Total |
Including more than |
More than |
Overview
Education and communication are two of the keys to unlocking the potential of synthetic biology. This year, NCKU_Tainan’s project involves a lot of futuristic ideas; thus, allowing more people to access it would be our utmost mission. Hence, we were dedicated to designing comprehensive, diverse and innovative activities to motivate, encourage and share with more and more communities. We should commit ourselves to science education and engage more people in the science community; moreover, elevate the opportunity for all kinds of people to be part of it.
Highlights
Workshop
To ignite the passion for synthetic biology and space traveling in more people, NCKU_Tainan human practices team decided to hold a workshop this year. We could see how different people think about space, how they imagine it, or what solution they would propose for solving space problems. Click for more information.
Talk Show
Knowing that education events are sometimes tedious, we wanted to have an interesting and easy-to-understand means of education to encourage more people into the gates of synthetic biology. Since we wanted to target normal people this time, we needed to make the show humorous while not losing focus on synthetic biology and our project. Click for more information.
Audiobook
To share Synbio knowledge with a wider diversity of audiences, we recorded audiobooks, which are accessible to visually-impaired people. The contents were based on the latest advance of the Synbio industry. We believed that our efforts made more people recognize the limitless potential of Synbio, and grasped a better understanding of the application of Synbio. The full version was uploaded online, allowing people worldwide to enjoy the episodes (see Inclusivity page).
Education
Fortnightly
Being in a digital age, we took advantage of social media to promote the latest Synbio knowledge. Like magazines, our fortnightly publishes one article every two weeks. We talked about nitrogen fertilizers, covid detection, gene editing methods, and many other interesting topics. We explained the newest Synbio techniques and applications in a story-telling way to let busy people take in the most with the least time. We hoped our readers can find the articles interesting and share what they learned with their close ones or even experience synthetic biology themselves.
To improve the quality of our future content, we conducted a feedback form right after we published the six articles. In the feedback, we found that most people (87.6%) had a better understanding of synthetic biology and that all of them agreed that the potential of synthetic biology in space is limitless. Furthermore, we also received suggestions to publish our content in graphical forms. We will keep all the feedback in mind and continue improving our project until it’s the best we can do. (Click the Instagram/Facebook icon at the bottom to enjoy the full episode!)
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
[click on the episodes to see more]
Podcast
NCKU_Tainan had collaborated with KU_Leuven in making a podcast about how scientists overcame their troubles. We invited Professor Yi Yang, a professor in the Department of Physics at NCKU and a physicist studying the properties of particles.
He had participated in the AMS (Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer) project before, in which he built a radiator for the AMS project. During the cooperation, one of the systems failed during the testing phase, and other people thought it was because something went wrong in manufacturing. To find the defect during the manufacturing process, Prof. Yang and his team worked hard to find the problem. Eventually, they realized there was nothing wrong with the manufacturing process but a defect in the device's design. Prof. Yang realized that no one would speak for us except ourselves, and we must do whatever we can to fight. "Stay positive and work for yourself !" Prof. Yang encouraged all the young scientists.
From this collaboration, we not only had a chance to learn how other scientists overcome their troubles from this podcast platform but also provided an experience sharing the difficulties a physicist might face. This podcast allows all kinds of people to participate in science by encouraging and inspiring the audience. No matter who you are, who he is, or who she is, anyone can be part of the science community with this podcast.
[Click Podcast to listen on YouTube.]
Club Festival
National Cheng Kung University (NCKU) holds a club festival every semester to introduce all clubs to the freshmen. We took the chance and participated in the festival to promote our team and share our knowledge of Synbio by creating various interactive games. In addition, one of our members dressed up as E. coli and walked around, which drew lots of attention. Throughout the lively event, lots of people showed interest in our project and gave us encouraging support.
Comic Book
To bring more young children into the fantastic world of Synbio, we collaborated with the iGEM_USAFA team and created a coloring book. The children could understand the projects more easily and absorb the basic concepts of synthetic biology while coloring the comic book. We firmly believe the content was suitable for students of all ages. Moreover, through cross-culture collaboration, the young learners could enjoy a wide diversity of ideas from the iGEM teams worldwide. We hoped to ignite the children’s curiosity for synthetic biology with this interactive material.
Communication
13th ARS Conference
ARS (AFOB Regional Symposium) is a symposium held by AFOB (Asian Federation of Biotechnology) annually for research exchange. This year, NCKU_Tainan was in charge of the “Synthetic Biology & Protein Engineering” session, in which we invited iGEM teams from 13 universities in different countries, including the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Tirupati, India, China University of Geosciences, National Chung Hsing University, National Yang-Ming Chiao Tung University (NYCU-Taipei), The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, National Yang-Ming Chiao Tung University (NYCU_Formosa), Xiamen University, Chung Shan Medical University, Waseda University, Tokyo Institute of Technology, National Chung Cheng University, National Tsing Hua University, and The University of Tokyo.
With a great variety of teams, we saw how incredible synthetic biology is, which can be applied in different fields and solve problems currently happening in the world. The topics include biomaterials, wound healing, and other diverse ideas.
During the Q&A section, we exchanged ideas and asked questions according to their presentation. With this, we not only realized what we still needed to improve from their feedback and questions but also were inspired by their project ideas. For instance, one of our experiments used tRNAs as substrates to synthesize selenocysteine; however, we encountered some difficulties during that time. After asking some questions about tRNA synthesis technical problems, we received more ideas about the solution.
Moreover, by communicating, we believe ARS provided an opportunity for all the teams to benefit one another mutually. Eventually, we considered this conference a huge success because all of the teams learned something from each other, and together we helped each other’s projects improve.
Smart Community Mini Jam
In Smart Community Mini Jam, we learned new knowledge in different fields from the speeches and had more ideas about how to engage more people in our project. We understood how people with zero background in space would think about our project, which led us to keep improving and let the wider audience access our topic.
I. What is Smart Community Mini Jam?
NCKU_Tainan participated in the talk event of Smart Community Mini Jam. At this Mini Jam, practitioners from around the world will gather to address key questions. Together, we were able to explore the possibility of creating human-centric cyber and physical systems.
II. Target audience
- Experts in design, education, finance, technology, and environmental science.
- People that are not familiar with space topic
III. Receiving
We learned how to host a successful event in the Smart Community Mini Jam. Moreover, in the Q&A section, we received a lot of useful feedback, which supported our human practices team in building a comprehensive plan.
IV. Q & A
Q1: How did you push your ideas out to the community?
A1: First, you must define your main target audience. Better data comes from a small prototype that is close to the customer. Moreover, it would be best if you considered audience's from various domains. For example, holding a workshop would be a great idea!
Q2: We want to help those underprivileged. However, owing to cultural and educational differences, sometimes they probably will not accept our ideas. How to communicate with people from different backgrounds?
A2: We should not force others to accept our ideas. Instead, we should listen to their thoughts, understand their circumstances, and learn from their cultural backgrounds.
V. Giving
People at this conference were unfamiliar with synthetic biology; therefore, we presented our project and received feedback to see people's opinions on our project in Smart Community Mini Jam. Other than that, we wanted to know how people who had not dabbled in synthetic biology would think of our ideas.
During this talk, our idea of sending bacteria to space fascinated them; however, they often interrupted, asking for explanations while we went through academic parts. We saw that making our presentation easier is inevitable if we want to encourage others to participate in open discussions with us.
Taiwan iGEM Meet 2022
This event was held by the 2019 Taiwan iGEMers. In this meeting, we could listen to lectures from Dr. Lin, one of the researchers in the Institute of Biological Chemistry, Academia Sinica, devoted to CRISPR-Cas 9 research. Moreover, we could see fascinating presentations from all Taiwan iGEM teams. This meeting was held when most projects started to reach completion. Also, there were many teams engaged. Therefore, we were offered an opportunity to see other teams’ extraordinary research. Academically, we understood the technology they introduced into their project. As for creativity, we saw ideas we had never thought of in the aspects of the wet lab, dry lab, and human practices.
During the poster session, we communicated with various iGEM teams. We were able to discuss, brainstorm, and troubleshoot to make all of our projects more comprehensive.
To sum up, through this opportunity, we could experience an open dialogue with other iGEM teams who might be good at synthetic biology, software, hardware, or even project integration through human practices planning. With this, we received feedback from different aspects while sharing our thoughts and determination to contribute to space synthetic biology.
Visiting the Institute of Space and Plasma Sciences
We visited the Institute of Space and Plasma Sciences at National Cheng Kung University. In addition to having sufficient experience in space practice, they also have the second largest Space Plasma Operation Chamber in Asia, which can simulate the space plasma environment of the ionospheric environment and help the development of space equipment. We believe through communicating with space experts in different fields can make our topic more diverse.
In addition, the experts also shared their experience of cooperating with JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) and told us about the preparations that must be done to send biomass bodies to the International Space Station for space experiments, especially in space experiments that must be thoroughly considered, such as time, labor costs and biosecurity, etc. This visit brought us closer to real space experiments and added more possibilities to our topic.
TCUS Conference
The TCUS (Taiwan Comprehensive University System) conference consisted of four research teams (three of them are Taiwan iGEM teams) and several judges from both the industry and the academic field. We went through presentations, several speeches, and a poster session in the two-day event.
We absorbed valuable feedback from biotechnology industry experts after sharing our business plans in the poster session. Fortunately, we got a chance to connect with more resources from the space industry, making our projects more feasible and practical. In addition, we also received advice about presentation skills, learning to convey our projects clearer and more concise.
Furthermore, after discussing with the professors, we recognized some important questions and searched for more related documents. Last but not least, each member could exchange ideas and experiences, creating more collaboration opportunities. Hence, it is convinced that the TCUS conference brought us scientific advice, entrepreneurship assistance, and most importantly, priceless opportunities to connect, communicate and collaborate with people from different fields.
Topic Presentation
We held a topic presentation in the auditorium in early April after two months of brainstorming. We proposed three innovative topics as this year’s candidates. Our audience included professors, doctors, and experts in different fields, who gave us precious feedback from various perspectives after our presentation. In addition, during the Q&A section, students from different departments provided valuable comments, allowing us to recognize the shortcoming of each idea. At the end of the event, we adopted the voting system for topic selection, and that was how MerSe was born.
President Meetup
We had lunch with National Cheng Kung University President, Dr. Huey-Jen Su, in April 2022. Meanwhile, we explained our project this year in more detail and received lots of invaluable advice. We learned how to focus on the target audience when conveying our ideas and how to define a significant issue conforming to the 17 SDGs. After talking with our president, we considered all the suggestions and continuously improved our project.
Undergraduate Research Day
Freshmen have the most curiosity and passion for exploring everything in college. We were gladly invited to Undergraduate Research (UR) Day held by NCKU to introduce iGEM to the possible iGEMers in the future. We showed the freshmen the infinite potential of synthetic biology by bringing them into the projects NCKU_Tainan has done in the past years and hoped they can become this community's new blood.
