1. We gave lectures to introduce the depressive disorder knowledge to students in our school
From the survey work in school, we know that some students are suffering from depressive disorder. In order to help them and introduce our project, we gave specific lectures for some students (Fig.1). The school hall accommodated fully with students who were actively to ask questions (Fig.2). This lecture had good effectiveness.
Fig.1 The lecture poster, and the lecturers’ photo taken in front of the electronic poster on screen.
Note: The poster was designed by Xinzichu Xie.
Fig.2 Photos taken at scene of lecture.
To accurately introduce the knowledge of depressive disorder, we invited a psychological tutor to give us some guidance before we gave lectures. We mainly introduced the following contents:
The situation of depressive disorder. In 2019, the number of patients with depressive disorder worldwide reached 100 million. However, after the outbreak of the epidemic, the number of patients with depression and anxiety worldwide increased by 25%. One of eight people in the world suffers from depressive disorder. In conflict areas and economically backward areas, about one of five people is depressive disorder. The patients with serious mental health diseases will die 10-20 years earlier than the average person. Under the epidemic, tension, anxiety, panic, economic turmoil and "destroyed daily life" often cause psychological distress.
Then we mainly introduced how to alleviate negative emotions and reduce the occurrence of depressive disorder, focusing on the methods as followings:
(a). Learn to communicate with others and release pressure in time. Some people's depression is related to excessive pressure. If they want to prevent depression, they should learn to release pressure. When they feel excessive pressure in study and life, they can improve it by talking to friends. Communicate with others more, which can effectively improve depression. In the process of communicating with others, you can confide your feelings to the other party and release the pressure, which can help eliminate the depression and prevent them from falling into bad emotions for a long time.
(b). Stick to moderate exercise. It can help us relax and keep healthy. If you want to get rid of depression, you may as well try to adhere to 1 or 2 sports, such as jogging, walking, playing ball, swimming, etc. Moderate exercise can not only enhance immune function and improve resistance, but also promote the secretion of dopamine in the body, make people feel happy, relax the brain, and alleviate depression.
(c). Adjust diet, sleep and exercise. Some bad habits can increase the risk of depression, such as staying up late often can easily lead to low mood, and excessive dieting can also make the mood irritable and irritable. To prevent depression, we should first pay attention to developing good eating and sleeping habits.
(d). Cultivate interest. Whether it is reading, painting or calligraphy, when people have an interest, on the one hand, they will have great enthusiasm for life, on the other hand, they can also let us forget the troubles in life for the time being, so as to prevent the occurrence of bad emotions.
(e). Active treatment. For some patients with severe depression, treatment may be needed to improve their condition. The treatment of depression includes psychotherapy and drug therapy, among which psychotherapy includes cognitive behavior therapy, psychodynamic therapy and so on. Drug therapy mainly takes some antidepressants. In addition, it also includes traditional Chinese medicine treatment and physical therapy. Patients should actively cooperate with doctors. Through reasonable treatment, they can help control the development of depression.
Compared with other diseases, depressive disorder has no obvious physical performance, but it brings great psychological harm to patients, and even endangers life in serious cases. Therefore, if you find yourself in low mood, insomnia, memory decline and other manifestations in life, you should be alert, adjust your mentality in time, communicate with others more, and if necessary, you can also turn to a doctor to improve the problem of depression.
Conclusion: After this time education, some students have a comprehensive understanding for the situation of depressive disorder and how to alleviate negative emotions to protect from depressive disorder. Hoping it is helpful!
2. We gave lectures to introduce our project, and publicize iGEM and synthetic biology
When the new semester comes this September, some new students registered in our high school from junior school. We gave lectures to them to introduce our project, and publicize iGEM and synthetic biology (Fig.3).
Fig.3 Some iGEMers of ICJFLS are publicizing iGEM and synthetic biology.
In recent years, our school's iGEM teams have acquired great achievements. The students are very interested in joining in the iGEM community of our school. In order to develop and expand the new forces of the community and recruit new members, we iGEMers carried out educational activities including the aims, basic knowledge, requirements, application, and future development direction of iGEM community and synthetic biology to the new students in detail.
In addition, we introduced our project in details to the new students （Fig.4）.
We introduced our project from different aspects, especially the current diagnostic methods for depressive disorder, and pointed out the drawbacks of the diagnosis at present, which lack of objective evaluation method. We also introduced the relevant knowledge of miRNA, the detection method of toehold switch based on cell-free expression system, and the application of synthetic biology in the detection field of depressive disorder. The students showed great interest.
From the eyes of these younger students, we can figure out their desire for knowledge. Through lecture teaching, they understand the principle of synthetic biology, what they can do and what they want to do, which greatly broadened the students' ideas and vision.
Fig.4 Some iGEMers of ICJFLS are introducing our project to the new students.
Conclusion: Education and communication played an important role in the recruitment of iGEM community. Most of the new students showed strong interest in the application of synthetic biology methods to diagnosis of depressive disorder, hoping to join in iGEM community next year.