Over the course of our project, our team focused on engaging our local community to elaborate on the subject of biomolecular engineering. Promoting accessibility, diversity, and inclusion within the science community deeply motivated our outreach efforts. We created space for diverse audiences to openly discuss and learn more about synthetic biology and our project, Helo. This included speaking with the UC Santa Cruz Girls in Engineering middle school summer camp, giving a talk at Soledad High School about research as a first generation student, hosting Soquel High School biotechnology students for a field trip day, and ran a booth at Midtown Takeover put on by the UC Santa Cruz Alumni Association.
The Girls in Engineering summer program, organized by the UC Santa Cruz engineering department, encourages young women to pursue their scientific curiosity through hands-on building experiences and touring laboratories. Our team had an amazing time talking with the middle school campers about our experiences as women in a predominantly male field, discussing what it means to be an engineer, and giving a tour of our lab. We reiterated the importance of promoting female perspectives in STEM and the array of opportunities to build community with other amazing and driven women along the way. We were met with dozens of questions and excitement that led to great conversations about the mechanisms of our project, next steps, and their general understanding of synthetic biology.
Pictured here are iGEM team members Elizabeth, Joanne, and Kiana giving a presentation to the middle school engineering summer camp. Not pictured are Lauren and Haripriya who were also present and active at this event.
Our team presented at Soledad High School to Captain Gomez’s freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior Naval Science classes, totaling over 200 students. 95% of attending students are Hispanic, and most are the first within their families to graduate from high school. Many students immediately work as field laborers or enlist in the military upon graduation. As STEM outreach and synthetic biology research are almost nonexistent within these communities, we sent our team member and intern, a Soledad native first-generation college student Gabino Guzman, to share his experience in STEM. We began by introducing iGEM, along with some fundamentals of synthetic biology. After breaking down previous UCSC iGEM projects, we presented Helo using our promotional video. The students were then shown the different types of work involved in iGEM research such as dry lab, wet lab, and human outreach.
Gabino Guzman presenting to Soledad High School students about being a first generation college student in synthetic biology.
We began the discussion by asking the question, “What do you think synthetic biology is?” and got responses such as “fake biology” and “I don’t know”. After the presentation, students engaged our presenter with questions including: “How do you know that the Ex-4 protein has successfully been transformed into the yeast strain?”, “Has your biosynthetic product been tested in humans?”, and “Did you ever picture yourself doing research when you were in high school?”. It’s clear from the students' active engagement throughout and after the presentation that many may have been inspired to pursue possible careers as researchers, some potentially within iGEM itself. Our presentation gave them confidence in their abilities within STEM and hopefully inspired them to consider careers in the field.
The Midtown Takeover is a social event where UC Santa Cruz alumni are invited to connect with current students, and each other. We had the opportunity to promote our project and talk to our community about synthetic biology by running an interactive booth at the event. One of our aims was to spread awareness about the inaccessibility of diabetes medication and how synthetic biology may provide solutions to help.
Kiana, Thiago, Elizabeth, and Jonathan advocating for Helo and synthetic biology at the Midtown Takeover.
We spoke with dozens of people from a diverse set of backgrounds ranging from local musicians to Novo Nordisk employees. Questions such as, "How do you make a drug from yeast?" and, "How will you compete with Big Pharma?" populated most conversations. Nearly every person we spoke to had one degree of separation or less from someone with diabetes, whether it was a cousin, grandparent, or direct family. Even though no interviews took place, listening to story after story of people's loved ones living with diabetes emphasized a crucial facet of our project, the people. These community members personified a real issue with potential to have a real impact, grounding our team's purpose far greater than any statistic did.
Kiana, Thiago, Elizabeth, Jonathan, and Sammy the Slug advocating for Helo and synthetic biology at the Midtown Takeover.
Our team hosted a group of sixty Soquel High School juniors and seniors from our local community from Nehal Pfeiffer’s biotechnology class. We planned a field trip day to increase their interest in synthetic biology and executed the logistics for students to arrive at our campus by contacting the class teacher and coordinating with Baskin Engineering Director of Community Relations, Suz Howells, to make space for such a large group. The day started with a team presentation where we introduced ourselves, iGEM, and most importantly the power of synthetic biology and how it can solve real world problems. We engaged at a slightly higher academic level, given the students' class standing and coursework background, and were able to dive deeper into synthetic biology as a field and applications to issues such as plastic waste, vaccine cold chains, food recalls, and medicine accessibility. As many students were applying to colleges during the field trip, we received many questions and had great discussions about biomolecular engineering and other STEM major paths.
iGEM team member Zoe presenting to Soquel High School about our project: Helo.
After our presentation, we split up the class into small groups and paired them with current iGEM team members for a tour of Science Hill, where we visited the Science & Engineering Library, Thimann Rooftop Greenhouses, Baskin Engineering Buildings, and our wet lab. For almost all students, this was their first time visiting a working research lab. We went over proper personal protective equipment (PPE), safety features of our lab, and explored both new and familiar lab equipment. Hosting these high school students was both nostalgic and inspiring. As very few members on our team planned to pursue a STEM degree, let alone join a competitive synthetic biology research team, we remember how intimidating entering this field was. Encouraging a diverse group of students to pursue a STEM path was one of the most rewarding experiences we had.
iGEM team members Vidhata, Elizabeth, Cambell and Zoe with the students from Soquel High School on Science Hill at UC Santa Cruz.