Implementation of Our Project

  The 21st century is the era of data, and robots are becoming the key technology of the 4th Industrial Revolution, which physically acts as a catalyst for data generation and leads to innovative changes. Robot technology will be a practical complement that combines and connects the keywords of the 4th Industrial Revolution.

  Recently, the face-to-face collective education system has collapsed due to the influence of COVID-19. We are slowly recovering, but through this experience, we have learned how vital 'Edu-Tech' is. Edu-Tech is rapidly developing into an axis of the industry as it merges with important technologies of the 4th industrial revolution such as VR, AR, artificial intelligence, and big data through video technologies such as the Internet, web, and smartphone. Non-face-to-face 'Edu-Tech' is actively used as a way to overcome the effects of COVID-19 and normalize education. Therefore, robots are now playing a significant role in education and public health, medical care, and logistics.

  SynBioBot can intrigue students’ interest through remote control even in online classes, allowing them to progress to higher levels of learning. It also lays the groundwork for effective remote experimentation, which will allow for effective and long-term education in settings where face-to-face classes are difficult to hold. As a result, it has the potential to revolutionize synthetic biology education in this regard. We also developed software to deal with SynBioBot, which allowed us to make the technology more accessible to the general public. This will allow people to carry out the entire process or specific experiment stages. It will provide quality education to students in areas where experimental equipment and environments are not well established, which is our long-term goal. Furthermore, SynBioBot has the potential to revolutionize the industry by automating repetitive and simple tasks. It could also be used for dangerous drugs or experiments requiring complex and sophisticated movement, beyond basic work substitution.

Further Synthetic Biological Engineering Challenges

  We connected these robot technologies to synthetic biology so that they could be used in students' experiments and education. In particular, it was possible to access system software anytime using devices such as smartphones.

  We will deploy the software we developed to educational institutions first. And we can do many other experiments and the experiments we have tried. After then, we will begin a service; receiving the experimental protocol from users, proceeding with customized coding, and if we update the GUI, customers will be able to move with new and personal experiments using Synbiobot. We will implement the above plans using our one and only engineering cycle called the 'DDCC process'. You may check the DDCC process here.

  Our project implies that we can respond to the demand for experimental education required by the field of education by using the practice system. For example, the following experiments can be conducted in educational institutions.

•  Expression and Purification of Recombinant Protein
•  TA Cloning and Transformation
•  Antibody Production and Western Blotting
•  Site-Directed Mutagenesis

  Subsequently, we will expand our technology, including vision control, to provide an environment where we can perform the desired experiment using the robot arm freely.

Safety Aspects

  As we develop an automatic and remote working system, SynBioBot could be operated with a computer to do biological experiments in our lab. This robot could be used as an experimental and educational instrument. The gene overexpression experiment could be done on mammalian cells using the transduction method.

  HaCaT, HDF, 293T cells were used to test the ability of our robotic arm in conducting cell culture in general. With the robotic arm, we tried to infect those mammalian cells with recombinant lentivirus that we have purchased from a company to overexpress 𝝰5 and β1 integrin protein.

  Our engineered organisms or parts could not spread autonomously in the environment because they could only survive in the laboratory environment that required cell culture procedures. Threats such as improving the toxicity of pathogens or rendering a non-pathogen virulent, increasing the transmissibility of any pathogen, alteration of the host range of a pathogen, and enabling 'weaponization' of agents or toxins are not identified in our project.

  In addition, to avoid additional risks, we have created an ID/PW system to prevent unauthorized people from accessing our SynBioBot software. In addition to the LogIn system, an emergency stop button was created to stop the running experiment by simply pressing a button in case of an emergency during the experiment.

Business Plan

  We have a specific business plan for the next 3 years. The below graph clearly shows what we would do every half year until July 2025. You may check the details of the process.