Introduction
During our journey until the creation of the DIAS diagnostic tool, in addition to the laboratory implementation of the project and the experimental procedures, we aimed at Education and Science Communication. We considered it very important to inform the public both about lung cancer and the importance of early diagnosis for successful treatment, as well as about cancer pathophysiology, epidemiological data, and mortality rates. On the other hand, we wanted to inform the world about Synthetic Biology, the possibilities of this science and its applications in cancer diagnosis and more widely. In addition, from our first steps, we noticed that in our country there was only one group of high school students, participating in the High Schools category of the competition. Thus, our main goal was to inform the students of Greece and abroad about the iGEM Competition and to train them in the basic tools used by Synthetic Biology.
• TV Documentary: The Great Tomorrow - iGEM MetaThess, from Thessaloniki to the world! | 26.05.2022 •
In May 2022 Ms. Nancy Spetsioti, director and member of the Union of Greek Directors, learned about our team from a Press Release that was posted after our meeting with the Rector of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. So she contacted our team through social media and asked us to make a Documentary where we will describe the activities of our team, what are our goals, what is the iGEM Competition and why we chose to build a diagnostic tool for lung cancer. After the proposal was accepted, the filming took place, and on Thursday, May 26, the Documentary entitled "The Great Tomorrow - iGEM MetaThess, from Thessaloniki to the world!" was shown all over Greece at 20:30 on Channel ERT2. After the screening, it was published on the ERTFLIX platform for anyone to watch in the future and you can see it here.
In the documentary, all the members of the group were first introduced by describing their studies and their dreams in the professional field. Then the story of our team's creation and how we met was told. We then explained what the iGEM Competition is, and how one can take part and we highlighted according to our previous experience in the competition what a student gains from participating in such a competition. In the second part, we reported data on the epidemiology of lung cancer and described the techniques of diagnosis and treatment, explaining the reasons why they are insufficient.
In addition, we described the science of Synthetic Biology giving a definition and mentioning the areas of everyday life in which it is applied. Finally, we described our own DIAS project which is a diagnostic tool for the early detection of lung cancer, explaining how we relied on Synthetic Biology for its design and revealed our future goals for the activities and seminars we are preparing and for the production and its availability in diagnostic centers.
• Interview of our team at ERT3 Channel | 9.06.2022 •
On Thursday 9.06.2022, Mrs. Christoforidou Sofia, Journalist, interview our team's member Maria Kosmidou on the O3 show on Channel ERT3. There, reference was made to the pathophysiology of lung cancer and the diagnostic techniques used today. In addition, the causes of the high mortality of this cancer and how Synthetic Biology could solve this problem were mentioned. Finally, the technology of the DIAS diagnostic tool and the activities the team planned to do in order to achieve their goal were described. Finally, we explained what the iGEM Competition is, in which we will take part, and they wished us all the best.
In those days, the official Press Release of our team was published, which was shared on many medical and pharmaceutical sites, while interviews were also given on many radio stations such as the North Radio 98FM and Municipal Radio of Thessaloniki 100FM.
• 4th Hellenic Scientific Conference of Pharmacy Students | 15.05.2022 •
On Sunday 15.05.2022, the 4th Hellenic Scientific Conference of Pharmacy Students took place in the Ceremony Hall, AUTh, and was organized by the student group ATP-Aristotle Team of Pharmacy. After their own invitation, we participated in the conference and gave two speeches. In the beginning, we mentioned some statistical data published by the World Health Organization on mortality rates due to lung cancer. Then we presented the pathophysiology of cancer and explained the stages of its development. We also mentioned the diagnostic techniques used today and then presented our own diagnostic proposal which is the DIAS diagnostic tool.
In the last part of the speech, we presented the business analysis of our Project and informed the audience about the iGEM Competition and the timeline that a team must follow in order to develop its project, organize scientific activities, get in touch with Stakeholders and win a medal The conference was attended by approximately 400 students from the faculties of Pharmacy, Medicine, Biology and Chemistry. Finally, we interacted with the audience and resolved their queries and concerns.
• 8th Panhellenic Congress of applied Pharmacy | 22.05.2022 •
On Saturday 22.05.2022 after the invitation of the Organizational Committee, we participated in the 8th Panhellenic Congress of Applied Pharmacy, which took place in Thessaloniki. There we organized a series of talks moderated by Dr. Vizirianakis Ioannis, our PI. Firstly, we presented our team and introduced the audience to the iGEM Competition. Secondly, we referred to epidemiological data on lung cancer, the criteria for its staging and the diagnostic techniques used in clinical practice. Then we described our diagnostic methodology and our CRISPR/Cas-based diagnostic tool for the early detection of non-small cell lung cancer. After the project presentation, we explained Synthetic Biology science and emphasized its applications in Diagnostics. Finally, we talked about exosomes, in which we found miRNAs, which we use as biomarkers and described the experimental procedures we followed in order to isolate them. For more information about this congress you can visit: PSEF
• 4th Pharmaceutical Conference of North Macedonia - Thrace | 26.06.2022 •
On Monday 26.06.2022 we participated in the 4th Pharmaceutical Conference of North Macedonia - Thrace, which was organized by the Pharmaceutical Association of Kavala, Greece. There, we first presented our team and informed the audience about iGEM Competition. Then, we presented in detail the diagnostic and therapeutic methods, used nowadays by Oncologists. After this presentation, a discussion followed about the reasons for late diagnosis and failed treatments and what the scientific community can do to solve the problem. In response to this, we proved that Synthetic Biology could solve the problem of late diagnosis and high mortality by presenting our DIAS project.
• Webinar: Lung Cancer - From epidemiology to diagnosis and treatment | 2.10.2022 •
On the 2nd of October, we organized in collaboration with the Cancer Prevention Research Group in Greece and the iGEM Patras Medicine 2022 team, a webinar about lung cancer. In the webinar, there were some greetings from professors and speeches about the epidemiology of lung cancer and its types started. Then Mr. Velissariou Hlias and Mr. Mpochalis Eleftherios presented the project of the Patras Medicine 2022 group and the diagnostic methods used today. Finally, Mrs. Gouliou Ioanna and Mrs. Kosmidou Maria presented the project of our team and the therapeutic methods used to treat lung cancer. The webinar was attended by approximately 300 people including doctors, researchers and journalists.
At the end of the webinar, the audience's questions were resolved and it was discussed how important prevention and early diagnosis are in diseases such as cancer. It was understood by the public that if the cancerous tumor is detected early and it has not metastasized then surgery can save the patient. We received a lot of positive feedback from the public which confirmed that there is a need for in vitro diagnostic tools that can easily, quickly and cheaply diagnose cancer. We are proud because many believed in our ideas and expressed interest in being among the first to do this diagnostic blood test. Finally, we described to the audience what the iGEM Competition is and its aim and informed them how can a student participate in this competition.
You can see the detailed webinar program here.
• Seminar “Synthetic Biology Approaches in Cancer Translational Research” | 19.09.2022 •
On Monday 19.09.2022 we organized a seminar about "Synthetic Biology Approaches in Cancer Translational reasearh" in the Auditorium I of the Conference Hall of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. In our seminar participated approximately 100 students from the Schools of Medicine, Pharmacology, Biology, Chemistry and Psychology. The first part of the conference program featured talks on the science of Synthetic Biology and what could be applied. Then it was described what the iGEM competition is and what conditions exist for someone to be able to participate. After this report, our team and our partners Patras Medicine 2022 presented our projects to the public, receiving very encouraging comments on the impact of the diagnostic tools to the public. In the third part of the program, speeches were heard about the applications of Synthetic Biology in the treatment of lung cancer, in the construction of drug delivery systems and in pharmacogenomics. Finally, were presented the diagnostic techniques used today and explained the reasons why they are not capable of early diagnosis. At the end of the seminar, a lot of students expressed interest in creating an iGEM Team to participate in the iGEM Competition. We were very glad about this result and we promised that we gonna help every new iGEM team of our University in the future as iGEM Alumni members.
• Meeting with the Students of the University of Nicosia | 20.9.2022 •
During our search about previous teams and projects, we found that no team from Cyprus has ever participated in the competition. So we assumed that maybe they don't know about iGEM Competition. So we contacted Dr. Sarigiannis Ioannis, Assistant Professor at the Department of Health at the University of Nicosia. We informed him about the iGEM Competition and the importance of Synthetic Biology and he gave us the chance to present our team and the iGEM Competition during his session at 187 students. We started by introducing the audience to iGEM Competition and then explained in detail how can a student participate in this competition and what he or she will gain from the competition. Finally, we talked about Synthetic Biology and its applications to the modern research.
• Lab Session at the Anatolia College | 28.09.2022 •
On Wednesday 28.09.2022 Mr. Sotiriou Diamantis, Professor of Biology at Anatolia College, invited us to do a lab session with his students and to teach them simple techniques of Synthetic Biology. So, we visited Anatolia College and we had a session with more than 100 students aged 12-18. Firstly we explained the characteristics of the iGEM Competition emphasized in the iGEM Cycle and we clarified how can a student of a High School participates in this competition. Then, we presented our project DIAS in order to explain how can Synthetic Biology be applied to a diagnostic tool, which can find it in every diagnostic center. Then we choose a basic lab procedure, DNA Electrophoresis with agarose gel and explained to the students why we use this technique and how we perform it in the lab. After the theory part, it's the student's time to shine! We taught them to put the samples with pipettes into the electrophoresis device. The students were excited about this technique and the younger students aged 12-15 told us that they are looking forward to growing up in order to participate to iGEM Competition. The next day they published in the school newspaper highlights from our meeting which you can see here.
• Meeting with the Greek Minister of Education | 10.09.2022 •
Unfortunately, in Greece, high schools are completely uninformed about the existence of the iGEM Competition. Participation in such competitions is the best way for this age group to shape the future of synthetic biology actively. Therefore, on 10.09.2022 we contacted the Greek Ministry of Education Mrs. kerameus Niki in the Thessaloniki International Fair and requested motivation for schools to join the synthetic biology research teams. To organize our material and provide an audiovisual experience to the students, we prepared an online leaflet, which includes information about iGEM Competition and the assumption for participation and we request her permission to send this to all the schools in Greek in order to inform the students. She happily accepted our request and she expressed her hope that many high schools will participate in next year's competition.
• Webinar: “A Step Closer to the Gold Medal” | 1.09.2022 •
On the 1st of September, we organized with our partners a webinar in order to help the iGEM teams to get one step closer to the Gold Medal of the Competition. Two workshops were planned in the webinar. The first was related to bioinformatics analysis, which programming languages we use and which databases we can analyze. In this way we wanted to help iGEM teams to validate the biomarkers they chose for their projects and take their first steps toward modeling. The first session was held by Kardamiliotis Konstantinos, a member of MetaThess team. In the second part of the webinar, a workshop about Graphic Design took place. All the way to the iGEM Competition the teams are asked to make graphics for their actions or social media. So Nteriki Eirini, a member of Patras Medicine team showed how to use the Adobe Illustrator program which is software for Graphic Design. Using this program a member of an iGEM team can create whatever graphic he wants to meet the needs of his team. The webinar had a great response and the audience learned interesting tools used by a team for the complete implementation of the Project.
• Presentation to the Metropolitan College of Thessaloniki | 6.06.2022 •
On Monday 6.06.2022 we presented our project DIAS to the students of Metropolitan College of Thessaloniki. We emphasized to cancer epidemiology and to the reason for such high mortality. We explained the methods, used nowadays to detect cancer tumors and the student understood that these techniques are very difficult to carry out every year because they are invasive and expensive. Then we discussed about Synthetic Biology and its applications and finally, we introduced the audience to iGEM Competition and emphasized what the student can gain from his participation.
• International University of Greece | 19.06.2022 •
On Sunday 19.06.2022 we met with a representative of the International University of Greece to inform her about the iGEM Competition. We searched the departments of this University and found that it has Nutrition, Agriculture, Engineering and IT departments. So we explained to her that in the iGEM Competition interdisciplinary teams take part, so the structure of their university and the lab facilities could support it. In addition, we mentioned to her that Synthetic Biology has applications in all areas of modern life. Thus, a team from their university and based on their knowledge background could deal with a Project concerning Nutrition or the environment. Finally, we gave her brochures with relevant information material so that she could distribute them to her students.
• Youth and Lifelong Learning Foundation | 22.08.2022 •
On 22.08.2022 we met representatives of the Youth and Lifelong Learning Foundation. We presented to them our project and our activities and explained to them the characteristics of the iGEM Competition. They were excited about our work and the organization of our team and congratulated us for our initiative to deal with such a serious medical problem, cancer. They also pointed out that participation in such interdisciplinary teams prepares a student to more easily integrate into a work environment as he will have learned to manage many different behaviors and know what it is like to work together for a common goal. They proposed to us in the new year to organize together an information campaign about the prevention and early diagnosis of lung cancer while they published on social media information about our group to inform the public about our activities.
