Human Practice Overview

Thinking beyond laboratory is one of the key factors that would affect the yield of scientific researches into real social interests. Thankfully, this idea has been recognized by the iGEM community for a very long time. Not only should every team participate in various social activities, but also we need to keep a real time interaction with the society, the place that we ultimately hope to create significance.

This year, our team applied the knowledge of synthetic biology to seek feasible solutions to the energy issue. Urgent as it is, the energy issue is more than a regional problem, but has raised global concerns. In this social context, converting solar energy into chemical energy is undoubtedly of fundamental and industrial importance. Our original interest on this topic was initially sparked by recent cutting-edge research in artificial photosynthesis. To enhance our understandings about energy issues, and meanwhile, arouse public awareness of synthetic biology, we raised multiple public questionnaires and dialogues within academe and industry. In communications with industrial community, field experts as well as administrative authority afterwards, we realized that development of a robust, sustainable and scalable approach for hydrogen production would be socially relevant, industrially important, but technically challenging. This has led us to set our ultimate goals to solve such challenge by leveraging the power of synthetic biology. We eventually proposed and demonstrated a sun-powered biofilm-interfaced artificial hydrogen-producing system, Solar Hunter. Benefiting from the real time social interactions, we kept modifying the system to be more and more adaptable to the scalable industrial application. This new system will in return, introduce a synthetic biology-based approach towards energy applications in industrial context.

Additionally, while conducting our research with the interaction in the social context, our team also actively participated in a variety of educational propagation and public engagements. As the first-ever iGEM team at ShanghaiTech, this year we established the iGEM Day for Public Interests (iDPI), where we held a Lab Open House Day for the visiting high school student from Shanghai Coordinate International School, aiming at arousing their interests in science, especially in synthetic biology. Meanwhile, we introduced the iGEM to them as well, and are now helping them to build their first-ever high school team. Besides, our team collaborated with another two iGEM teams in China, one at Jiangsu Normal University, and the other at Tsinghua University.

Click here to find how we Integrated Human Practice.

Social Research on the Energy Issue

Social Research

Questionnaire

Interview

Team Collaboration

Team Collaborations

iDPI

Aiming at spreading the iGEM as well as dedicating to various social engagements, ShanghaiTech iGEM Day for Public Interests (iDPI) was found in 2016, along with the establishment of the first ever iGEM team at ShanghaiTech University. The iDPI at ShanghaiTech is set up to encourage every iGEM team to devote themselves not only into scientific researches, but also social practices.

In the acronym name iDPI, “D” stands for dedication, “P” stands for passion, and “I” stands for inspiration. Our hope is that with the establishment of iDPI, every iGEMer at ShanghaiTech would bear a strong social awareness in minds, to yield profound contributions and achieve social values.

This year, the iDPI collaborated with Shanghai Coordinate International School, holding an iGEM Lab Open House Day on Zhangjiang campus. Click here for more details about iDPI.

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-Aiming at spreading the iGEM as well as dedicating to various  social engagements, ShanghaiTech iGEM Day for Public Interests (iDPI) was found in 2016, along with the establishment of the first ever iGEM team at ShanghaiTech University. The iDPI at ShanghaiTech is set up to encourage every iGEM team to devote themselves not only into scientific researches, but also social practices.
+Aiming at spreading the iGEM as well as dedicating to various  social engagements, ShanghaiTech iGEM Day for Public Interests (iDPI) was found in 2016, along with the establishment of the first ever iGEM team at ShanghaiTech University. The iDPI at ShanghaiTech is set up to encourage every iGEM team to devote themselves not only into scientific researches, but also social practices.<p></p>
-In the acronym name iDPI, “D” stands for dedication, “P” stands for passion, and “I” stands for inspiration. Our hope is that with the establishment of iDPI, every iGEMer at ShanghaiTech would bear a strong social awareness in minds, to yield profound contributions and achieve social values.
+In the acronym name iDPI, “D” stands for dedication, “P” stands for passion, and “I” stands for inspiration. Our hope is that with the establishment of iDPI, every iGEMer at ShanghaiTech would bear a strong social awareness in minds, to yield profound contributions and achieve social values.<p></p>
 This year, the iDPI collaborated with Shanghai Coordinate International School, holding an iGEM Lab Open House Day on Zhangjiang campus.
 <a href="https://2016.igem.org/Team:ShanghaitechChina/Collaborations#10">Click here for more details about iDPI.</a>