At the beginning of the project, we entered into a partnership with NAU-China, and our cooperation is carried out throughout the project process. So we will introduce our cooperation in chronological order. Our collaboration with BUCT-China will be presented in modules -- modeling, experimentation and social practice.
BIT-China and NAU-CHINA began with an invitation from NAU-CHINA to co-host ICII (Into China Into IGEM) in May. In the early discussion of ICII activity's creativity and design, we found that both of us thought more and more active, many ideas about the future development of synthetic biology are very compatible. At the same time, we are very complementary in synthetic biology knowledge, and can quickly understand the views that the other side wanted to express. All of the above gives us the idea of further cooperation.
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The two teams are in the project selection stage when deciding to work as partner. In our brainstorming session, we proposed many ideas about the immune system, spices, joint nitrogen fixation, alopecia treatment projects, these ideas involve all aspects and all have their advantages and disadvantages. We were hesitant. The appearance of NAU-CHINA, let us have somebody to discuss. For our different ideas, NAU-CHINA presents insights and opinions one by one. After a discussion with the NAU-CHINA teammates, they discussed many ideas for our team, ranging from feasibility, creativity, to Application and other aspects, which provides support for the determination of our team project theme in a certain extent.
Idea 1: Immune system
For the coronavirus that has raged in recent years, in the process of brainstorming, we thought of creating an immune system that uses small molecule Protac to activate ubiquitin-proteosomes, a cellular antiviral pathway that can degrade viral proteins. But the NAU-CHINA team members suggested that high-throughput experimental facilities are needed during the experiment, and the school laboratory may not be able to meet the requirements. Considering this factor, we did not ultimately choose this option.
Idea 2: Spices
The natural extraction of spices is affected by climate and other factors, it is difficult to maintain balanced output. Chemical synthesis exists "chemical fear", safety and environmental problems. Therefore, in the process of brainstorming, some students of our team proposed to transform vanillin production by using eugenol as the substrate microorganism. However, NAU-CHINA team members proposed that the technology of chemical spice manufacturing has been very mature, and bio-manufacturing has no great advantage compared with chemical manufacturing. All in all, our idea stops at brainstorming.
Idea 3: associative nitrogen fixation
As one of the commonly used chemical raw materials, nitrogen is the most commonly used combined nitrogen fixation method, which is greatly affected by salt and alkali, with a low survival rate. So during brainstorming, we wanted to improve the method of associative nitrogen fixation to make it become salt-tolerant. NAU-CHINA team members proposed that nitrogen fixing bacteria are not easy to perform gene editing, and there are too many nitrogen fixing genes in E. coli, which is not easy to import for expression. But this idea also inspired us to think about the factors that restrict artificial biological nitrogen fixation, and eventually led us to form the construction of the intracellular low oxygen environment of the current project.
Idea 4: alopecia
Alopecia as one of the most serious phenomena in contemporary youth and middle-aged people, the current Alopecia treatment has the problem that its effect is not obvious, so in the process of brainstorming, we want to do a relevant carrier material that can be targeted to the hair follicle, so that the drug can be directed to the human hair follicle. NAU-CHINA team members proposed that the current technology of magnetic nanotechnology is not mature, and it may cause harm to the human body. In fact, our team has also taken this point into account. Under comprehensive consideration, we did not continue the research and practice of this idea.
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During the communication process, we learned that NAU-CHINA was ready to construct systems with the lower-cost maltodextrin as the energy source, but we found that some reagents are still relatively difficult to obtain in this system. Based on the above thinking, we suggest that they use substances like bacteria'extracts and lactose to make it a cell-free reaction system in a low cost. Under our inspiration, they found that the extracts of bacteria already contain some essential substances, thus making the problem with ease.
The two teams have also worked closely together in human practice. Co-hosting ICII is a challenge to human practice groups and art groups on both sides. In the early stage of the activity, both sides jointly planned, and tried to achieve everything in the activity plan designing. Striving to achieve the goal of bringing iGEM to China and bringing China to the global iGEM platform. In the publicity of the activity, the two sides worked together to collect the posters, project introductions and other contents from the 12 invited university teams from all over the country, and designed and synthesized the final brochures and posters.
Click here to know more about our performance in ICII!
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It provides an idea for building one of our models
The two teams conducted the first communication and learning of the modeling part in June, and at this time, both sides had not yet determined the final model, so it was more about the communication and collision of ideas and thoughts.
NAU-CHINA chose a molecular dynamics model and a model of a neural network to simulate the protein structure. Considering the situation of the experimental part of our team, requiring the appropriate simulation and prediction of oxygen concentration and distribution, we found that molecular dynamics methods have great advantages in the distribution of oxygen and other substances. Inspired by the molecular dynamics model of NAU-CHINA, our team considered the oxygen diffusion model based on the Fick diffusion fixed rate, in an attempt to simulate the transmembrane diffusion process of oxygen through the kinetic equations. In addition, in the confirmation of our oxygen diffusion model, the molecular Dynamics also gives inspiration for our search for literature —— that is agent-based modeling. Based on agent modeling using the modeling method can more accurately simulate oxygen and other molecules in E. coli 3d system distribution, by consulting the agent-based modeling related literature and model, we found a method can simulate E. coli internal oxygen distribution, but this modeling method involves the simulation of a large number of molecules, need a lot of calculation, that is to say, need to calculate performance to implement. Considering the actual situation, we finally chose to confirm our data through the literature data model. However, it can be said that the molecular dynamics method of NAU-CHINA provides ideas for the establishment of one of our models.
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Provide more accurate parameter values and assist in the calculation
In order to estimate the amount of products under specific conditions, the NAU-CHINA team members wanted to simulate the pathway using the tau-leap algorithm, but the exact value of the DNA transcription rate of FXR and RXR was not obtained. For this problem, we provide them with more accurate parameter values and help them calculate the product quantity.
After setting the project title, the two teams communicated about the experimental skills.
Through online videos and the help of instructors and seniors, we learned the plasmid extraction, primer design, PCR, genome extraction and other experimental operations together, and shared the experimental learning notes with each other to jointly improve the experimental skills and prepare for the project.
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Since our team members come from multidisciplinary directions, they are not familiar with the synthetic biology experiment operation. Before conducting the experimental work, NAU-CHINA team members from biological directions also shared their theoretical learning and experimental operation experience on synthetic biology.
At the same time, due to the reasons of the epidemic, the BIT-China team could not return to school in time to carry out the experiment and conduct the experimental practical practice. Some students from NAU-CHINA, who had returned to school, answered the questions raised by our team members carefully through the video explanation, and also emphasized and reminded us of some details of the experimental operation.
Through the communication and learning with NAU-CHINA, our team's theoretical level and experimental skills have been greatly improved, laying a strong foundation for our experiments and providing great help for our projects.
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In the experimental design of the project, we proposed to adopt the hypoxia-inducible type promoter as the detection module element, and select ArcA with nirB as the first considered promoter. After understanding our idea, combined with our team's idea of "creating a hypoxia environment by using Vitreoscilla hemoglobin(VHb)"during the brainstorming phase, the NAU-CHINA team suggested that we could consider the promoter of Hyallaline hemoglobin (VHb) as an improvement of our team's current testing module. After sufficient literature research, we analyzed the scheme from the aspects of principle and feasibility, and thought that this idea is very consistent with the purpose of the project, and it has a very big advantage. We plan to use this as the option for the engineering iteration part of the project.
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NAU-CHINA also encountered some difficulties during the experiment. They found that the two proteins attached by the experiment did not show the desired fluorescence after binding. We thought about this issue and thought that it is possible that the protein concentration in the bacteria is not high enough or that CDCA is difficult to enter cells to reach a concentration that can activate the binding of the two receptors. We suggest that they can try purifying protein after experimental testing. Inspired by our ideas, they also thought that it might be a linker problem. In the exchange of views, both sides have gained new gains.
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In the process of conducting the project experiment, we expect to construct the low oxygen detection element, in order to verify the experimental effect, we need to construct the external low oxygen environment experimental device. NAU-CHINA offers us the idea of creating a low-oxygen environment by delivering nitrogen gas into the device to drive out the air from the environment. We were inspired by their idea and designed the device as shown below. Put the liquid culture medium at the bottom of the cone bottle, fill the inert gas such as nitrogen into the bottle with long pipette head to blow out the oxygen in the medium to ensure the low oxygen of the cell growth environment; then remove the longer pipette head , through the shorter head Into the inert gas such as nitrogen, so as to ensure that the whole cone of the bottle overall low oxygen.
However, due to the inconvenience of using nitrogen in our school laboratory, we improved the device by vacuuming the anaerobic bag, adding the protective gas generating agent to it, and sealing the protective gas to create a low oxygen environment. The inspiration of NAU-CHINA has an important role in the establishment of the final device.
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As for our previous suggestions and ideas on the fluorescence problem encountered by NAU-CHINA, they immediately verified the method and shared the subsequent experimental results with us: First, the two parts of ddRFP were connected in series and constitutively expressed, but the result showed no red light. They switched to the T7 promoter to increase the concentration of the protein, when a bright red color appeared, proving that the appearance of fluorescence may be related to the expression of the protein, so they believed that linker had little effect on these two proteins. We fully affirm and praise the experimental work of NAU-CHINA.
After more than five months of experimental communication, both teams were inspired a lot, and they learned from each other and made progress together in the discussion and communication. These inspirations and progress also affected the progress of our respective projects and thus obtained the experimental results.
The two teams had another communication event at the end of August. We discussed our respective models and presented the results to each other. At the same time, we simulated the judging form and asked some questions about their models with each other.
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Our team was inspired by the NAU-CHINA team's model, which further complemented and improved our team's model. In addition, we also learnt from NAU-CHINA how to use the online analysis and dynamics simulation software, which will be of great help to us in our subsequent modelling work. We introduced our models to each other and learnt from each other's excellent results as well, which helped both teams to gain a lot from modelling.
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During the communication, we learnt that NAU-CHINA did not have a complete code for the support vector machine model for protein structure prediction. So we helped them to build a complete SVM model for protein structure prediction identify the required training set and import it.
Although we were not able to have a more in-depth communication due to the epidemic and time constraints, the two communication events did allow both teams to further improve their modelling. During the communication, we carefully absorbed the questions raised by the other team and jointly learnt about molecular dynamics simulations, tau-leap algorithms, support vector machines and other mathematical simulation software, which we fed back and applied to our later modelling, making this year's mathematical modelling session a successful conclusion.
In order to better promote both teams' projects, synthetic biology and the iGEM competition, we wanted to have some visual collaboration in terms of artwork. So the art groups worked together to design the mascot - a figurative liver and E. coli posing in a diversity of intimate actions - and printed it on masks, postcards and others.
NAU-CHINA also sent us keychains and stickers designed by them.
During the team exchange in 798 Art Museum, we brought the exhibition board of the NAU-CHINA team to help them publicize to the society. People were deeply attracted by their team logo and came to ask us about the team's project content.
On October 9, 2022, NAU-CHINA held a campus lecture. During the lecture, they not only introduced synthetic biology and their annual topics, but also introduced the posters and topics of BIT China, which was well received by the students, We also learned that a systematic biological method can maintain hypoxia concentration in a specific range of cells without affecting their normal physiological activities. Projects in different fields are proving that synthetic biology can be applied widely.
The two teams also showed each other educational videos for publicity. We forwarded NAU-CHINA's original scenario drama "The Worry of the Liver" on the team's WeChat group, and the vivid and humorous video won our unanimous favor. NAU-CHINA also forwarded a series of educational videos produced by BIT China in the team's WeChat group, and the knowledge points and creativity of synthetic biology we shared were praised by them.
In last year's iGEM competition, BIT-China and BUCT-China worked closely and cooperated in the whole stage and in all fields of the competition as partner. During Last year's cooperation, the conversation was very harmonious and in-depth. Both sides gave a lot of help to each other and are trusted partners. At the same time, both teams are in Beijing, making it more convenient and possible to work together in the epidemic environment. Therefore, after the preliminary exchange of project ideas this year, I found that the theme of the project this year has been crossed, and the other side has some of their own desirable inspiration and knowledge reserves. Therefore, we decided to listen to each other's opinions and carry out the exchange of environmental protection direction together. Specifically, the BIT-China project is related to energy and agricultural production, while the BUCT-China project is related to food safety and animal husbandry. So the two teams decided to have another long-term cooperation, and give each other affirmation and support.
The following part shows the communication, discussion and cooperation between the two teams from the modeling, experiment, human practice, art engineering and wiki.
In the modeling part, we had in-depth exchange, discussion and joint learning progress in the modeling, simulation and computing methods.
The two teams discussed how to determine the parameters of the prediction model. And try to use Monte Carlo and literature investigation in the subsequent modeling process.
Both teams conducted a discussion on the construction of the ode (ordinary differential equations). Then, we analyze the assumptions of the model equation, further appropriate and practical methods and improvements.
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During the kinetic simulations involving the construction of gene circuits, BIT-China took pertinent advice from BUCT-China, learning the simbiology toolbox they used. Find the gene circuits and gene elements in the project, and establish a kinetic model for the project, so as to achieve the purpose of simulating the kinetic process of the project.
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On the evaluation of promoter strength and the prediction of some performance of PHFA, BIT-China suggested that BUCT-China consider using the neural network prediction method to predict certain values that are difficult to measure directly if the data amount is sufficient.Moreover, the BIT-China provides the BUCT-China with the relevant code and the toolbox for the BP neural network prediction.
Since BIT-China's project is based on oxygen diffusion and consumption and based on differential equations and physics deduction, while BUCT-China's project is to model build the growth of cells in the microsphere system. Therefore, BUCT-China learned from BIT-China's ideas from physics to build more refined cell culture and depletion models (such as cell adherent mechanical analysis, nutrient diffusion and depletion).
After the modeling was basically completed, the two teams communicated with each other about the model defects, conducted the equation deduction together, and checked and discussed the existing content together, so as to make the established model more rigorous and practical.
1. At our stage of thinking about the experimental topic, the BIT-China team thought of biological hydrogen production, and once had the idea of hydrogen producing enzymes for obtaining oxygen resistance mainly through mutagenesis. And they want to know how to choose the microbes needed for hydrogen production, and whether green algae are convenient for genetic manipulation. During the communication process, BUCT noted that focusing on mutagenesis does not very well reflect the role of synthetic biology, and it is therefore not a good solution. Green algae belong to plants, and the genetic operation is compared with E. coli and yeast, it will be more complex, and the genetic operation is more difficult, which may bring some difficulty to the experiment. So they suggested completing the experiments with some common model strains.
2. BIT-China wants to understand whether biohydrogen production and nitrogen fixation have advantages over traditional industrial hydrogen production and nitrogen fixation. BUCT-China points out that artificial biological hydrogen production or nitrogen fixation technologies are not currently mature, so the cost is higher. However, with higher environmental protection, it can reduce greenhouse gas emissions and reduce energy consumption. As for the conclusion, it has a certain potential for the future.
During the panel discussion, we provided mutual suggestions and support for:
1. Team BIT-China needs to build a low-oxygen environment that tests the concentration of oxygen inside the cell. We communicated on the method of testing the intracellular oxygen concentration. The BUCT-China suggested that a promoter with high activity at low oxygen could be selected to reflect the oxygen concentration. And adding the reporter genes such as fluorescent proteins were attached later to reflect the experiment.
2. BIT-China has wondered whether hypoxia environments can be applied. The BUCT-China has developed some ideas about this. For example, hydrogenase or nitrogen fixing ase can be introduced in recombinant bacteria, and the same enzyme can be introduced in conventional E. coli, comparing to test whether the construction of low oxygen device really plays a role.
When BUCT-China selects the appropriate elements to construct the feedback loop of the gene oscillator, does BIT-China recommend anything more suitable for the elements? Or, what are the characteristics of the suggestions to be screened for?
The lactose operon, tetracycline operon, etc., can be used as an inhibitory element control. For promoting elements, we found that AHL could promote the expression of some post-promoter genes. The lactose operon can be properly modified or coordinated with other elements, which can play a good gene oscillation role.[1] In addition, gene oscillators are often seen in the context of quorum sensing, and the mechanism of using quorum sensing can be considered. When screening, you can determine the oscillation effect measured experimentally, such as whether the oscillation period is appropriate, whether it has good robustness, and so on.
References: [1] Stricker, J., Cookson, S., Bennett, M. et al. A fast, robust and tunable synthetic gene oscillator. Nature 456, 516-519 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature07389
We want to observe the fluorescence intensity of the transformed engineered bacteria every once in a time. Does your team have any suggestions on the detection instruments, detection methods, and the length of the time interval.
We can choose a microplate reader for the assay. The first thing is to know the kind of fluorescence, such as green fluorescence, red fluorescence, or yellow fluorescence, and the specific wavelength of the fluorescence. After knowing the fluorescence wavelength, you can use the microplate reader to measure the light absorption value, and the fluorescence intensity can be measured directly out. You can fix a wavelength, measure the intensity of the emitted light and the intensity of the fluorescence. The measured data will show the result.
Both BIT-China and BUCT-China found the gene connection is more difficult in the course of the discussion, and the leghemoglobin gene of BIT-China is derived from the soybean genome and is of eukaryotic origin. And it also requires considerations of intron and codon optimization, which is a big challenge. Many of the elements of our team are not stored in the laboratory and are from phage sources. Therefore, after the discussion, the two sides believe that if the traditional splicing method is too heavy workload, the gene synthesis method can be used to build more complex elements. After that, we all adopted the gene synthesis method, which greatly improved the experimental efficiency.
1. When selecting the inducible promoter, BIT-China employs the lactose operon on the plasmid vector and requires IPTG to induce expression. Because Tet regulated gene expression system is commonly used, with rich characterization data and more reliable. BUCT-China Following their experimental protocol, it also recommends using TetR with the corresponding p (TetR), the tetracycline operon control. It has a similar effect to "LacI and Lac-inhibited promoters", and the corresponding inducer is tetracycline, which can be relieved by tetracycline. In addition, the Tet system has a low background and a high induction multiple. In the absence of induction, the target gene expression level is low. But the expression level after the induction is high, reaching up to 10000 times of that without induction. But a small amount of addition is needed, because tetracycline is an antibiotic that can inhibit the bacteria. BUCT-China was also sent to the plasmid corresponding to BIT-China, which contained the TetR gene and the p (TetR) promoter, with corresponding attempts.
References: [Chen Hao, Xia Haibin. Research and Application of tetracycline Inducible Regulatory Expression System [J]. The Chemistry of Life, 2011,31(02):285-291.DOI:10.13488/j.smhx. 2011. 02.026.]
2. The application of leghemoglobin is a key part of our communication. BUCT-China needs to consider the question of how to ensure adequate cell contact with oxygen and nutrients. BIT-China noted this and recommended to BUCT-China the leghemoglobin that they were preparing to express. In nature, leghemoglobin creates a relatively low oxygen environment in rhizobia, protecting nitrogenase. Meanwhile, it can deliver high-throughput oxygen to mitochondria and bacteroids to maintain active cellular respiration. Therefore, BIT-China suggested that BUCT-China try to add a certain amount of leghemoglobin when conducting cell culture, which is expected to further improve the oxygen content distribution through leghemoglobin and provide a large amount of oxygen to the microbial respiratory site of making artificial meat, thus promoting cell reproduction and growth.
At the same time, in the production of artificial meat, product whitening is a common problem.In addition, the chicken cells we used are relatively pale compared with the muscle cells of mammals such as pigs, cattle and sheep. In the initial production process, our products are not ideal. The BUCT-China has also been looking for viable ways to improve. After deep discussions with BIT-China, BUCT-China decided to add leghemoglobin to the product to improve the color of the product and give consumers a better impression. leghemoglobin is a commonly used food additive in artificial meat products, which can greatly improve the taste, flavor and color authenticity of artificial meat products. BIT-China, which is also based on the found literature, noted that heme is better expressed and artificial meat is better made, and provided leghemoglobin gene data.
After discussion with BIT-China, BUCT-China envisiadding hemoglobin to the microsphere material. The scheme is easy to operate and control, and gives the product a good natural color after forming. Adding leghemoglobin to the microsphere can effectively increase the oxygen concentration of the cell surrounding environment and promote the cell growth and metabolism during the cell culture stage. It also has a certain buffer effect to prevent excessive oxygen concentration fluctuations from causing adverse effects on cell growth. BIT-China and BUCT-China also plan to reach a stable supply relationship on leghemoglobin in the future process of entrepreneurship.
3. BUCT-China also gives BIT-China a good reporter (mRFP1). Its advantage is that it does not need ultraviolet light excitation, only need normal light can be stimulated to produce red fluorescence, which is easy to operate. BUCT-China sent the plasmids and provided the files of the gene sequence for the BIT-China attempts.
To provide sufficient data support for the modeling, we plan to culture the recombinant species in groups. Each group uses the gradient concentration of IPTG inducer to induce the expression and observe the expression at every fixed time. Do your team have any relevant experience and suggestions?
IPTG is induced efficiently, often requiring only a small amount (1 mmol/L) to achieve the ideal induction effect. We propose to design a series of concentration gradients around 1 mmol/L. Moreover, the time of IPTG induction also has an impact on the experimental results. The early induction of E. coli growth may increase the metabolic burden, resulting in the final bacteria will not grow up very vigorously. The late induction may avoid the metabolic burden of exogenous proteins on the bacteria, and the improper selection of induction time can also easily lead to the formation of inclusions, so we suggest that you also explore the appropriate induction time. Meanwhile, for simple experimental operation, we propose to use the porous plate culture with the microplate reader as shown in Fig. Then, we only requires the entire plate to be placed into the microplate reader at regular intervals.
5. We have conducted in-depth communication on the use of gene oscillators to achieve periodic alternating expression.
The natural biological clock (a genetic oscillator) in organisms inspires us how to achieve periodic expression. The biological clock consists of a set of rhythmically expressed genes and the proteins they encode. When the rhythmical genes are activated, the concentration of the expressed proteins reaches a certain level, and then the concentration oscillates in a 24-hour cycle back to the initiation site of its own genes.
BUCT-China team designed the following feedback loops by using the similarmechanism to the biological clock gene oscillator.
The expression of gene 1 and gene 2 each eventually represses its own expression as a negative feedback. Again, due to the time lag in transcription and translation during gene expression, gene 1 and gene 2 are able to oscillate periodically and in opposite phases. Using the negative feedback in the operation of the molecular control circuit and the time lag in gene expression, it could achieve alternating periodic expression of gene 1 and gene 2.
Inspired by this, we hope to do some engineering improvement. We considered adding oxygen-sensitive promoter after the function module, where the promoter is expressed in reverse at very low oxygen concentration, producing a reverse RNA strand that complements it and deactivates it, eliminating the effect of CueO or leghemoglobin, so oxygen concentration is gradually restored. And after oxygen concentration rises, the cell growth rate increases. The activity of the promoter decreases, and the hypoxic element works, and so on. The effect is shown in the figure.
BUCT-China held a two-day online multi-school joint popular science presentation in mid-August, divided into five topics, including synthetic biology and life, treating hair loss, gene editing and production, healthcare, energy utilization and environmental protection. Before holding the science popularization lecture, BUCT-China also communicated with us on details about the form of the activities. We also expressed our strong support and expressed our full participation to them. BIT-China and BUCT-China both belong to the energy utilization and environmental protection group. On this platform of mutual communication and seeking cooperation opportunities, the two teams take the opportunity to exchange the existing results on each part of each other and present the cooperation results to other participants. In the exchange and discussion session, we actively interacted with the university lecturers and the audience of the broadcast studio, and won their recognition of the results of our cooperation. The audience of this online science popularization is mainly high school students and undergraduates, who have a certain biological foundation. They are full of exploration and enthusiasm for emerging interdisciplinary subjects like synthetic biology, and they raise a lot of valuable questions to us from the unique perspective of new people, which trigger us to think about synthetic biology. At the same time, we also introduced the iGEM competition in addition to the project explanation and synthetic biology introduction, aiming to introduce iGEM to the younger generation of China, so that the iGEM competition can get more attention.
The BIT-China member come to visit the BUCT
In order to better promote the project of the two teams, the artists of both sides designed the joint team emblem together. The main body of the team emblem is the E. coli body body of —— BIT-China and the artificial meat body of BUCT-China, the mascots of the two teams. We add the names of iGEM and both teams to highlight the key points, and the publicity effect has been greatly improved. At the same time, the DNA chain around the BUCT-China team's artificial meat has also named the scope of synthetic biology, making it easier to understand the scope of both projects. After the design of the joint team emblem was completed, both sides used the joint team emblem in the later joint activities or discussion exchanges to promote the cooperation of the two teams.
In order to better publicize the cooperation between the two teams and the iGEM competition to the public, the artists of both sides chose masks as the joint peripheral products in the context of the epidemic. The masks were designed like the joint team emblem, with the E. coli project representing BIT-China team and the artificial meat project representing BUCT-China team, and the names of both teams. The theme is distinct, the design is lovely and clever, playing a finishing role in the cooperative promotion of both sides.
On the afternoon of October 2nd, the BIT-China website group communicated with the BUCT-China website group.
During the exchange, the two teams shared the progress of the current website and the process of the compilation. At present, the two teams are in the stage of uploading and beautification of the web page materials, and we discussed this issue.
BUCT-China asked us for advice on the loading animation part of the web page, and BIT-China actively provided the solution.
We learned that about half of the BUCT-China players had a year of experience, through learning from each stage. We gained a new perspective.
In the end, the communication ended in a happy atmosphere. The website groups of the two teams had different gains. Both sides had similar progress and their work situation was similar. More than half an hour of communication made us form a deep friendship.
1. In terms of the future development prospects, we have also found a fit point. BIT-China's hydrogen production and nitrogen fixation tend to be clean energy or environmental protection, aiming to efficiently produce compounds useful to humans through biological means, while protecting the atmosphere and water environment and reducing pollution from industrial production. BUCT-China's artificial meat can be used as an alternative to animal-source meat, reducing land occupation, environmental deterioration caused by animal husbandry, and can effectively save water resources, which is also environmentally friendly. We regard environmental protection as a direction of cooperation, and explore the new possibilities of using biological organisms to protect the environment and save resources.
2. BIT-China has designed a low-oxygen system, while BUCT-China will encounter some easily oxidized compounds (such as hydroxyfatty acids used, as well as amine intermediates), or metabolic pathways vulnerable to oxygen interference in their future work. It is expected that some compounds synthesized by BUCT-China will have a higher stability by using our hypoxic system. Some metabolic pathways can have higher activity and selectivity, thus improving production efficiency, which has reference significance for future research and development. At the same time, our low-oxygen system will have a broader application prospects.
3. Inspired by the genetic oscillator designed by BUCT-China, BIT-China expects to design a system in the future to achieve controllable changes in the intracellular oxygen concentration over time and in the external environment. That means, the promotion and inhibition relationship between the different biological elements is used to enable the cells to better adapt to the changes in the external oxygen concentration, or to make full use of the oxygen.