Introduction
Biotechnology is gradually becoming more and more important in human’s lives. For instance, the use of biotechnology has become the solution for the COVID-19 pandemic. In light of this, science would lose its purpose if its bonding with humans were lost.This year, we sought advice from experts related to the recent heated topic of health and diseases to give advice on our projects.
Visit paid by Sanomics on St. Stephen’s College
Last year, we visited Geb Impact Technology and interviewed the Hong Kong Research Institute and Apparel to broaden our horizons on the development of micro algae technologies and how biotechnology can integrate in the textile industry. This year, our focus has shifted from a technique-based approach to an entrepreneurial perspective. We hope to learn from successful businessmen in the biomedical field and help our members develop a sense of responsibility as a global citizen to make contributions to the world. It is our great honour that the CEO and founder of Sanomics, Stanley Sy had paid a visit to our school. Sanomics is a Hong Kong based biotechnology company focussing on cancer screening services and we discussed the improvements to be made in our project as well as the future of the biotechnology field in Hong Kong.
Stanley Sy has devoted his life to the biomedical field since a young age when biotechnology was not as popular and well known as it is today. This has created a lot of obstacles through Mr. Sy’s journey on pursuing his studies and ambitions in this field. With resilience and determination, Mr Sy had successfully established his company and had a lot of experience about the business perspective of biotechnology to share with us.
Throughout our interview with Mr. Sy, he pointed out that we should be clear on how we could make contributions to the world rather than presenting our strategies and overcomplicating our project with technical terms. From our conversation we have also understood that the biological pathway of producing lactams might not be as environmentally friendly as we claimed. We might have overlooked the pollution that might be caused to the environment during the production of the product. Biological pathways were always claimed to be more efficient that traditional petrochemical pathways with less energy input and higher yield. But at this moment, we have no direct evidence to prove this point of our project. Therefore, not only interacting with experts could provide us with advice that improves our project, but also allows us to develop a reflective mindset.
Integration
To improve our project, we decided to investigate the proportion of chemicals in the BG-11 growth medium for cyanobacteria to maximize the growth of S.elongatus UTEX 2973, thus minimizing costs and impacts on the environment. In the future, we plan to dive deeper into different alternatives and the quantitative efficiency of our proposed biosynthetic method to produce valerolactams. Moreover, commercial methods of harvesting cells and their products will be investigated so that we could come up with a way to gather valerolactam synthesized by our transformed cyanobacteria. Apart from quantizing our results, we would also like to present our project to the public in a way that is simpler and more relatable to daily lives, so that people could understand what we are doing and how it could benefit their lives. We would also assess and improve the efficiency of our synthesis design in the coming year. Methods can include monitoring and minimizing energy use and maximizing the purity and yield of the valerolactam produced.
Through this experience, we realise that a lot of biotechnology projects are serving the purpose of the economy. Biotechnology companies should consider how their projects would attract investors to invest in the project. In order to integrate our project into the society instead of just for academic purposes, the method of use and benefits of biosynthetic pathway over the traditional method should be highlighted so that end users could understand and consider whether or not to support our team. In order to achieve this, we would show the scale of our project by presenting data on how much more energy saving biotechnology is than petrochemical industries. We would also gather information on the pollution of petrochemical industries to compare the difference after traditional and biotech synthesis of lactams. This has allowed us to look at the world differently and view biotechnology in a more practical and entrepreneurial perspective.
Perseverance as the key to success in biotechnology We asked asked Mr. Sy whether the COVID-19 coronavirus was a crossroads in the research direction of Hong Kong biotechnology and scientific researchers, Mr Sy agreed with the statement. He believes that the most important thing in scientific research is not money or technology, but public awareness. Mr.Sy said that in the 2000s, his family did not understand his choice to pursue biotechnology , and his mother even said that "it's better to drive a taxi than to engage in science and technology innovation". However after the pandemic, more people discovered that biotechnology is profit making, which has made biotechnology more accessible to ordinary people.
Mr. Sy said “ A hero is known in the time of misfortune, harsh environment can force the talent." He also claimed that there is no certainty in innovation and technology itself. You have to try it first, and no one will know what the results will be. Finally, it is about whether Mr. Shi will change his research and development direction due to the emergence of the epidemic. He said that he would never change direction. Hong Kong people often look at speculation, perseverance, persistence, and having an unchanging mind is the key to success in innovation and technology. Our team is looking forward to seeing more talents emerge in the biotechnology field in the future!