical example is wincing when recognizing a foul smell. This memory can only hold seven different information  simultaneously and has a short life span. For example, the digits in a telephone number are only stored for a couple of minutes.</li>
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                <li>long term memory stores knowledge and general culture, as well as repeated actions (for example riding a bike or knitting)</li>
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            </ul>
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             <p align="justify">Biologically speaking, memory is the creation of a connection between two brain cells, called neurons. An electric signal is transmitted from the pre-synaptic neuron along the axon to the synaptic button, where a chemical molecule – a neurotransmitter – is released. These molecules such as acetylcholine cross the synaptic cleft between the two neurons, then bind to the receptors on the surface of the post-synaptic neuron. The chemical signal is then transformed into an electric signal again. </p>
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             <h3>Chiropracxy</h3>
  
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             <p align="justify">Memory depends on multiple factors such as age, gender and genes. Indeed, memorization is easier before 30 years-old because our capacity to concentrate is better. Memory disorders can appear with age or be the consequence of pathologies such as a stroke or Alzheimer's disease. However, in many cases, cerebral plasticity allows a partial or total recovery of souvenirs. It is even possible to improve one's memory. “Intelligent” drugs increase blood surges to the brain and release chemical substances there, improving concentration. But playing memory games, using keys words, or eating foods enriched in unsaturated omega-3 such as tuna or oysters, can be equally effective.</p>
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             <img src="https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2016/2/2c/T--Bordeaux--Chropractor.jpg" style="display:block;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;width:30%;height:auto" title="Pierre Henri Champaud, chiropractor">
  
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             <p align="justify">Memory is therefore a very complex process that uses billions of neurons. In our daily lives, it is constantly sought out for by our body and our need to recall previously stored information. The proverb “Even if you lost your head, you've still got your feet to do the work” proves our memory must be nurtured. Thus, remember to exercise your brain and memory from time to time in order to be at your best!</p>
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             <p align="justify">As a <b>chiropractor</b>, Pierre Henri Champaud tries to relieve his patients by focusing on the nervous system. He works on articulations to release the nervous system from interferences. Sometimes, an articulation with reduced mobility can lead to repercussions on muscles or organs related to spinal column. This way, a chiropractor focuses on very functional aspects and he manages to solve many problems related to stresses such as physical stress, chemical stress or emotional stress. When he has released patients from their stress, he has helped them to sleep better since sleep is related to physical and emotional health.</p>
  
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             <p style="text-align:right">Maurene – iGEM Bordeaux</p>
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            <h3>Osteopathy</h3>
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            <img src="https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2016/4/46/T--Bordeaux--Osteopathy.jpg" style="display:block;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;width:30%;height:auto" title="Anouk Antrig, ostheopathy student">
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            <p align="justify">While Pierre Henri Champaud concentrate on the spinal column, Anouk Antrig tries to work on the whole body with <b>osteopathy</b>. She is looking for the physical and emotional well being of the body. According to her, sometimes a dysfunction appears in a precise spot, however the patient feels a pain in another part of the body. As an osteopath, her role is to find the origin of this pain to relieve the patient. Usually, Anouk can meet people suffering from a deterioration of sleep due to the growing pain. As she relieves them from the pain, they can sleep better again. Emilie tried for you some exercises of osteopathy. After 20 minutes, all her body worked, so she felt sleepy.</p>
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            <img src="https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2016/3/3a/T--Bordeaux--Osteopthy1.jpg" style="display:block;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;width:60%;height:auto" title="Osteopathy1">
  
 
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             <h1>How does sleep work?</h1>
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             <div class="square">
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            <h3>In conlusion</h3>
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            <p alig="justify">So according to these professionals, people have in general problems to sleep because of the pression they experience everyday. This stress can be relieved thanks if the person or the patient trust them and communicate freely about his problems. However, there are sleep diseases that cannot be healed even with non medical care. These professions can only help to alleviate the discomfort of the disease and to improve the daily life.</p>
 
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    <section id="interviews">
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             <h5 style="text-align:right">Return to <a href="https://2016.igem.org/Team:Bordeaux/HP/Gold">Popularization</a> page</h5>
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             <h1 align="center">Talking about sleep disorders with patients</h1>
 
              
 
              
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            <p align="justify">As part of its project “Sleep with C elegans” the iGEM Bordeaux 2016 team carried out several interviews. The people interviewed suffer from minor or major sleep disorders. We were interested in their pathology, the causes and the medical consequences on their health. This constitutes the factual and scientific aspect of this disease: it is what motivates pharmaceutical industries to produce drugs, what motivates researchers to solve the mysteries of mechanisms leading to sleep disorders and what motivates the iGEM Bordeaux 2016 team to develop a treatment thanks to synthetic biology, that would be an alternative to a chemical treatment. <br>
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            However, we were especially curious about the daily life of these people. We were interested in what they felt and about the impacts of sleep disorders on their routine. We explained our project and the benefits of synthetic biology in the development of treatments for sleep disorders. They gave us their opinion on the question. <br>
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            Here under, you will find several testimonies. All the people interviewed have authorized the use of the information collected during an interview as part of our project. The text might have been modified in order to preserve the person's intimacy or for confidentiality reasons. <br><br>
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            <a id="interview1" onclick="interview1_display()">Click there to read the interview</a></p>
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                html += "<h1>Interview of Coralie, suffering from insomnia</h1>";
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                html += "<p align=\"justify\"><font color=blue>iGEM<\/font>: <b>Hi, Coralie, can you present yourself in few words?<\/b><br>";
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                html += "<font color=\"orange\">Coralie<\/font>: Hello, I am 22 years-old. I will soon start a course in order to become an educational assistant in a middle school, as well as having little student jobs here and there. What else …. <br>";
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                html += "I write, even though it does not pay. Just words, kind words.<br><br>";
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                html += "<font color=blue>iGEM<\/font>: <b>Could you describe your sleep disorder?<\/b><br>";
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                html += "<font color=\"orange\">Coralie<\/font>: I have problems sleeping since the age of 8. I need a lot of time to fall asleep once lying down in bed, something like three hours. I wake up approximately every 45minutes\/1 hour. I alternate between phases of insomnia and phases of hypersomnia. I sleep either very little or too much, there is no in between. Bt in both cases, I wake up as explained before. <br><br>";
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                html += "<font color=blue>iGEM<\/font>: <b>Do you know the reasons of these sleepingproblems? Do you know if they are linked to a particular disease? <\/b><br>";
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                html += "<font color=\"orange\">Coralie<\/font>: Yes, I suffer from migraines and chronic aches. I often wake because my body is in pain. Sleepless nights or nights where I sleep a lot (12 to 15 hours in bed) are due to other causes. <br><br>";
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                html += "<font color=blue>iGEM<\/font>: <b>Do these sleep disorders affect your daily life? DO they impact your moods or your relationships with others?<\/b><br>";
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                html += "<font color=\"orange\">Coralie<\/font>: Yes, given the fact my nights are not restful at all (as soon as I wake, I am tired). I can be moody with my [circle of friends or family members]. It is also annoying for work and my studies. Some days, I could no even get up because I was too tired. When I went to classes, I could no concentrate and lost track of the lesson very easily. I had to copy off my classmates. <br>";
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                html += "The same type of situation happens when I have to participate in a long conversation or participate in an activity\/field trip. I know ahead of it that it will be difficult to keep up and that I will need a lot of energy as I am already tired. It is also necessary for me to lie down during the day when I cannot take it anymore and I am obliged to take pills to fall asleep. <br><br>";
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                html += "<font color=blue>iGEM<\/font>: <b>Do you have a treatment for these sleep disorders? And if yes, do they treat your symtoms efficiently? <\/b><br>";
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                html += "<font color=\"orange\">Coralie<\/font>: Yes I take sleeping pills but it is not a real treatment. I undergo what they call a “denial of disease” from the medical community regarding invisible diseases. [They do not consider my sickness to be real.] So I take what I can find in pharmacies without a medical  prescription. I therefore take half a sleeping pill every night to help me sleep and sometimes I take a pill to fight off stress because they help to drowse.<br>";
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                html += "These two drugs help me sleep and I wake up every hour or hour and a quarter rather [than more often]. It is not much better but it is an improvement.";
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            html += "Before I took pills of the benzodiazepin category that I stopped because I crashed into walls (literally) because of them. <br><br>";
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            html += "<font color=blue>iGEM<\/font>: <b>Are you implying that doctors do not consider your sleep disorders as a disease? <\/b><br>";
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            html += "<font color=\"orange\">Coralie<\/font>: I'd rather say that [doctors] do not know what to do. They do not care and they have been telling me “it'll pass” for over fifteen years now.<br><br>";
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            html += "<font color=blue>iGEM<\/font>: <b>In our survey, we offer alternative treatments to traditional drug treatments. Is there an activity you would like to try (yoga, hypnosis, aromatherapy, chiropractic treatments, osteopath treatments, taichi, acupuncture)? <\/b><br>";
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            html += "<font color=\"orange\">Coralie<\/font>: I have already tried osteopath treatments and it did not work at all, it was a disaster even. I tried yoga but it did not work either. I have little knowledge of the other [techniques] so I am eager to know more about them. But I do not think I will be able to try them, or at least not on";
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            html += "the long term, because of the cost they generate. <br><br>";
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            html += "<font color=blue>iGEM<\/font>: <b>Our project “Sleep with EpiC elegans” allows the study of the effects of a molecule naturally produced by the human body called Delta Sleep Inducing Peptide (DSIP) that helps falling asleep. People who suffer from insomnia or narcolepsy might have a deficiency in the quantity of DSIP produced. This is why it might be interesting to use it as the active molecule of a new medical treatment. <br> If such a treatment where to exist, would you like to try it and why? What do you think of our project? What are the positive aspects that intrigues you and the negative ones that scare you off?<\/b><br>";
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            html += "<font color=\"orange\">Coralie<\/font>: I find the project very interesting! The project and the work flow are very well laid out. On the one hand, you are trying to create an innovative treatment, but on the other hand, you also";
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            html += "take into account alternative treatments for sleep disorders. I really like the idea of investigating other techniques and not just medication, even though their effects and efficiency towards sleep disorders have not been proven. The only drawback I have about.<\/p>";
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Latest revision as of 23:41, 19 October 2016

Sleep with EpiC elegans

What causes sleep disorders ?

Our main problematic concerns the sleeping troubles. The project Sleep with EpiC elegans tried to propose another solution to treat these disorders instead of use medications. In this part, we decided to be interested in the potential causes of sleep disorders by creating two forms that we diffused on streets and internet. We also considered the non-medication alternatives helping to decrease sleeping troubles. Finally, we also want to know the difficulties for people suffering from sleep disorders and we sucessed to have some interviews of them.

Street Interviews & Surveys broadcast by social networks

In order to make people know about our iGEM project, we have created two surveys which were carried out with the aim to:

  • learn more about what non scientist people think about synthetic biology
  • know their opinion about drugs created with this technique
  • know if they were aware about sleep disorders.

Our first study: How sleep people?

In the first survey, 279 answers were obtained thanks to social networks and street interviews. Most of them are french student (69,1 %).

Can you easily sleep during the week or the week-end?

69.5% people from our survey get easily to sleep whether it is during the week or the weekend. When they have sleep troubles, only 5% use sleeping pills. When we did our street interviews, many people said that they prefer to avoid drugs for sleeping because they don’t like their side effects.

1. How often do you awake in a night?

66% sleep on average 6-9 hours. Among them, 65% feel tired during the day and in 52% it leads to trouble for staying awake. Moreover, people prefer to consume stimulants such as coffee or tea for half of them, rather than taking a moment to have a nap, even occasionally for a third. And this, despite the fact that these sleep disorders representing 16 %, have an impact on their mood in half of the cases.

Duration of sleep for our panel

2. About synthetic biology

Do you know synthetic biology?

Synthetic biology is an unknown word for the majority of interviewee (62%). Most of people don’t found it is dangerous for health (64%) or more dangerous than drugs created by chemistry (91%). However, there is reluctance at the idea of taking synthetic biology drugs for 58 % of interviewed people.

In conclusion: This first survey was interesting to know if our project could be useful for people. Even if people of our survey didn't suffer from chronic sleep disorders, it is important to know how they feel about our initiative. Moreover, we can determine if people know synthetic biology in order to give them more explanations.

Our second study: What cause sleep troubles ?

In the second survey, 115 answers were obtained and only through social networks. Once again most of interviewed people are students.

1. Sleep disorders and stress

We would like to know if stress may impact sleep. Most of people (55.8%) declare to have problems to get sleeping. If they answered yes, they mostly explain it is by stress and anxiety (42%). Indeed, 77,9 % of interviewed people proclaim being often stressed. Furthermore 89,8 % of them think that their stress has an impact on their sleep.

Questions on sleep and stress

2. What are the cause of their stress

When we asked them what the causes of this anxiety, 77 % of interviewee proclaims that it is linked to their studies or their jobs. Moreover, 11 % use sport to help them to distress in the evening while half try to relax in order to sleep. To relax they read books, practice relaxation, breathing exercises or even use alternative medicine such as essential oils.

3. Activities used for helping to sleep

Alternatives therapies for helping to sleep

We proposed to people several activities to know if they have already tried it in order to sleep better.
63 % answer they do nothing, 13,7 % aromatherapy, 6,3% Yoga, 5,3% Sophrology, 5,3% Osteopathy, 3,2% sleep medicine, 1,1 % Hypnosis.

4. About our project

In the final questions of our survey, we decided to present our iGEM project and we want to know if people are interested to use our treatment if they have sleep troubles.
We saw that almost half percent of people are agree to use it and the other half are against this treatment.

  • For those in favor for this project, 47.5% say they will use our treatment because it is a natural molecule found in human and it's a great idea. 15% will use this to replace sleeping pills, 15% will use this as a trail, 22.5% will use this to improve their sleep.
  • For those against this project, 60,4% will not use our treatment because it's a drug, 20,8% are afraid of side effects, 18,8%for others reasons.
In conclusion: This second survey made us realize that sleep troubles are mainly induced by stress. Lifestyle influenced our way to sleep and each people has his own way to manage their sleep troubles. Our panel had not a relevant position concerning our project. Both side has his own arguments to use or not our treatment.


In conlusion

Our survey was very instructive, but it was skewed because many students answered to our surveys, so our panel was too specific. In majority, they declared issues to get to sleep because of stress. It is mainly linked to their jobs or studies. In majority, they resort to relaxation or even alternative medicines to help them to sleep. Moreover, most of them ignore what synthetic biology means. When we give them information about our project and the drug it could lead to, they seems really interested. Nevertheless, opinions are divided when we ask them if they were ready to take our treatment...

iGEM Bordeaux tried for you ...

Yoga

Since we were working on sleep, we have been also interested in non-medicinal means to solve sleep disorders. After some investigations, we met professionals that work everyday on the human body and sometimes their own body. That work is known as an efficient way to find a solution against sleep difficulties.

First, we had the opportunity to attend a yoga session with Patrick Boulon as the leader. We learnt a different way to breathe called « fire breath » used jointly with movements and postures related to a specific type of yoga called Kounda-lini (“royal yoga”). During this session, we were invited to do some meditation with songs called Mantra originally from India. It seems that yoga is beneficial against sleep disorders as long as the daily pressure causes them. The energy that is released when we combine a posture of tension with a strong breath help to evacuate the stress. We had a very good time trying out something different as it was our first time.
With the yoga session, we discovered a way to relax by working on our own body. But some professionals also use to work on the body of someone else in order to find the origin of pain or tension.

We also had the opportunity to interview a chiropractor, Pierre Henri Champaud, and a student in osteopathy, Anouk Antrig. Both practice a very manual work on the body.

Chiropracxy

As a chiropractor, Pierre Henri Champaud tries to relieve his patients by focusing on the nervous system. He works on articulations to release the nervous system from interferences. Sometimes, an articulation with reduced mobility can lead to repercussions on muscles or organs related to spinal column. This way, a chiropractor focuses on very functional aspects and he manages to solve many problems related to stresses such as physical stress, chemical stress or emotional stress. When he has released patients from their stress, he has helped them to sleep better since sleep is related to physical and emotional health.

Osteopathy

While Pierre Henri Champaud concentrate on the spinal column, Anouk Antrig tries to work on the whole body with osteopathy. She is looking for the physical and emotional well being of the body. According to her, sometimes a dysfunction appears in a precise spot, however the patient feels a pain in another part of the body. As an osteopath, her role is to find the origin of this pain to relieve the patient. Usually, Anouk can meet people suffering from a deterioration of sleep due to the growing pain. As she relieves them from the pain, they can sleep better again. Emilie tried for you some exercises of osteopathy. After 20 minutes, all her body worked, so she felt sleepy.

In conlusion

So according to these professionals, people have in general problems to sleep because of the pression they experience everyday. This stress can be relieved thanks if the person or the patient trust them and communicate freely about his problems. However, there are sleep diseases that cannot be healed even with non medical care. These professions can only help to alleviate the discomfort of the disease and to improve the daily life.

Talking about sleep disorders with patients

As part of its project “Sleep with C elegans” the iGEM Bordeaux 2016 team carried out several interviews. The people interviewed suffer from minor or major sleep disorders. We were interested in their pathology, the causes and the medical consequences on their health. This constitutes the factual and scientific aspect of this disease: it is what motivates pharmaceutical industries to produce drugs, what motivates researchers to solve the mysteries of mechanisms leading to sleep disorders and what motivates the iGEM Bordeaux 2016 team to develop a treatment thanks to synthetic biology, that would be an alternative to a chemical treatment.
However, we were especially curious about the daily life of these people. We were interested in what they felt and about the impacts of sleep disorders on their routine. We explained our project and the benefits of synthetic biology in the development of treatments for sleep disorders. They gave us their opinion on the question.
Here under, you will find several testimonies. All the people interviewed have authorized the use of the information collected during an interview as part of our project. The text might have been modified in order to preserve the person's intimacy or for confidentiality reasons.

Click there to read the interview

How to find us ?

Feel free to email us to provide some feedback on our project, have some information on the team and our work, or to just say hello !

Mail: igembdx@gmail.com
Copyright © iGEM Bordeaux 2016