To enlarge the popularization of synthetic biology, CPU_CHINA designed various ways of teaching to optimize the effect for different groups of people.
For children, because the application scenario of our Cancer Stalker is underdeveloped areas with poor medical conditions, we decided to volunteer in teaching in remote rural schools and distributed synthetic biology handbooks written by our team members. In addition, we shot a video to introduce the basic operations of our experiments in synthetic biology and uploaded it on bilibili (a Chinese video platform) to expand our audience and make concepts and experiments of synthetic biology more widespread.
For high school students, we conducted online classes to explain the basics of synthetic biology.
For undergraduates, we have adapted Halli Galli (A popular game) to a card game about biological chassis organisms and held a very popular small competition.
And for all age groups, we published popular science articles and held an online art exhibition with BIT in collaboration on iGEMerCPU, our official account, and created various adorable images of Sno, our team's mascot, on WeChat for free.
Besides, we collaborated with other iGEM teams to edit the electronic synthetic biology atlas. It is publicly available on the medium website and is read by many people for free.
Furthermore, we have introduced CRISPR-Cas technology from the aspects of principles, development, and applications by holding an offline lecture on campus and collaborating with other iGEM teams to hold online lectures for high school students and college freshmen.
Since the application scenario of our project is rural health clinics with poor medical conditions, we think it is necessary to promote Cancer Stalker to remote rural areas. Between July 19, 2022 and July 30, 2022, HP members went to Zhenping County, Ankang City, Shaanxi Province, where China Pharmaceutical University has been helping to develop its economy. After arriving there, we found that local educational resources in this area were scarce according to our interaction with the locals. Under the circumstance , we went to Shuping Town Primary School to teach students the basics of synthetic biology, spread synthetic biology to mountainous areas and lay the foundation for a synthetic biology revolution in less developed areas.
Before heading to the mountain area, besides the slideshow we prepared for the courses, we also wanted to share our lab life with them, so we shot a video in our lab. The video showed the experiment operation specification, introducing the use of common apparatus such as PCR instruments and centrifuges, and demonstrated some experimental procedures of our project. In the classroom, we showed this video to the children and they were curious about the various apparatus that appeared on the screen and actively asked questions. Meanwhile, we also uploaded this video on bilibili to expand the audience of science popularization.
Figure 1. A screenshot of our vlog
Vlog
CPU_CHINA members designed two courses that briefly introduce children to the basics of synthetic biology.
The first course was about the basic knowledge of synthetic biology, a total of two hours. In the first course, we introduced the basic concepts of biology such as cells, chromosomes, DNA, gene, base, etc. In addition, we made a pop quiz on base pairing to deepen their understanding of the base pairing rules. At the same time, to inspire the children's love for scientific research, we set up a discussion session and asked them what they would like to create by using synthetic biology. Some kids wanted to use synthetic biology to make homegrown apples bigger and sweeter, some kids wanted to make a drug to treat COVID-19……, and every idea deserves recognition.
Figure 2. A member was explaining the basic concepts of biology Figure 3. A member was teaching synthetic biologyThe second course was designed to develop children's dialectical thinking about the development of science and technology and lasted for an hour. We cultivated the children's dialectical thinking by presenting a case on ethics in biology and held a mini-debate on "whether to support the development of gene editing technology" to provoke the children to think about the ethics of synthetic biology. During the mini-debate, the children actively spoke and expressed their views clearly, and had a clearer view of science.
Figure 4. Help children understand dialectical thinking Figure 5. Chat with childrenCPU_CHINA members developed a synthetic biology handbook that matched the content of the synthetic biology science curriculum.
Compared with the normal textbook, the handbook explained the basic knowledge of synthetic biology in detail. We gave the handbooks to the children as gifts, and they loved them. These handbooks held our hope that they will continue to teach synthetic biology to children in place of CPU_CHINA after we left.
Figure 6. A member was introducing the handbook Figure 7. A child was reading the handbookThrough this mission trip, we planted a seed of synthetic biology in the mountainous area, hoping that these children will always have a passion for exploring the life sciences. At the same time, we also achieved our initial goal of promoting Cancer Stalker to Zhenping County and raising awareness of early cancer screening among local residents.
In order to increase the influence of online science popularization of synthetic biology, we jointly held an online public science lecture Synthetic Biology and Cutting-edge Applications; with iGEM teams from 10 universities in July, 2022. Our lectures focused on the frontier and application of synthetic biology. The lecture series was divided into 4 main topics and each team took its project as an example to explain the principles and applications of various synthetic biology technologies in simple words.
At 8:00 PM on July 23, our team took synthetic biology in daily life as our entry point, introducing the concept of synthetic biology and showing the close connection between synthetic biology and our daily life to high school students in the live broadcast room. Then we moved on to CRISPR-Cas system, which was first discovered in prokaryotes. It can intercept the original spacer sequence from the genome of foreign viruses and "register" it. With the help of the Cas9-tracRNA-CrRNA complex with nucleic acid cleavage activity, it can cut the DNA strand that can complement the crRNA sequence, which provides bacteria with "acquired immunity" against the invasion of foreign viral DNA.
Apart from the staff, there were 225 students participated in the course, and we even attracted three students from Singapore and Australia to join us. We also made e-postcards for everyone as a souvenir. Meanwhile, we recorded the course and uploaded it to bilibili platform. As of October 10, the number of views has exceeded 3,000.
During the whole process, we established profound friendships with Tsinghua and BIT, who also chose diagnostics track this year, and held meetings to discuss our future cooperation.
Figure 8. Online courses for high school students Figure 9. Satisfying feedback from audienceThrough this online course, we introduced synthetic biology to high school students,hoping to provide them with an initial understanding of synthetic biology and to stimulate their interest in synthetic biology.
Cooperated with the student organization of China Pharmaceutical University (CPU), CPU_CHINA hold a synthetic biology science lecture --- Bio Night, which attracted more than 140 students.
Figure 10. The audienceFrom the beginning of the topic brainstorms to wet labs, we had encountered joyful gains as well as depressing failures. We wanted to share these precious memories with others, so we introduced synthetic biology and our project---Cancer Stalker to the audience. And this enabled many people to know us.
Figure 11. A member was sharing her thoughtsOur sharing made more people know about CPU_CHINA, a united and friendly team with an immense passion for synthetic biology, and helped people understand that early diagnosis and early treatment can beat cancer and raised their awareness of early cancer screening, and we thought that they would also share this knowledge with their families and friends.
Figure 12. A member ended her sharingWe introduced CRISPR-Cas, the most popular gene editing technology at present. This part was explained for an hour and the feedback we got after the lecture was wonderful: many audiences asked questions in the Q&A session, and our members answered these questions seriously for them, such as what are the pros and cons of fluorescent diagnosis based on CRISPR-Cas compared with real-time fluorescent quantitative PCR?
Figure 13. A member was introducing CRISPR-CasThis lecture let many students from China Pharmaceutical University understand CRISPR Cas, helping them broaden their horizon and optimizing their knowledge structure. We hoped this lecture can have some influence on their research paths and bring them some sparks and inspiration.
In order to make CPU_CHINA's science popularization more attractive to the public, we have adapted Halli Galli into a card game for the science of synthetic biology chassis organisms. The following are the specific details:
The game involves 49 cards and 7 kinds of synthetic biological chassis organisms. Each card has a hand-drawn picture of 1 chassis organism and 3 characteristics of another chassis organism.
1.Saccharomyces cerevisiae
(1) The first eukaryote that got genome sequencing
(2) Alcoholic fermentation
(3) Spherical or ovoid
(4) The yeast that relates most to human
2.Escherichia coli
(1) Normal inhabitant in human gut
(2) Genetic engineering
(3) Identified by EMB
(4) Causing acute diarrhea
3.Bacillus subtilis
(1) Able to improve the turbidity of water caused by the overflow of harmful cyanobacteria
(2) Easy to reproduce in the leach liquor of withered grass
(3) Reduce the occurrence of shrimp diseases
(4) Enhance our immunity
4.Kluyveromyces lactis
(1) An important non Saccharomyces cerevisiae
(2) Mostly separated from dairy products
(3) Has a prospect for large-scale medicinal protein production
(4) Emits a fruit-like aroma when cultivating
5.Cyanobacteria
(1) Photosynthesis
(2) "Pioneer organism"
(3) An indicator of eutrophication in water bodies
(4) Common species are Chroococcus, Oscillatoria, Nostoc, etc.
6.Streptomycete
(1) Produce a variety of water-soluble or fat-soluble pigments
(2) Produce a variety of antibiotics
(3) Representative specie is streptomyces albus
(4) Difficult to be identified or classified
7.Pseudomonas putida
(1) A pathogenic bacterium for fish
(2) Specifically produces fluorescein not pyocyanin
(3) Old cultures have a fishy odor
(4) A normal flora in human pharynx
Figure 14. Our cards