iGEM SORBONNE
NAWI
Communication
One OF OUR PRIORITIES DURING THIS PROJECT WAS TO EDUCATE those AROUND US ABOUT SYNTHETIC BIOLOGY, iGEM & OUR PROJECT. We made sure to participate in as many different events as possible to reach the maximum number of people.
NAWI TV was our way to share different topics related to our project to the word, whether its topics related to genetics insulators, bioreactors or even GMOs. For the latter, we wanted to show our audience the legalization on GMOs around the world; an important topic for an important competition. That’s why we asked our fellow iGEMers; the iGEM UESTC_BIOTECH team and the iGEM USAFA team, to participate in our last episode so we can create one amazing episode together.
Episode 1 - A big part of our project is the insulator system we’re trying to adapt to Chlamydomonas reinhardtii. Gene expression is in reality controlled by much more than the one dimensional sequence of its promoters, RBSs, terminators and regulators. In this first episode of NAWI TV, we take a look at what an insulator sequence is, how they interact with proteins and display their insulatory function, and finally how they will be of great aid, not only in our project, but for synthetic biology in general. (see our episode 1)
Episode 2 - In this second episode of NAWI TV, we take a look at bioreactors: a crucial element in our plan to scale up production to levels consistent with the project’s current scope. We quickly redescribe the ideals behind NAWI, and follow-up with how it would be grown. Detailing the parameters of a classical bioreactor, we study how these could be fine-tuned for our particular strain of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii. Finally, we entertain the idea of combining these novel production methods with more classic agricultural standards, in order to create a hybrid growth environment more tailored towards large-scale culture.(see our episode 2)
Episode 3 - In an effort to study the various GMO legislations present around the world, we asked teams from around the world to describe the context of GMO legislation in their respective countries. Various themes emerged, like: what does my country consider a GMO? How does my country fight against illegal uses of GMOs? And how can the public opinion against GM foods be described? (see our episode 3)
We chose to be present on different social networks: Instagram and LinkedIn. We have made various posts to describe our project in a simple way to reach a wide audience with a colorful graphic chart highlighting our mascot NAWI and its colors. We chose to take over the account of the team before us in order to make this account last in the years to come with the future teams. We put forward the motivation of our project: agriculture and malnutrition through anemia. We also presented the different poles which structure our team and show how the big tasks are distributed for the development of our project. The biology part was presented, including the expression of a hemoglobin via THB1 in Chlamydomonas and we popularized the control of gene expression through insulators in writing but also through episodes of our series NAWI TV that we also presented on our social networks. Finally, we shared the events we participated or organized in our university in order to promote our project, synthetic biology and the iGEM competition in order to attract future members of the next Sorbonne team.
Each year Sorbonne University organizes various events and activities to celebrate the beginning of the school year under the name of “Sorbonnales”. All the student associations are invited to be discovered by the new students. We participated in the “Welcome day” on September 15th and to the “Student and Association Life Forum” on September 29th within our campus. We had a booth all day long to present our project, notably with a scientific poster. The “Sorbonnales” are also a way to promote science and to make students aware of the challenges of tomorrow. The public could come to learn about our project or synthetic biology in general, discuss with us the challenges that arise and more or less controversial topics like GMOs to share their opinions. They are a good way to communicate about the iGEM competition in general and also to start the recruitment of the new 2023 team. At our booth, we also distributed flyers, goodies (pins and canvas bags) and crepes with the color of our NAWI to spend a convivial moment.
For the “Welcome Day”, we organised a quiz to test people's skills on anemia, GMOs, agriculture, synthetic biology and its historical origin, and on Chlamydomonas reinhardtii. There were three levels:
for the first level: the questions were simple so that even those from other backgrounds than biology or science in general (such as business, literature...) could answer them. Examples of questions asked: "What is the name of the protein that transports iron in the blood?","What does GMO mean?" or "Which people are most affected by anemia?”. These questions were with multiple-choice answers. The players had three questions, and the number of correct answers defined the number of tries they had to knock down a pyramid of six cans (no throw, one, two or three throws). If they managed to knock down three or more cans, they could move on to the second level. The winners of level one got a NAWI pin, there were several background colours like purple, light blue, green and white.
For the second level, the questions were harder for people who knew nothing about biology, for example: "How many GMOs are authorized in France?", "When did synthetic biology originate?" or "What is the interest of MON810 maize? As for level one, three questions with multiple choice answers were asked and the number of correct answers was the number of authorised launches. This time, the pyramid was higher (10 cans) and at least five cans had to be knocked down to move on to the final test. The winner of level two won a NAWI tote bag.
For the final test, only one question was asked without multiple choices. Many of the players who got to this level were not able to answer this level, as they had to be very knowledgeable about synthetic biology, the iGEM competition or new biological advances. There were: "How many teams participated in iGEM last year?", "Who won the Nobel Prize for CRISPR-Cas 9?" or "How much data encodes 1g of DNA?”. The prize for answering these questions were a €50 gift card and only two people won it. So we drew lots to see who would win the grand prize.
This experience was very enriching because students in literature, history, computer science and even biology students in L1 tried their luck and we were able to explain our project and our ambitions for this competition. Thanks to this game, some of them have registered to participate in the iGEM team next year.
In parallel to “Sorbonnales” organized by the university, we held a crepes sale at the university on September 21st. This allowed us to continue to discuss, green crepes in hand, about our project with the students and to propose them to answer our questionnaire.
To reach a younger audience and since we are lucky to have good artists in our team, we had the idea to create a comic book centered around our little character NAWI to present our project but not only. A comic book was for us a simple and fun way to convey our message and make it accessible to the greatest number of people. The plot of the story is to interview our alga NAWI in her living room so that she can tell us her story by presenting her species Chlamydomonas reinhardtii but also her "family" that we imagined to be the different organisms used by the former projects of the previous iGEM teams of our university, each member having its own personality related to the subject of the team. With this we would also have presented synthetic biology and the iGEM competition as simply as possible. We don't have enough time to finish the publication of our comic book for the contest but the first boards are available on our social networks and you can see a preview. Also, we drew a coloring picture at the end of the comic book so that the children can enjoy the comic book as much as possible!
During this year, the Paris_Bettencourt team contacted several parisian teams to organize workshops on synthetic biology at the “Cité des Sciences et de l'industrie” (City of Science and Industry) during "la Fête de la Science" (national science fair), on the 8th and 9th of October. With the teams Evry_Paris-Saclay, GO_Paris-Saclay, Ionis_Paris and Paris_Bettencourt, we presented the iGEM competition and our projects, and we tried to make biology accessible to everyone as the audience could range from young children to adults who know about it. We did this through playful activities, such as onion DNA extraction, microscopic observations of our different chassis, or a workshop on the use of laboratory tools such as pipettes.
We are happy to have participated in the effort to popularize science to the public!
On September 1st, we were given the opportunity to present our project to the new students joining the molecular and cellular biology master this year during its presentation meeting, as many of us are part of this master. We briefly presented our NAWI project and also the purpose and the course of the iGEM competition. We showed them how iGEM is a unique experience, during which we acquired important skills, like creating a scientific project from scratch with autonomy, but with the support of our supervisors, specialists in their fields. We told them that we were able to learn a lot, and that it allowed us to meet each other. This presentation drew the attention of many students, interested in joining the Sorbonne team next year!
Our intervention took place in a class of 32 students in 11th grade. The previous iGEM team from our university did this in the high school Maurice Genevoix located in Montrouge. So we asked the previous team for the phone number of the teacher they worked with. After a phone call and meet-up at the high school, we had a clear idea of the environment where our intervention would take place. Knowing the equipment and the scientific knowledge of the students, the project could be more accurate and workable. We wanted to present synthetic biology in the very short time of 2 hours of practical work for each half of the class: this amount of time greatly reduces the possibilities.
The team from the previous year presented the PCR protocol to the students, so we thought of doing something where the student can discover a biological context, and how to use the scientific method and researcher’s tools in order to operate a real lab protocol and see the concrete result. The aim is to make students experience something close to a moment in the lab, and to observe and analyze the results of their experiments while acquiring rigor and criticism. The best experiment to match all these criterias would be the bacterial transformation, as it is one of the experiments we did in our project.
Firstly, we had the idea of designing a plasmid that could make bacteria express GFP. The idea was to show the students the color selection of transformed bacteria using lacZ and X-gal, then to reveal that hidden fluorescence phenotype with an UV light. But the design and delivery time could not match with our timing, and the GFP would be really difficult to show in the class. Instead, the team of Pierre Crozet lab proposed to use a plasmid expressing RFP: Red Fluorescent Protein. It was perfect because there were no more design and delivery problems, and the red fluorescence is observable with the naked eye. They also have the control plasmid which doesn’t have RFP, so the lacZ gene is functioning. Pierre Crozet told us the plasmids and bacteria used were non pathogenic, so it was possible to use them in a high school.
By consulting the list of equipment, we were able to elaborate a protocol, and knowing their scientific knowledge, we provided them a paper summarizing the experiments and the science behind. Then we prepared all the other necessary material the lab would kindly give us, and we tested the protocol at the lab, and then at the high school. These tests have been successful, so we knew we were ready to make the students discover our bacterial transformation.
The students were instructed to change the colour of Escherichia coli from white to red. To do that, we provided them with 10-Beta E.coli and the plasmid containing RFP which can make the bacteria express a red colour. To start the course, we introduced the notion of horizontal transfer with an explanation of Griffith's experiment, then we presented the scheme of E.Coli and the functions of its different parts. Afterwards, we explained to them how to use micropipettes and how we would proceed to insert the plasmid into the bacteria. It is possible to do this by exposing bacteria to a heat shock of 42°C. Then we make them proliferate with LB and incubate them at 37°C. After that, we spread them on a Petri dish with glass beads. The petri dish is incubated at 37 °C overnight, then it is put in the fridge to slow down the bacteria's growth.
To introduce the students to the scientific approach, we provided a control plasmid to half the class. This plasmid had a functioning lacZ gene, so we made a LB Petri dish with X-gal so they could observe the bacteria with this control plasmid. Also, to select the bacteria with the plasmid, the two plasmids contained an origin of replication and biotic selection, so we also made Petri dishes with LB and X-gal, but without antibiotics. Therefore, the Petri dish also contained the corresponding antibiotic. We also wanted to show them the importance of using this antibiotic selection, so we also made Petri dishes with LB and X-gal, but without antibiotics.
Each group of students would have either the RFP plasmid or the control one, they transformed bacteria with it, then spread them on a LB + AB + X-gal Petri dish, and on a LB + X-gal Petri dish.During the waiting time, we discussed of our iGEM project, the biology research and how it can interact with others fields, the dangers of super bacteria and the pharmaceutical strategy to fight them, the functions of enzymes, how they work and can be influenced, the reading/transcriptomic/translational systems and our study backgrounds.
We are going to see that class again on October the 22nd. Colonies will be visible, and we will make observations and conclusions. The students will see if they correctly followed the protocol and will try to explain some abnormalities that could occur in their plates.We also prepared an oral presentation to resume all the important scientific information and the experiment. The final goal is to give the students the interest to pursue a scientific study. So we are going to finish this intervention by simply discussing with the students about their interests, our backgrounds, and the choices they could make in the future.
On August 3rd we took part in the “Let’s Talk GMO Panel” organized by the UBC iGEM team. The speakers were from various areas of research and industry:
-Jennifer Hubert: director of Plant Biotechnology at CropLife Canada
-Dr. Stefan Linquist: associate professor of philosophy at University of Guelph
-Steven Druker: public interest attorney, executive director at Alliance for Bio-Integrity
-Dr. Katie Koralesky: post-doctoral researcher at UBC Animal Welfare Program
The panel discussion was moderated by the UBC team. It started with a brief introduction of the panelists before proceeding to the roundtable discussion. It ended with an audience Q&A session where us, attendees, could ask questions to spark further discussion. This meeting allowed different teams from around the world to engage in an open and insightful discussion surrounding the social and ethical implications of GMO foods and organisms in only one click. When we saw that they were organizing this event, we thought that our project was completely in line with it. We discussed a lot about how we can define a genetic modification, how the public perception changed over the years, how the different innovations can go through various regulatory processes… We even addressed the question of the necessity of GMOs in our lives: are they essential for food production to answer our future needs?
Communication
