Revision as of 16:06, 13 September 2016

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Resources for the younger generation

In response to the survey, we wanted to make synthetic biology and iGEM more accessible to the younger generation, and the rest of the public. So we decided that we wanted to make some resources for young children about our project, synthetic biology and ideas around synthetic biology. We have this document translated in English, German, French, Farsi, Spanish and Mandarin.

pdf file

Workshop with the younger generation

We were able to inspire the next generation of scientists, engineers, conputer scientists and phycolgists through a workshop. We told them what synthetic biology is, our project, asked them what their perception of the elderly is and ran some fun activities. We also gave the students a chance to have some lab experience.

We asked the children to draw what they think of when I said AGEING.

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We then asked the children to draw what they envision themselves looking like when they are 65 years old (the age when you are considered as elderly)

Week long outreach workshops with year 12 students at the sutton trust summer school Monday 8th -12th July

Outreach activity workshop with year 12 students at the sutton trust summer school Thursday 28th July

UCL iGEM does Outreach:

Last Thursday Michelle, Amandeep & Abbie presented to a group of year 12 students about synthetic biology, iGEM and ageing (and even got invited back to present later this month)! We encouraged discussion throughout the lecture and it was great to teach them a little bit too.

We then proceeded to have two debates: one focussing on ageing, another on synthetic biology.

The arguments were eloquent, well thought through and focussed on aspects such as the economic, ethical and even emotional impact of this research. The debate was particularly poignant at times and the students all had their own opinions which we encouraged the discussion of. We were not only impressed, but inspired by their enthusiasm and the feedback we received. Especially now some of the students want to get involved with iGEM and even study biochemical engineering- a degree they previously didn't know existed.

Outreach activity workshop with year 8 students at the sutton trust summer school Friday 29th July

Friday was another day of presenting for us 3- this time to year 8 students - we gave them an insight into ageing in London and again encouraged participation. After our talk we again set up a debate in which the students represented one of the following stakeholders:

'Business person wanting to build a gym', 'scientist wanting to build an ageing research institution', 'doctor wanting to build a walk-in clinic' and 'the council wanting to build a community centre'.

Again, great arguments were constructed which considered the negatives of the other parties as well as the strengths of their own. They considered the different types of job prospects, ethics and short vs long term investments. We were particularly pleased with the vote outcome in which the students favoured a research institution to be built.

UCL iGEM x Sutton Trust summer school - biosciences stream

This summer school is based at UCL and formed part of our outreach activities since it is aimed at students from widening participation backgrounds. Abbie worked closely with the students and lead a group of 5, year 12 students.

This involved demonstrating various lab activities from basic pipetting to performing restriction digests and running gel electrophoresis. We also performed an activity which looked at the bacteria on skin before and after washing hands, the effectiveness of chemicals on killing bacteria and even gram stained these, looking under them at a microscope. A lot of the experiments were new to the students so it was essential to explain the techniques and assist throughout.

It was also an opportunity to give advice about university and share our own personal experiences.

Amandeep and Abbie also gave a lecture on iGEM, synthetic biology and ageing. Afterwards we ran a workshop and debate with regards to synthetic biology and ageing research as before to the 30 students on the stream. We really enjoy this activity due to the consideration of ethics, economics and personal experiences.

Some highlights have been collated in the video.

"Get your hands dirty with synthbio" workshop for PhD students

London Interdisciplinary Doctoral Programme (LIDo) funded by Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) is a PhD programme with a particular focus on interdisciplinary research. It is currently attended by about a hundred students studying at UCL, King's College London, Royal Veterinary College, Birkbeck, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and Queen Mary.

During LIDo retreat, we run a synthetic biology workshop for both students and staff involved in the programme. Due to the interdisciplinary nature of the programme, we prepared a wide range of activities for researchers from all backgrounds. For those unfamiliar with synthetic biology, we prepared mini-posters describing ways in which it can be used to solve some of the world's biggest problems. We talked about the Braunschweig 2014 team's E. cowli, which help to reduce the amount of methane produced by cows and thus prevent the global warming, about plastic-degrading bacteria designed by Imperial College 2013 team, biofuel-producing bacteria created by the University of Washington 2011 team and about University of Colorado Boulder 2014 team's idea on how to use phages to fight antibiotic resistance. The attendants were also encouraged to propose their own ideas and discuss related scientific and ethical issues, business viability of the idea and its impact on the society.

We also prepared a synthbio game composed of plasmid backbones with standard iGEM prefixes and suffixes surrounding elements such as (but not limited to) genes of interest. The players were asked to figure out the way of joining the biobricks into a new, longer biobrick using restriction enzymes and selection by antibiotic resistance. The players on their own initiative commented on the advantages of the biobrick format and a discussion on pros and cons of the standarised technique followed.

Finally, we presented our poster and received some feedback on our project.

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