To better promote the concept of the International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) competition and our project "Ergothioneine Production Enhancement in Saccharomyces cerevisiae", we conducted offline outreach activities in the central campus area in conjunction with DNA Day to educate people about the important scientific advances in genomics and how they affect our lives.

DNA Day, celebrated annually on April 25th, commemorates the successful completion of the Human Genome Project and the discovery of the double helix structure of DNA, which was published in 1953. The goal of International DNA Day is to educate everyday people about the importance of genomics so that they can make more informed decisions about their healthcare and even potential careers.

On this commemorative day, we prepared random quizzes and raffles to educate people about biology, and they were very enthusiastic to participate and get a small gift through the event. Our team members actively participated in the event and put a lot of enthusiasm and effort into promoting the event and the project, actively promoting the event on campus and guiding students to our booth to participate in our activities. This event laid a good foundation for the team's social practice and made more and more people know about synthetic biology.

Ergothioneine is already widely known in nature, as it exists in many animals and plants. But we want ergothioneine to become well known for everyday people. We want its anti-aging and other health benefits to become popular for all!

And so on July 11th, the HBUT iGEM team entered the local Hugong community to meet with community members. We held an education event in the community service center, to publicize the work done by the HBUT iGEM team and educate the people about the project. The activities included public lectures, poster publicity, and answering questions.

The purpose of this activity was to offer free popular science to community residents through the exhibition window, to win a good spread in the community, and to reflect the social responsibility and the positive attitude towards ergothioneine research.

The HBUT iGEM team is committed to manufacturing high-quality ergothioneine through experimental means, and we want everyone to know!

In order to help people understand the main concepts and competition process of iGEM, answer students' questions about iGEM, and grow professionally, we held an iGEM information session on April 9th.

Members of the iGEM team led the presentation. At the beginning, we made a brief introduction to the International Genetic Engineering Machine Competition, so that students had a preliminary understanding of the competition. After that, through the explanation of the competition process, the competition content, and their growth during this period, the students had a relatively complete understanding of the competition. The event encouraged the students to actively participate in the competition through the domestic development status of iGEM and the awards of Hubei University of Technology in recent years.

Then we gave a general introduction to synthetic biology to the students. By explaining the basics of synthetic biology, the students gained an appreciation of the field, and an understanding of the research of artificial biological systems. We explained the theoretical background and development process of synthetic biology, which aroused the students' strong interest. This lead to a discussion of synthetic biology's role in human society and its strategic significance. Finally, we warmly encouraged them to actively participate in the contest and recommend them to follow the latest news of the contest on iGEM WeChat official account.

The publicity meeting was successful. Our explanation not only made the students who were interested in the competition understand the basic content of the competition, but also further improved their interest in this kind of competition.