Modeling Communication with NWU-CHINA-A

Since this year both we and the NWU-CHINA-A's project are related to the treatment of intestinal diseases and both schools are located close to each other in northwest of China, we started a communication on mathematical modeling.

We first listened to the students from NWU-CHINA-A share their projects and got a brief understanding of their modeling direction. Then our mathematical modeling team members shared the sources of their ideas and modifications to existing models for this year's modeling. They suggested the NWU-CHINA-A could also find a base model first.

After the modeling exchange, we discussed recent experimental progress and human practice issues, focusing on the killing switching parts. The team leader of NWU-CHINA-A shared with us their team's experience of combining synthetic biology with traditional Chinese culture last year, and we were inspired to integrate synthetic biology with a traditional Chinese holiday: the Mid-Autumn Festival.

Fight for LGBTQ community with ICT-Mumbai and IISER Tirupati

We found that the LGBTQ community has a higher rate of cancer than others [1], and since our research project is related to colorectal cancer and China ignores the normal rights of this community, we wrote a brochure to dispel the prejudices of the public about LGBTQ community.

The problem of disregard for LGBTQ rights does not only occur in China, as we learned from the Indian exchange students in our lab, the same problem is also in India. In this way, we found that action in China alone was not enough, so we contacted two Indian iGEM team ICT-Mumbai and IISER Tirupati.

In order to understand LGBTQ's situation and difficulties in each other's countries, we had a meeting on zoom.

Then they translated our brochure into Hindi and promoted it in India. Though our action is small, it connects those in China and India who are suffering from injustice. If more people like us spoke up for them, they would surely be respected. It is also the opportunity of synthetic biology that brings us together from afar.

Exhibition in Yue Gallery with iBowu-China

To continue to expand our influence on the public, we collaborated with iBowu-China to launch a Life on Earth Art Exhibition at the Yue Art Museum in Beijing's 798 Art District to educate the public about the beauty of biology and stimulate people to think about coexistence with nature. Artists from our team also contributed artworks. More details can visit education.

ICII: into China, into iGEM

Bringing synthetic biology to the world is one of the core contents of iGEM. As a component of iGEM family, it is our duty to promote synthetic biology to the world. However, academic preaching activities often refer to small-scale professionals, and we hope that synthetic biology can be more easily understood by more people. Therefore, we participated in the national publicity campaign ICII, and carried out popular science education activities with other iGEM teams in China for the general population without professional knowledge background.

During the summer, we cooperated with NAU-CHINA, CSU-China, Tianjin-China, CPU_CHINA, NEFU-China, Fudan-CHINA, OUC-CHINA, ZJU-CHINA. Each team took over the platform bilibili to broadcast synthetic biology content about their project. The event was a huge educational event that spread across China and all areas of synthetic biology.

RKO Cell lines with NEU_CHINA

Since our RKO cells were contaminated with mycoplasma, advisors speculated that the problem might be in the bovine serum. However, mycoplasma is difficult to remove and the epidemic outbreak experimental materials were difficult to turn around at the time. Without the RKO cells our experiments would have been halted. Since both our project and NEU_CHINA's project this year is to treat colorectal cancer, the cell lines used were discussed together. After they heard about our situation, they immediately sent RKO cells, and fortunately the stalled experiment for a week did not affect the later stage too much. Thanks for NEU_CHINA, and we had a deeper collaboration later, more details can visit partnership.

Education for intellectual disabled people with SCUT-China

We noticed that the disabled community has little access to synthetic biology in general, so we decided to promote synthetic biology with them as the target group. Since some of our team members were in Guangzhou during the summer, we first contacted the Guangzhou Disabled Persons' Federation to ask for their permission. Considering the small impact of only one team, we partnered with SCUT-China, which was also in Guangzhou.

Both of our teams offered an activity to people with disabilities, we brought butterfly specimens and dried flower making paintings. One of the butterfly specimens was collected during our scientific research in the Qilian Mountains, with the permission of the local environmental protection bureau, we want people to feel the beauty of nature and the wonders of animals. SCUT-China bring the functional silk developed, which can eliminate the public's misunderstanding and resistance to genetic modification.

Picture Book with Worldshaper-HZBIOX and SZ-SHD

In order to make our education package available in more formats and to deliver synthetic biology knowledge to children in a more interesting way, we have partnered with Worldshaper-HZBIOX and SZ-SHD to develop a picture book. Each team contributed a funny story of their projects, we received brilliant feedback from children. We had a deeper collaboration with Worldshaper-HZBIOX, more details can visit partnership.

Reference

[1] Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Health, United States, 2016: with special feature on racial and ethnic dispari- ties. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/hus/index.htm. Accessed November 10, 2017