The Sustainable Development effect
It’s known that the creativity and technology of synthetic biologyare necessary to achieve the SDGs in every context. This year, BNU-China focuses on the hot debate about cannabis usage and exploration. Through long-term study, communication and tests, we strive to build a comprehensive Δ9-THC detection-degradation system targeting unintentional cannabis ingestion, addiction control of certain population in case of drug abuse. Furthermore, with deeper research, we realize our project ensures the four Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)——good health and well-being, peace, justice and strong institutions, partnerships for the goals and quality education.
Good health and well-being
Legalization of cannabis means that cannabis for medical and recreational purposes has become legal in more and more countries and regions, which leads to a considerable controversy on its impact on public health and well-being. Some research shows that cannabis has been added to some goods without specific labels, which has brought serious discomfort to some people who take in cannabis unintentionally and has troubled cross-cultural people like tourists.
Ingestion of Δ9-THC and its analogue may lead to drug dependence, addiction, psychosis, and pulmonary disorders which damage people's health and well-being. This year, BNU-China aims to design a system in the intestinal tract which can sense the Δ9-THC and express blue C-phycocyanin as the reporter. At the same time, the system expresses three kinds of enzymes for Δ9-THC degradation, thus reducing the risk of addiction. Our system provides people the first aid to help them stay away from drug abuse and maintains people's health and well-being, especially in an unstable environment without awareness, which generally meets the Target 3.5 of UNODC's work - Strengthen the prevention and treatment of substance abuse.
Partnerships For The Goals
Affected by the spread of COVID-19, the global drug abuses become increasingly severe. According to a United Nations report, the COVID-19 pandemic not only has a significant impact on the global economy, public health and people's lifestyles, but also brings many new changes to global drug production, supply, trafficking patterns and consumer demand. The recession has led more farmers to start drug farming. Also, the rising unemployment rate has led the poor and the vulnerable to take drugs to release pressure, or even work on drug trafficking for a living. In total, there are currently about 280 billion drug addicts around the world. Under the circumstances, the drug situation in China is also facing some new changes, bringing new risks and challenges to the work of drug control.
To combat the severe drug abuse and protect those who may be negatively affected by the current drug situation, we explored the deeper meaning of our project which is based on the Target 17.16 of UNODC's work - Enhance the global partnership for sustainable development, complemented by multi-stakeholder partnerships that mobilize and share knowledge, expertise, technology and financial resources, to support the achievement of the sustainable development goals in all countries, in particular developing countries.
We sincerely hope that our project can contribute to the global cannabis exploration in medical use but not in negetive aspects and gradually change the perception and policy of cannabis in different countries. Finally, all the world partner up with the passion to achieve sustainable development.
Quality Education
Promoting quality education is an essential task of iGEM. Our team has carried out a multi-level and interactional education system, including social education, school education and further education. The right insights on the genetic engineering and the knowledge of the addiction of cannabis should not only be well known by researchers and medical staff, but also be popularized in the whole society.
Through questionnaires which not only target at examining people's knowledge of cannabis, but also allow subjects to express their opinions to a great extent, we understand people's cognition of medical cannabis. Apart from that, we refer to professional health care workers as a supplementary means to the completeness of the project. We also hold education activities in the college, such as designing “Your Quiz on the Block” and "cannabis ‘vaccine’" game card. We have held several exchange meetings and science lectures by collaborating with other colleges. We ended up with 225 students participating in our sessions, involving three students from Singapore and Australia.
Evaluation Of The Previous iGEM Projects
There have been works over Δ9-THC in the past iGEM projects. For example, the 2019 Qweens Canada team used recombinantly expressed antibody fragments, which are conjugated to fluorescent molecules, to detect Δ9-THC, the active ingredient in cannabis. This novel immuno-assay would allow for a specific detection method with minimal cross-reactivity. Their devices greatly improve the specificity of roadside THC testing. They believe the best use of their device would be to aid in the detection of roadside driving impairment and the public shares their belief since the majority voted Law Enforcement to be most in need of a cannabis detection device. In this way, their products reached the goals of peace, justice and strong institutions and good health and well-being. However, the products can't directly serve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) such as good health and well being while these goals were further developed by our team.
References
-
Sustainable Development Goals.
Full text Back to text
