After learning business knowledge, we prepared for the startup showcase on EPIC demo day hold at 2022 CCiC conference. 2022 CCiC conference is the first time to hold a startup showcase. EPIC-China serves local iGEM entrepreneurial teams in China and encourages the development of synthetic biology startups. At this CCiC conference, EPIC-China invited former iGEMers, investors and the new generation of iGEM start-up teams to share their voices from different directions.

In the startup showcase, 3 Chinese entrepreneurial iGEM teams supported by EPIC this year showed how they are planing to transform their iGEM projects to industry, bringing inspiration and thinking to other teams and individuals for the industrialization of the project.

As one of the three teams, we gave our road show and received many supports with suggestions from investors and guests. We enjoyed this entrepreneurial event so much with the other two teams, BUCT-China and ONCE_China.

As a scientific project, we firstly introduced our biological design and background knowledge of directed evolution to investors. It is quite important to let investors and other guests to know what we are doing exactly.

Therefore, we discuss the history and traditional production of Tyrian purple. We use some of the contents of the ancient Chinese book Han Feizi to illustrate its high cost and smelly characteristics. But as a dyeing textiles, tyrian purple stands out for its long-lasting and stable color.

Also, we listed different synthesis methods of Tyrian purple and compared their yields. The method of synthetic biology is obviously the best with a highest yield and environmental friendly production. This data can help convince investors why we use synbio as a solution to optimize tyrian purple production.

Then, we moved to “optimization”.

For the optimization of dyeing method, we introduced our strategy of adding a reversible glucose protection group by UGT and BGL enzymes. Soluble precursor Br-indican can bind to fabrics more evenly than dyeing directly with insoluble Tyrian purple. This optimization is inspired by a publication about Indigo reported by UC Berkeley[1] due to Tyrian purple and indigo have similar structures with two different substituents. This optimization can acieve a sustainable dyeing method and simplify the upstream steps of our system to be convenient for scale-up.

For the optimization of two-cell system, we introduced the background knowledge of directed evolution. For easier understand, we used natural evolution to compare with directed evolution.
- Natural evolution: Random genetic mutation in the genetic code from which beneficial mutations are preserved because they are beneficial for survival of organism.
- Directed evolution: A method used in protein engineering that mimics natural selection to evolve proteins or nucleic acids towards user defined goal.

The history and 3 steps of directed evolution are also included in our presentation, with a simple extra word to explain these terms.
“Mutagenesis (variation)-Screening (fitness differences)-Gene amplification (heredity)”

After that, we questioned the current two-cell system: How to control the synthesis of TnaA? That is the key point of optimizing to one-cell system with higher efficiency and lower cost. Our presentation follows the above three-step process in directed evolution, gradually explaining how to use one way of directed evolution, Compartmentalized partnered Replication (CPR), to accomplish the task of recognizing Br-Trp without reacting with unreacted Trp.
For the optimization of directed evolution, we then made a conclusion with a scheme overview of one-cell system.

Lastly, we listed our EPIC plan. We sell dyed fabrics to customers, which include Fashion designers & Luxury brands. We believe these customers especially luxury brands will prefer products with the concept of promoting environmental protection in the clothing industry. It is also a trend that customers of luxury brands prefer products with background of science and technology, which let them have chances to show off money and erudition at the same time.

After the presentation, investors are very positive to us and our project.

Huaiyu Li from Starthub said that he really ENJOY our presentation to firstly know such an interesting topic and technology. We were so happy to hear that becasue we really care about the response of audiences during presentation. We want our audience not to get bored and to follow us.

Li used to be the CEO of WHALEY which is invested by the chief investment officer of CMC, General manager and CEO of SMG. He encouraged us strongly with his experience to keep on going becasue “Successful start-ups tend to be in areas that are not initially seen as promising”.

Also, investor Huangqi Zhang from Miracleplus said that he is more interesting to indigo which we presented in the optimization of dyeing method. Compared to tyrian purple, indigo is more daily and has bigger marketing scale with the application of jeans dyeing. He suggested we could apply our optimization to the production of indigo to expand our business range. We thought this was a good idea and added fermentation of indigo as an extra part to our startup project.