In addition to the Breast Cancer Awareness booth, the Human Practices team collaborated with the elementary
school to further educate the students on breast cancer and synthetic biology. The iGEM team and the
elementary school are planning to meet during Breast Cancer Awareness Month in the first week of October.
Since elementary schoolers are curious and always ask why people are wearing pink in October, this
collaboration was the best way to answer their questions. We believe that reaching out to the younger
students will be an important step in educating our community on the detrimental effects of breast cancer.
This presentation is also an attempt to spur an interest into synthetic biology and medicine in children.
Due to the delicate nature of Breast Cancer, we worked to develop a child-friendly approach to introducing
Breast Cancer. With our goal being for them to grasp the main concepts of breast cancer, cell processes, and
synthetic biology, this presentation is effective and will catalyze conversations with their parents and
community of peers. Within the presentation, we utilized digital platforms such as Kahoot to engage the
students and involve them in the inner workings of breast cancer and patient experiences. We aimed to add
onto their science classes by going through cell malfunctions and the result of uncontrolled cell
proliferation. Additionally, we aligned our presentation with the school’s “Portrait of a Learner,”
emphasizing school goals of “know, value, care.” We connected our project to these goals to reinforce the
importance of sympathy despite the fact that the presentation may not relate directly to them. Through
experiments such as extracting DNA from a strawberry for the Middle School and diagraming cell features of
the Elementary School, we will be able to engage the students and bring to life the topics of their science
class by helping them understand how cellular processes create disease.
Apart from explaining breast cancer, its symptoms, and ways to reduce risks, the students will also be
educated on synthetic biology. By discussing synthetic biology, the students will be able to understand
advancements in technology and in the future, hopefully apply to our club to help solve major world problems
such as breast cancer. While the collaboration with the elementary school has not yet been completed,
developing this presentation has allowed us to take an essential step toward educating and raising awareness
of breast cancer. Furthermore, it has strengthened the connections we have built with ES and MS
administration, allowing us to develop future connections and collaborations.
Throughout the year, we collaborated on a local, national, and international scale. By utilizing the 640+
followers we had on Instagram, we were able to connect with various iGEM teams around the world and exchange
our current project ideas while also facilitating eachother’s progress through feedback and advising. We
also expanded our reach beyond just virtual calls and expanded on social media platforms through Instagram
stories, posts, and reels. Through all these collaborations done with a diverse variety of teams, we were
able to diversify and add nuance to our current project.
We collaborated with Korea HS iGEM, a high school team from Korea in their “Instagram Reels Project”. This
consisted of various iGEM teams across different regions in the world, each presenting their team as well as
their current project in order to form relationships through a network of diverse iGEM teams. This project
was inspired by the format of a Tik Tok video, as the recent rise in the use of the application allowed for
an effective platform to raise awareness and enhance community engagement. This was especially important
because it would allow people from diverse backgrounds and interests to discover creative initiatives that
are being innovated across the globe. Therefore, we produced and published a 60 second video in which we
discussed a prevalent issue in Japan and its root causes, the process in which our team assessed and
established goals to resolve the conflict, and the progression of our project over the duration of the past
two years. Specifically, we emphasized the effectiveness of our testing kit on the accessibility and
affordability of testing in the local community, and the ways in which the field of synthetic biology was
utilized to make this a reality (through aptamers, biomarkers, FRET, and fluorence). Through the human
practices and video production teams of ASIJ iGEM, we participated in the project in the hopes of raising
breast cancer awareness, and inspiring younger students to foster an interest in initiatives such as ours,
and other iGEM teams across the globe.
In the previous year, we participated in the International High School Network, a network consisting of 5
teams in Asia (Tokyo, Republic of China, Taiwan, Thailand, and Korea). Details on this project can be found
on the following link to ASIJ iGEM website: https://2021.igem.org/Team:ASIJ_Tokyo/Collaborations#section1
However, due to the influences of Corona Virus on our project, we were unable to proceed this collaboration
this year. However, we remain hopeful to recommence our participation in this network in the coming years.
[Collaboration conducted by Nadia Q, Ei F, Tomo I, Natsune O, Kai H, ]
[Collaboration conducted by Nadia Q, Koharu M, Risa B, Ei F, Kai H]
We met with the University of Copenhagen team to brainstorm strategies for educating the community, specifically local elementary school students. Some ideas we exchanged included performing lab experiments with the students, developing an engaging slideshow presentation, and active learning through games such as Kahoot. We hope that educating the elementary schoolers in an active learning manner will increase engagement and comprehension of breast cancer. At the end of our zoom meeting, we focused on who our audience was and in what ways we can further raise awareness about breast cancer. In the end, we came to the conclusion that through fun engagement during the collaboration, along with providing pamphlets for the children to bring home to their parents/guardians, we hope to maximize the opportunity to spread breast cancer awareness.
For our first meeting with iGEM Costa Rica, we were able to share and have a deeper understanding of our
respective projects. Through this initial meetup we were able to determine our struggles in our project such
as math/protein modeling and design. By the end of this meet up, we were able to set up an additional meetup
where we planned to bring more specialized members in our respesive struggling areas.
When we met with iGEM Costa Rica, our team was able to learn more about the importance of setting the stage
for each project through color palettes. They emphasized the importance to have a set overarching color
template that will be applied to all social networking and presentations so all of the content produced by
the iGEM team is in unison. Through this collaboration we hope to apply this feedback for our next year's
project.
[Collaboration conducted by Nadia Q, Koharu M, Risa B]
[Collaboration conducted by Nadia Q, Annika E, Risa B, Annmarie H, Kai H]
In our collaboration with iGEM Thailand, a new high school iGEM team, we exchanged general insight on running an iGEM team and promoting events. Additionally, we generated ideas for improving our presentation by incorporating skits and adjusting the slides for effective engagement. The skits that we plan to incorporate into the presentation include the children acting like aptamers and biomarkers to further demonstrate the FRET technology we are using.
We also reached out to Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Mohali (IISER Mohali). We exchanged information regarding modeling and our method of protocols, including resuspension of aptamer probes and determining aptamer specificity with the ELONA assay. In exchange, we hoped to receive some advice on modeling our proteins, as IISER Mohali had access to computing systems we as high school students don’t have access to (such as supercomputers). However, due to time constraints and logistical issues, we unfortunately couldn't trade our information.
[Collaboration conducted by Nadia Q, Koharu M, Risa B, Annika E, Annmarie H, Kai H]
[Collaboration conducted by Koharu M]
In hopes of gaining new insights into breast cancer, we decided to hold a meeting with iGEM Iiser Thiruvananthapuram, who are also working on a breast cancer project. Their project is focused on a drug delivery system that inhibits the growth of cancer tumors. Although we are tackling two different aspects of the disease, with ASIJ looking into detection and Iiser Thiruvananthapuram looking into treatment, we believed we could benefit from working alongside one another. We discussed potential collaboration ideas like creating a breast cancer awareness video and hosting a talk series where we bring in breast cancer professors to discuss topics relating to the disease, which we could make available to our communities and beyond. They also planned to join our cancer network, which we ran with TU Braunschweig. Unfortunately, due to time constraints, they were unable to join, but we are thankful for the collaboration ideas that arose during this meeting and look forward to implementing them in the near future.
Although the iGEM Manchester team’s project was based on renewable energy, through our collaboration with their HP team, the HP iGEM team was able to gain new insight and feedback on our project’s outreach, such as how our team should move forward in terms of collaboration. iGEM Manchester and our HP team discussed interactive ways to communicate with smaller children, to facilitate their learning by enjoying science, specifically synthetic biology, as well as understand Breast Cancer and Clean Energy. The Manchester team provided potential collaboration ideas, such as crafting a kids book, using kid friendly language, and various ideas on the interactive activities.
[Collaboration conducted by Nadia Q, Koharu M, Risa B, Percival L, Natsune O]
[Collaboration conducted by Risa B, Tomo I, Nadia Q, Koharu M, Percival L, Kai H, Sara N, Annmarie H]
With the intent of gaining more feedback and hosting potential collaboration projects, the HP iGEM team collaborated with the iGEM Lund team. Lund’s team projects aimed to integrate a metabolic digestion pathway for glyphosat into a gut-friendly microorganism of bees, thus creating a specialized probiotic for the bees. Despite the barriers with our projects, the iGEM Lund team provided contacts of breast cancer professors and clinics in Sweden. With the given contacts, the iGEM team wanted to expand the respondents of our HP survey and provide insight on breast cancer in regions that aren’t limited to Japan.
Finally, in our collaboration with KCIS, we aimed to take what we have learned from our presentation we were going to do with the elementary school students, and use that to create an online seminar for students in 8th grade and up. Through this seminar, we hoped to promote our respective projects, as well as provide more information on what synthetic biology is and promote iGEM as a club. Our presentation included the recent history of synthetic biology and potential ethical concerns regarding this science, introduced the different iGEM subgroups we have within our club and provided examples of what we do through our wiki’s and labs. Due to time constraints, we were not able to achieve this goal, but we hope that next year we can continue on this collaboration.
[Collaboration conducted by Nadia Q]
[Collaboration conducted by Koharu M, Natsune O, Risa B, Nadia Q]
We were able to further the connection we nurtured with Tokyo Tech through the iGEM Japan network by holding a one-on-one meeting with them. Both our projects focused on detection via fluorescence, albeit in different areas—ASIJ focused on breast cancer while Tokyo Tech focused on dengue virus—so our zoom meeting focused primarily on discussing topics related to it. We talked about a wide range of topics, such as specific detection kit designs as well as how to dispose of detection kits safely. The latter, we realized, would be something important to consider if our products were to be implemented in the real world, especially if we were to try to bring our kits to the household. Additionally, Tokyo Tech brought up the idea of health care inequality and how it relates to our projects. These detection kits may reach more developed countries than developing countries, and that could further widen the healthcare gap between the two groups. This idea was something we had not considered before, so it made for a very insightful discussion and reminded us of the complexity in tackling our problem. We are very thankful to have gotten to work with Tokyo Tech this year, and look forward to further collaborations in the future as a fellow Tokyo and Japan iGEM team.
In our collaboration with Stanford iGEM, we aimed to further spread our projects to our respective
locations.
Through this collaboration, we were able to put up flyers (each with our respective project ideas) on social
media and at our schools. The flyers contain QR codes that take students/campus personnel to each respective
team’s project and survey.
On the collaboration call conducted on September 26th 2022, Stanford iGEM representatives voiced their
expectations for ASIJ:
[Collaboration conducted by Koharu M, Ei F, Nadia Q]
On May 22nd, we participated in the very first iGEM Japan summit hosted by Waseda. UTokyo, Tokyo Tech, and
Qdai were also in attendance. Each team was assigned a 15 minute slot to present their project idea and
receive feedback from the audience, which included the teams noted above, as well as college professors and
iGEM alumni. For our team, we found Professor Kiga of Waseda’s advice especially of importance, as he
suggested using a control as a reference point for measuring our fluorescence values we obtain through
aptamer FRET. At the end of all presentations, we were able to join breakout rooms, where we were able to
discuss further our projects and other questions we had surrounding iGEM, such as funding and collaboration
opportunities. For us as high schoolers, we found being able to talk to college students highly beneficial
as their expertise brought a new lens we hadn’t considered to our project.
The second iGEM Japan summit was held on August 18th, with the same teams in attendance. This session
focused on the team promotional video. Again, each team was assigned a 15 minute slot to play their “work in
progress” video and receive feedback on it from the audience. We received comments regarding the visual and
practical aspects of the video. Through implementing the suggestions we received, the quality of our video
greatly enhanced. After the conclusion of the presentations, like last time, we had the opportunity to hold
free discussions in breakout rooms. Some of the topics we discussed were softwares used to create the
videos, how well our projects have been progressing, and travel expenses for the jamboree.
We are very grateful to have had the opportunity to collaborate more intensely with Japanese teams this year
and we hope these connections will continue in future iGEM seasons.
From the next iGEM season, we will be welcoming 2 new Japanese high school teams to our community: iCH and
Team Ninjas. One of our members has been in contact with the two teams, helping them get their teams up and
running. Our hope was to provide assistance and advice on the iGEM competition as the only high school iGEM
team in Japan for the last 5+ years.
We held a meeting with both teams on August 29th, where ASIJ gave a brief presentation on what iGEM is
(presentation linked below). We talked about the competition and expectations, while adding commentary along
the way based on our experiences. For example, when we talked about the timeline of when deliverables are
due, we noted when we recommend turning each in, as well as how we managed our time between due dates; we
also talked about how much time each deliverable should be expected to take to make. At the end, ASIJ
answered questions the teams had about iGEM, including those about modeling softwares used, how to reach out
to other teams for collaboration, and how to work around the language barrier.
We are still in contact with the two teams, answering any questions that arise on their end via messages. We
are very excited for them to join the community, and look forward to collaborating with them on our projects
starting next year. We wish them all the best in getting their teams started.
[Mentorship conducted by Koharu M]
Our @igem.asij Instagram having 640+ followers has been used to connect with other iGEM teams worldwide with 5000+ reaches from various accounts. We secured many collaborations through our social media, with Tokyo Tech, iGEM TU Braunschweig, iGEM Korea, to name a few. Additionally, through our collaborative Instagram account @igem_spreads_awareness_, with TU Braunschweig, we have been able to post informative posts on various cancers and raise awareness all through just one Instagram account. Through vivid colors, simple diagrams, and clear information, iGEM teams from all around the world have created an extensive network that proactively includes the public in heightening interests of early diagnosis.
