China's wine culture has a long history, but using synthetic biology to improve current wine products is an unknown proposition for Chinese society. At the same time, with the development of China's economy and the improvement of people's living standards, synthetic biology has gradually entered people's lives. But the public awareness of this is far from enough, which is why the team carries out education and communication. We look forward to helping the public to outline a complete understanding of biosynthesis from our interactions with society and to direct their attention to this dynamic field.
Through preliminary surveys and street interviews, we found that the public has little understanding of synthetic biology, and even some confusion and stereotypes. This largely makes them cautious about synthetic biotechnology. There are even questions about the safety of some of the results achieved using synthetic biology techniques. Based on this, we have carried out targeted offline communication and produced relevant publicity material, the brochure.
Samples of our brochure
Our brochure is divided into four sections: The history of synthetic biology, The basics of synthetic biology, the evolution of biology by synthetic biology, and the connection between synthetic biology and our team.
1. The History of Synthetic biology
Synthetic biology is a new branch of science that has emerged in the 21st century. It is mainly based on the
practice of transferring genetic changes from one species to another. It also involves modifying organisms
with new abilities to help solve problems in medicine, agriculture, and food. The roots of synthetic biology
can be traced back to the landmark publication of Francois Jacoby and Jacques Monod in 1961.
2. Foundation of synthetic biology
Synthetic biology is a branch of biology and different engineering that offers a greater ability to understand
and manipulate biological systems or create new life forms.
3. The modification of living things by synthetic biology.
The purpose of synthetic biology is to build artificial biological systems. Of course, any science and
technology is a double-edged sword, with both positive and negative effects. Synthetic biology can do some
harm if not applied properly, but if used properly, it will also help biodiversity.
4. The connection between synthetic biology and our project
Ethyl hexanoate is an apple-flavored compound that acts as a flavoring agent in Luzhou-flavor liquor. We have
modified yeast through gene editing technology to produce ethyl hexanoate and improve the quality of
Luzhou-flavor liquor.
We conducted random interviews and interviews on the streets of Beijing to discuss the current state of synthetic biology and their opinions on alcoholic beverages which also reflects our two-level expectation of communication. We were looking forward to the public's awareness and opinions of synthetic biology and alcoholic beverages, meantimes also providing some basic data for the promotion of our later results. At the same time, we would also like to take this opportunity to introduce them to the latest developments in synthetic biology and some of our efforts.
We were distributing our brochures
We not only have offline communication activities but also online popular science lectures. We aim to break through the limitations of space and allow as many people as possible to participate in popular science lectures.
After we decided on the lecture date and lecture topic, we designed a poster and spread it online for inviting more audiences. Finally, our lectures attracted over 30 people, many of them elementary school students.
Our promotion poster (left) and the audiences attended our lecture (right)
In the lecture, we covered the general meaning of synthetic biology, how to apply synthetic biology to life, and the connection between our project and synthetic biology. We combined the experience of other teams from our collaboration meetups, and we started our lecture with more interesting examples that are close to our daily social life. At the same time, we were not only limited to the knowledge itself but also briefly introduced the experimental steps that children are interested in, which expands knowledge of biosynthesis for our audiences.
We were introducing PCR technology to the audiences
After the lecture, many participating children developed a strong interest in synthetic biology and asked our team how to operate specific experiments. Although our theme is synthetic biology to improve the flavor of the Luzhou-flavor liquor, seemingly a little far from the life of children, they were still very curious about this magical process.
Some audiences also expressed their feelings that for the first time they understood synthetic biology is not that far away from our lives and is able to improve the quality of life indeed. We thought this is also the initial of our project research that synthetic biology doesn't have to be applied to grand goals, it can also be used to improve the quality of daily life. All in all, this online lecture gave the public a better understanding of synthetic biology and gave everyone full confidence in the development of this technology.
As we all know, social media is an important way, even the main way, for modern people to obtain information. Therefore, our team also uses social media as our normal way to carry out education. It is worth noting that the public can also express their attitudes and communicate with our team through likes, comments, reposts, etc.
We created accounts on several social media platforms
Our first education article was an introduction to the basics of synthetic biology, which actually echoed our online science lectures. We set the title "Synthetic Biology - Our Goal" to express our attitude. We hope to use synthetic biology methods to better solve our real-life problems and break down everyone's stereotypes and misconceptions.
We begin with an introduction to the history of synthetic biology, a very young and rapidly developing discipline. Second, we introduce a technique or phenomenon that is essential in synthetic biology, which is PCR. Then, we also clarified the difference and connection between synthetic biology and traditional biology, so as to explain its basic principles. Finally, we also introduce the advantages of the synthetic biology approach, especially why it can be applied to our subject.
Our first posted educational article about biosynthesis
Social media is also an important venue to showcase our team's style, and we also hope to share our team's progress with you. Therefore, we have generously posted our detailed experimental diary on social media, hoping that everyone can experience the process of synthetic biology with us. This diary is not only the bits and pieces of our experiments, but also our own growth. In the process, strong friendships have been established between team members, which is also an important driving force that supports our persistent research.
We posted details of our project experiments on social media
In order to publicize our product and increase our brand reputation, we were thinking to build a platform where we could not only promote our products to our potential customers but also display our company itself to our potential business partners. Therefore, we came up with the idea of developing a game. Besides presenting our product and our company, we also decided to empower the game by adding more content to publicize the knowledge of synthetic biology and the principles of our research projects.
Instead of the traditional oral and written explanations, this game provides players with a first-person view that adds a lot of fun, allowing players to explore the space we envision and appreciate the interior architecture. By touring the whole scene, people could learn information about the project we are committed to research, the widespread scientific knowledge of synthetic biology, the composition of the team, and the goals we want to achieve through text messages which will pop up in some specific areas.
The screen will pop up information when player tours around different scene
Game Rules:
The game is played from the first perspective.
In the contest, players can enter three areas. The first is the company hall we imagined, showing photos of our team members and team introduction. We plan to put on the download link in the brochure in the future to make it accessible to the general public so as for promotion.
Players can then move into the office area, which details our company's products, including product features, advantages over similar products, product modeling appreciation, etc. Players can also learn about our business plans and contributions to the world in this area.
The last area is the laboratory. In this area, players can learn about our biosynthesis principles and experimental procedures to better understand our products and design concepts. In this area, our peripheral goods are also displayed.
The game was developed to visualize who we are as a company but also to give the public a better understanding of our projects and our contributions.
