Communication and Education
Purpose
Based on our survey results, we have found that generally, most people don’t know about glioma and the drug TMZ. Therefore we developed several promotional and educational strategies to spread relative knowledge to the public. In addition, we would like to take the initiative to outreach to people, especially those concerning groups, like the patients for closer communication so that we could understand more about the topic and proceed with our research corresponding to the actual demand from the real world.
Communication with Patients
We took a field trip to patients who live in the so-called "Cancer Village", actually some rental rooms for tumor patients around the Fudan University Cancer Hospital. Since most cancer patients require timely treatment, they usually choose to live near the hospital especially those famous for cancer therapy which also results in the "Cancer Village” such a social phenomenon. From the environment where they live, we know that their lives are very tough. Since they are the most relative group of our topic, their voices matter a lot to us.
During our conversations, we could easily feel their desire to better treatment and solutions to the drug resistance issue. In that way, we expressed our care and wish to them. In the meantime, we mentioned our project and briefly illustrated our project design as well as the project goal to them. Even though they had difficulties understanding the design part, they showed their support back to us and they do also hope there will be a solution to the TMZ drug resistance issue.
Field research in the “Cancer Village” near the Fudan University Cancer Hospital
Online Questionnaire
We designed an electronic questionnaire on temozolomide resistance to glioma and its treatment. So far, about 432 people have completed the questionnaire. In that questionnaire, we also provided several TMZ and glioma-related knowledge to the respondents who could read it when filling up the questionnaire. In addition, we also used this questionnaire to communicate with the public regarding the educational content they are more interested in or cared about. This survey also helped us to determine educational responsibility, educational channels, and education content.
Public Awareness Questionaire on Glioma and Temozolomide(TMZ)
Press Post by Cooperation with University Press
According to our survey, we decided to take the advantage of influential media to conduct our education campaign. Therefore, we managed to contact University Press, the campus media of Soochow University and expressed our desire the cooperate to publish an article on the glioma topic. They were very nice and accepted this offer.
Per the educational content that most people care seen in the survey, the public requires a comprehensive introduction about glioma and TMZ, but easy to understand. Then we worked together and finally published an article in the University Press and classified it into their University Press Small Class Section where people can acquire scientific information. This part has been designed more acceptable for most people by using vivid cartoons and simple words. University Press also credits us at the end of the post.
Post of the University Press Small Class Section on glioma topic
After our first co-published article has received much attention, we decided to post a second one. Unlike the first article style which is full of cartoons and easy for reading, this time we worked together and produced a very informatic article with the name: "Brain Killer" GIioma: Luck, Despair, and Hope. In this article, we mainly introduced some research reports about glioma including the questionnaire data we concluded from our survey, some real-person cases, TMZ therapy as well as the TMZ-resistance study our team is working on, and the China Brain Project. This article has been published on Sept. 23rd in University Press WeChat Official Account and they also credit us at the end of the article for our providing reports, graphs, and other interview materials. Through our efforts along with their impact, we hope to bring more information and thoughts to the general public and in return obtain more attention from society to our topic. We feel very grateful for University Press and look forward to another cooperation in the future.
The second post on glioma and TMZ by co-published with University Press
Educational Posts and Communication on Social Media
We set up many social media accounts, such as the WeChat Official Account and Little Red Book, both of which are the most popular social media platform in China. We post about the team's daily routine and popularize the science of glioma and drug resistance. These contents have attracted much attention, and we could directly communicate with our followers regarding our project and our topic on these social media directly.
On WeChat Official Account, wet lab and dry lab work together and post our daily work and in the meantime to provide knowledge about related biotechnology and research report to our followers.
WeChat posts by dry lab and wet lab, respectively
On Little Red Book, we not only posted our project progress to proceed iGEM competition but also posted an educational article about glioma where we mainly talked about the basic research of case situations about glioma in China, its impact, and its current treatment. At the end of the article, we actually received many comments from different users, some of them showed their support for our project and some of them expressed their sorry for those glioma patients for their suffering and bad situation, and some of them mentioned actually they are suffering glioma and recently are busy taking various tests. On this social media platform, strangers could share the same feelings and comfort each other which is very touching for us.
Little Red Book homepage, posts and comments from different users
Lectures
After our collaboration with other teams, we decided to conduct an online lecture for providing intensive science popularization for the general public. Therefore, we prepared the PPT and determined the date then spread this news to invite the audience. Finally, we have invited 20 more audiences to attend our online lecture.
Online lecture we gave to the general public
In this lecture, we started with the introduction about glioma and TMZ with its drug resistance issue, then we explained our team goal and project design in detail including those biosynthesis knowledge. We would like to deliver the message that biotechnology could have an impact on medical and our social life and we will continue doing this to contribute to the world.
Besides the education campaign conducted for the general society, we also prepared to organize relative lectures inside the school. Since we have prepared several educational materials, we are ready to adjust our presentation slides for different student groups. We are still working on negotiating the schedule with our schools but yet to be approved because of the epidemic policy. We will not give up trying and continue our education campaign.