The scientific literature provides an archive of research that can be made use of throughout the process of investigation. We have acknowledged the importance of scientific literature and have compiled useful tools for literature retrieving, reading, and management that we would frequently use ourselves in the Scientific Research Skill Handbook. Databases that are related to the iGEM competition are included in the handbook as well, which would be helpful for people new to iGEM. We hope that this handbook will walk future iGEMers through when they come across problems when gathering useful information. It is just great to learn about previous works in a field that you are interested in and get your inspiration!

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Safety has always been essential for any iGEM team and we have put great emphasis on safety throughout the season. (Our efforts to build a safe and responsible project can be found in the Safety> section.) As an important component of our work in safe operation, we have compiled the Laboratory Safety Handbook, which contains regulations about general lab practices, electrical safety, chemical emergencies, hazard mitigation, and biosafety. We have referred to the handbook during experiments ourselves and found it a helpful tool to check whether we were operating safely. Hopefully, future iGEM teams will benefit from it as well.

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In this handbook, we mainly introduce commonly-applied equipment in molecular biology and microbiology experiments which goes from pipettor to clean bench. A total of 16 types of equipment are discussed in our handbook, and principles, processes, as well as checklists, are also introduced. We believe that making proper use of laboratory equipment is the first step to experimental success and we hope that the handbook will serve as a guide for future iGEM teams to better understand synthetic biology through lab equipment.

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The Experiment Handbook contains detailed protocols for all the experiments we conducted to verify the functions of our engineered bacteria. Useful tips are presented as well so that future iGEMers can refer to the handbook for improved efficiency as they design and conduct their experiments.

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Apart from handbooks for future iGEMers, we also designed a handbook to educate the general public on synthetic biology. We had intended to make a picture book in the beginning but discarded the idea and chose handbooks instead to include more related content. Our PI, Professor Xingyin Liu, assisted in revising the handbook by checking the accuracy of the information. In addition, we managed to make the delivery of the message relatively accessible by reading the script to our people new to this field.

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As we progressed in project design, we came across problems regarding gut microbiota and their metabolites. During the troubleshooting process, assistance from our fellow iGEMers helped pull us through. This inspired us to build an online platform for iGEM teams that are focusing on the gut to share their questions and experiences in the competition. In one of our online meetups with iGEM WHU-China and iGEM HZAU-China, we decided to make an online document where each team member can post their questions or provide an answer to an existing question. We named the initial version “The Gut Document”, and apart from the contacts, introduction, and design of each team, a discussion board was also set up for free discussion on the new findings related to the intestinal microbiota.

Upon hearing our design of the online platform, our advisors indicated that we could take a step further as they had already compiled a handbook for teams that chose the focus on the gut in last year's competition. Therefore, we contacted more iGEM teams around our country to form the Gut Alliance, and together, we developed a website that is accessible on both computers and mobile phones. In this way, gut-related iGEM teams from all around the globe will be able to access our platform to share their problems and help others with theirs.

The Website For Gut-related Teams

Just like almost every medical student around the world, members of team NJMU-China 2022 lead relatively busy lives. Most of us would spend up to 70% of our time during weekdays or sometimes weekends either reading for exams or in the hospital for ward rounds, clinics, and surgical theaters. Yet, limited time and expertise in synthetic biology did not prevent us from getting the job done and inspiring more people to join us to make their contributions in the field of SynBio. In order to promote our project as well as synthetic biology among medical students, we organized a Learn with US program with the aim of encouraging more people to learn about iGEM and hopefully join team NJMU-China in the years to come. Most of us have had the experience of being at a loss when we were new to scientific research, and we hope that our program can make things better for its participants.

Learn with US program

We have developed human practice approaches that future iGEM teams can look at. We first developed a guide for all of our educational activities, which we hope can be useful for future teams as they design and modify their educational outreaches. Meanwhile, in terms of interviews, we came up with the PVC/I strategy that can help guide interviews based on the objectives and the background of the subject. You can visit our wiki pages for Education and Communication and Integrated Human Practices for more information.

pic: Flow chart of Educational Activities Guide

pic: PVC/I strategy