The CellulALT team recognizes that scientific engagement of the public is an important duty of scientists. Keeping the public scientifically educated and informing them of new developments in science helps in the implementation of technologies and their wider public use. iGEM, through the various teams that participate in its competition, provides a goldmine of innovative solutions that the public would benefit from being aware of. And the iGEM teams themselves require information from the public to assess the need for solutions from iGEMers. So it could be said that effective scientific communication and engagement are important for reflective, responsible, and responsive innovations.
Our team has through the following means communicated, informed, educated and engaged the public about synthetic biology and iGEM, and in doing so, gave us an opportunity to reflect, be responsible and respond.
We have taken part in demonstrating, informing, and educating both high school students and elementary school students. More about education under communication and education. Additionally, we have collaborated with Empress to educate the public through Kombucha about synthetic biology, more of this collaboration bellow.
Titan is a newspaper for science and technology at the University of Oslo that is affiliated with the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences. It was a great opportunity to be interviewed by Titan’s research facilitator and journalist Eivind Torgersen and the interview was published on their website Titan. We were able to use their platform and inform their audience about our iGEM project.
We also did presentations to prospect iGEM members for next year, we presented to master students to engage them in our project. More information can be found under communication and education.
We also had the opportunity to share our iGEM journey and talk about science on a global podcast based in Sweden with audience all over the world. More on this can be found on communication and education.
Part of our collaborations included an appearance on the ITESO Guadalajara team's podcast. More information can be found on communication and education.
Our responsive collaboration with Empress Brewery helped us to be responsible in contacting potential stakeholders as they produced bacterial cellulose through their product. This resulted in a collaboration that allowed us to conduct our survey.
As part of our Human Practices, we created and distributed a survey to learn about the public’s opinion on GMO’s, space exploration and the usefulness of bacteria. The survey was anonymous, and participants were informed of its purpose. It was carried in two phases:
Phase 1 - We used pen and paper and distributed the survey to prospect master students during a presentation that took place at the University of Oslo, to invite them to join next year’s iGEM team.
Phase 2 - In a partnership with Empress Brewery, we made and distributed tags on their kombucha bottles. They in turn, delivered the bottles to their distributors all over Norway making our tags visible and available for potential survey answers to come. Flyers were also made available through distributors so that people could take the survey online and give us a wider perspective of the public’s opinion. We also hung poster and flyers on local grocery stores and libraries.
The key points of our survey were: GMO knowledge, emotional response to synthetic biology and emotional response to space exploration.
When it came to sources of food in space, we received varied answers. The most common answer by far was dehydrated food. Which means most people do not think there is room for preparation in a space mission, and all food would be readily packed and taken from Earth to be consumed in space.
Sustainability - This question had the purpose of finding out how sustainable the public believes space exploration is currently, in order to evaluate how much work needs to be done in educational pathways to let the public know about it. The majority of people answered that human and other waste would be either discarded or brought back to Earth. Which is not sustainable at all!
175 people answered our survey. 127 answers were received from general public, 20 were pharmacy students and 28 were bioscience master students. Only 1 student of biosciences answered negatively to GMO.
As we can see, GMO acceptance is very directly related to the field of education of those taking the survey. Master students in biosciences were mostly positive at GMO, while the general public had an acceptance of less than 50% towards GMO. The need for more awareness and education is something that is crucial for synthetic biology. After reading these results, we decided to become even more involved with education with school students. We learned from our survey that it is necessary.
Each year, iGEM teams from various institutions from the Nordic countries gather to meet with each other in a host university in one of the Nordic countries. This year, in 2022, the iGEM Lindköping team from the University of Linköping in Sweden hosted the NIC. There we got to learn about new and exciting research, worked together in iGEM workshops related to biosafety and biosecurity, presented our projects, participated in games and spent time discussing our iGEM journeys. The host team showed exemplary hospitability and hosted dinners and games for all attendees. We had the opportunity to meet with like-minded individuals working to make a better world through iGEM just like us. The NIC was also integral in informing us how other teams approached and presented their projects.
The journey to define a problem that we as a team wanted to tackle was a long process. The team members come from diverse backgrounds in terms of age, culture, ethnicity, and education. Each team member was encouraged to present the main motivation for participating in iGEM, and select three tracks that they were interested in. From there, we narrowed down the tracks that we collectively, as a group was interested in; the main ones were therapeutics or diagnostics.
Andrea Alessandro Gasparini took us through to the next step in the process into design thinking, where each member prepared a problem that they were interested in within the chosen tracks. The problems we presented were expected to build on previous iGEM teamwork. For this, we researched previous iGEM teams' projects to avoid replicating their work, and rather build on it. We then looked at each proposed problem and saw if any of them were connected by a common thread or if they were too narrow in scope. After several rounds of voting, we landed on the following problem: (i) Stem cell manufacturing and aging, (ii) and easy diagnostics for Chlamydia.
From this point, we choose one problem to focus and followed up by gathering more data for divergent thinking, we did not discard any other ideas but decided to focus on one stem cell manufacturing. This exercise was done by asking questions related to the problem to parents, friends, and students. What do they know about stem cells, what is the use of stem cells. Finding scientific articles, blogs, or news and companies or organization that use or work with stem cell manufacturing. Together with our supervisors, we wrote post-its of our previous experience with stem cells and the information we took from the interviews. From the pos-its table, we got several ideas and questions that we wanted to further research on our own. The team progressed into looking at materials that can deliver stem cells to the body and landed on polymers.
Onwards we boiled down the key problem regarding the use of polymers as a treatment delivery: Immunogenicity. We then prototyped a solution: test the use of bacterial cellulose as an alternative to alginate hydrogels. The latter is based on research showing less toxicity compared to polymers from other sources. We further broke down the project into two stages. (1) extraction of cellulose and development of the capsule polymer, and (2) testing the viability of a model cell within the capsule. For the latter, we identified a model organism that bears two main characteristics of stem cells: fragility and proliferation rate. After researching work from previous iGEM teams and articles related to this problem, we addressed the following challenges: How to prove the absence of immune response? What alternative organismal model could be used, and if we need a living creature at all?
We progressed to researching the project by:
The problem we wanted to tackle began to take shape. Previous iGEM projects had not done what we were set out to do. We decided to tackle the problem of stem cells and bacteria creating cellulose. We evolved into the evolution part of the design thinking and used the tools SWOT which mapped out the strength, opportunities, weaknesses, and threads in our project. We also employed Miro, a mind-mapping tool to fill in the information regarding the project. The team was divided into groups and discussed the information before presenting them. This enabled every individual on the team to contribute and be heard during the discussion.
Together with Andrea, we got the ideas down on paper. And since stem cell encapsulation by using bacterial cellulose was a broad project, we needed to narrow it down. The project, therefore, is split into Manufacturing (standardization and high-volume production) and delivery (immunogenicity). We decided to not work with an immune response as we cannot work with human cells. And from there progressed to find the drawbacks and limitations of the project.
At this point, we knew that the main challenge with stem cell encapsulation was the immune reaction of the polymers elicited in patients. Therefore, we formulated a partial solution: test the use of bacterial cellulose (suggestion: K. rhaeticus) as an alternative to alginate hydrogels. The project would have two stages:
For the latter we will have to identify a cell model that displays at least the two following characteristics of stem cells: A level of fragility similar to induced pluripotent stem cells and a proliferation rate similar to that of iPSCs.
We evolved into the evolution part of the design thinking and used the tools SWOT which mapped out the strength, opportunities, weaknesses, and threads in our project, and Miro, a mind mapping tool to fill in the information regarding the project. The team was divided into groups that filled in and discussed the information before presenting it to the team.
As a team, we knew that the problem that we landed on was broad. To define what problems to tackle, we choose to zero into challenges and issues with the physical properties of cellulose. The aim was to define the angle we wanted to tackle the problem with based on tracks. We can tackle our problem in 4 ways, however, we decided to look away from the immune response as there is a huge limitation regarding time, models, ethical questions and testing etc. And looked at the pros and cons of each angle: standardization, high-volume production, and physical properties.
One thing is to address the encapsulation of SC into bacterial cellulose and check for its viability. However, there are issues with cellulose technology used in the medical field. The review paper "The hopes and hypes of plant and bacteria-derived cellulose application in stem cell technology" addresses examples from prior research within the medical field, summarized the result, addresses challenges/disadvantages with cellulose technology (cellulose from algae and fungi), and propose possible solutions.
We evolved into the evolution part of the design thinking and used the tools SWOT which mapped out the strength, opportunities, weaknesses, and threads in our project, and Miro, mind mapping tool to fill in the information regarding the project. The team was divided into groups that filled in and discussed the information before presenting it to the team.
We wanted to find out whether bacterial cellulose has been produced by labs or companies in Norway. And found Ocean TuniCell, a company in Bergen working with marine nanocellulose hydrogel for medical purposes. We needed to search what previous iGEM teams' projects, Imperial college 2014. More is described in integrated human practices. We found Yadav et al. (2010) in the literature, and later found iGEM team NYU 2012.
We knew that we wanted to work with bacterial cellulose, however, how do we modify the cellulose to fit our desire and be a better alternative than what is available in the market? During a project refinement session, we had to decide on an application for our product. Would our product be better than anything available? Through research, we found that bacterial cellulose is not widely used due to the inability to scale up its production where it has a level with more feasibility than other alternative medical materials and supplements. Therefore, we had to think of situations and even places where our cellulosed-based co-polymer, would be option zero.
From the research made during this whole journey, we know that one of the monomers from the polymer we intended to build (chitin) had been found to a replacement for lack of dietary fiber. That is how we decided to switch gears and focus on adapting our project and employ the polymer as a nutritional additive for space crews destined for long-range travels. Nonetheless, as we proceeded to move forward and started to talk with experts on the feels and other iGEM teams across the globe, we noticed that our designed product had a greater potential: the grade to which the polymer could be tuned by the chitin/cellulose ration to produce material with grades of stiffness. The latter turned out to be a very high-value renewable resource in space exploration and colonization of other planets, where other production of diverse medical materials such as cotton-made bandages would not be feasible. This is where the polymer produced by K. xylinus, could serve as a substrate for the on-demand fabrication of a diverse array of products in a sustainable way, mainly using waste as a growth substrate. And that is how CelluAlt was finally born.
From the very beginning, our team was made up of people from diverse multinational, multi-ethnic, multicultural and educational backgrounds. This gifted us with a variety of perspectives and problems that we wanted to solve though iGEM. It was not easy finding a common problem to work on.
Reason for contact: In order to expediate the process of finding a common problem that we would all be interested in working on, we recruited the assistance of Andrea Alessandro Gasparini, an expert in design thinking (1).
Input: By taking us through a design thinking session, he provided us tools to sieve through our various ideas and find a common denominator in our interests.
Implementation: We first selected a set of tracks within the iGEM competition that we were interested in or covered the problems that we wanted to solve. Then, we narrowed down the tracks that the majority had chosen. Finally, we narrowed it down to a few sets of tracks through which we were able to list problems that we wanted to solve; therapeutics and manufacturing. Through design thinking process we started by defining problems within these tracks by desirability, feasibility and viability. Through empathy we looked at the possible users, and then visualized the approach to the project, and finally proposed solutions as the problem we are addressing became more defined. As we progressed in defining the problem, we gathered data for divergent thinking, and proposed possible solutions to the problem. We then processed the data and found a common theme in the problem we are addressing.
This theme sorted our project into therapeutics. The team was then divided into two groups that used Swot tool (strength weakness, opportunities and threats) to map out the breakdown of the problem, that we later presented to each other. Finally, we visualized the ideas and solution by using Miro to map the project parts, information, ideas and solutions. As the problem was defined, by using bacterial cellulose to tackle the stem cell delivery, we broke down the project into stages and tackled the problem by finding research based on the work of previous iGEM teams (Imperial college 2014) that worked with a different strain of cellulose producing bacteria, and NYU that tried to implement the work of Yadav et al. (2010) which our project is based on to produce and extract the bacterial cellulose. We then work on the modification post-production. We decided to build on the work by the literature Yadav et al. (2010) and the work by literature that both previous iGEM teams have done, however we decided to work with different strain of yeast than Yadav et al. (2010) and improved the product by the addition of another gene.
Problem: Saccharomyces cerevisiae was a strain of fungus that we have heard about and used in baking; however, we had no idea how to cultivate and or where to extract the genomic material.
Reason for contact: we needed Saccharomyces cerevisiae (Baker's Yeast), which is a new thing for us to grow and work with. Therefore, we needed some guidance on how to cultivate the batch of S. cerevisiae that they sponsored us with.
Input: They told us how to cultivate and what type of medium to make for the yeast.
Prof Guy-Bart Stan is Head of the Control Engineering Synthetic Biology group worked previously with Professor Tom Ellis.
Problem: Bacterial Cellulose was a completely new thing for us at the start of our project. We did not know how to work with bacteria that would produce bacterial cellulose, nor had we any idea where we could get it.
Reason for contact: We knew that other iGEM teams had worked with it before, we started contacting previous teams, especially researchers who were involved with previous teams who had worked with bacterial cellulose before. The Imperial team seemed to have worked with the bacterium Gluconacetobacter xylinus/ Komagataeibacter xylinus.
Input: Upon contact, he forwarded our inquiry to Tom Ellis, who had also worked with the iGEM 2014 Imperial College. Tom Ellis was involved with the iGEM 2014 Imperial College team who also worked with bacterial cellulose.
Professor Tom Ellis. Professor of Synthetic Genome Engineering working with synthetic biology in bacteria and yeast to grow novel patterned and functional biomaterials.
Input: Upon contact, Tom Ellis first pointed us to a paper that described the sequence and methods to work with G. xylinus (2). He also notified us of the fact that they stopped using G. xylinus halfway through iGEM and instead began to use Komagataeibacter rhaeticus. He then pointed us to a paper from the project focused on that bacterium (3). He also sent us K. rhaeticus for us to work with, but unfortunately it never arrived for unknown reasons.
Implementation: The papers that he pointed to us provided us with valuable information that helped us in making competent K. xylinus and formulating the HS medium that we used for growing our K. xylinus.
Dr Alfonso Urbanucci works on precision in cancer medicines.
Our Problem: We had already researched a variety of probable uses for bacterial solutions, and even found lots of problems that it could be used to solve in medical therapy alone. But we were still unsure what we had researched and proposed for implementation would be realistic or feasible in the real world.
Reason for contact: As one of the proposed implementations of our polymer was in cancer treatment, as it had potential for sustained drug delivery, we decided to contact Alfonso, as he is working on precision cancer medicines.
Input: Via the zoom meeting that we had with him, we discussed the various ways in which our co-polymer could be used in cancer treatment. Key among them was the need for ways to effectively treat post-surgical wounds in cancer treatment. He highlighted the fact that when a tumor is removed, it is not always a clean surgery that removes all problematic cells at once, so the surrounding tissue must be targeted and treated locally which is currently impossible because it is not advisable to do surgery and reopen the wound several times to do it. Hence, our co-polymer, with its potential to deliver drugs at a sustained rate and biodegrade within the body, could be sewn shut within the wound. It would then not need to be opened again as the co-polymer will keep dosing the site and degrade and be absorbed after treatment. Re-dosing with the drug infused polymer could also be done with minimally invasive methods.
Implementation: The interaction with Alfonso made us realize that we should explore areas in medical treatment where repeated treatment (as in the case of post cancer surgery treatment) could also hamper the rate of healing.
After this, through research, we found that bacterial cellulose is not used widely in practice yet due to our inability to scale up its production to a level where its use is more feasible than other alternatives (traditional and novel). We then had to think of situations and even places where our co-polymer, which we hope will be similar to bacterial cellulose, would be the zero option. Thus, we decided that our co-polymer, could be a very valuable renewable resource in space exploration and colonization of other planets, where other production of alternatives of medical treatment materials like bandages from cottons would not be feasible.
Professor Eric Malcom Thompson is the Group Leader at the Sars Centre for Marine Molecular Biology at University of Bergen and CSO of Ocean Tunicell that works with producing marine biomedical hydrogels.
Our Problem: We wanted to find out if our idea for the production and use of our bacterial cellulose-like copolymer in space and exoplanets would be feasible, realistic, or even needed. Hence, we decided to contact experts who were working with cellulose production.
Reason for contact: Eric is the CSO of Ocean Tunicell, a compnay working to produce cellulose-based biomaterials from Ciona intestinalis (the sea squirt) which has genes and gene products to produce cellulose. (4)
Input: He commented that it would be useful to know more about the volume of the system we were thinking of and whether it would involve mixed or static cultures. He foresaw few challenges in orienting towards medical supplies with such a system yet added that the dietary roughage application could circumvent some of these though, yet again wondered whether the scale of production would be sufficient. For medical supplies we would need to greatly enhance the efficiency of current culture protocols, especially given the limited "feed” volumes we would likely have available in space. Then there was the problem of removing endotoxins which currently involved rather extensive perfusion with NaOH solutions. Also, if a static culture was not possible (where it is much easier to isolate the “pellicule”), then we also had a challenge in efficient recovery of the engineered biopolymer from the culture. He also added that he was not an expert in the production of bacterial cellulose, but believed that in using the strain we proposed, the efficiency of production and recovery was lower in mixed than in static cultures. He concluded by saying that bacterial cellulose/nanocellulose is FDA approved in medical applications but limitations in scale-up and the endotox elimination aspect are limiting adoption in biomedicine.
Implementation: Going forward with our proposed implementation, we decided that we should consider conditions where static cultures could be maintained. In space, in microgravity conditions, maintaining static cultures could be difficult. Hence, the cultures could be grown in sections of the spaceship with artificial gravity created by centrifugation of portion of the spaceship. On exoplanets, gravity at the surface would solve this problem.
Professor Ingrid Bakke from Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Department of Biotechnology and Food Science, at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.
Our Problem: the fact that we wanted more validation for our idea for the production and use of our bacterial cellulose-like copolymer in space, we were also exploring its possible use as a substitute for dietary fiber, as bacterial cellulose and chitin are possibly good alternatives for it.
Reason for contact: Ingrid is a professor at the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Department of Biotechnology and Food Science, at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (5).
Input Ingrid informed us that she was not working directly with food science and hence would not be able to advise us on our idea. However, she informed us of the need to clearly consider that the production of heterotrophic biomass from organic waste would require an oxygen acceptor (O2 or NO3), and that in space, this could be a challenge. She also pointed us towards a research group at CIRiS Trondheim who has been working with plant production in space.
Implementation: , Thus, to reduce oxygen demand of the whole production process, it led us to research anerobic methods to break down organic waste first into products that our modified bacteria could use. Seeing that we also need to consider the oxygen demands of our bacteria, we employed the help of our iGEM partners to create a model which shows the relation between oxygen and NH4 availability and production of bacterial cellulose. anWe also proceeded to contact CIRiS Trondheim to advise us on our project.
Our Problem: For a part of our Human Practices, we wanted to conduct a survey. But we wanted to find a way to reach the masses using a vector that also had a connection to our project. We wanted a more passive method that could reach an even wider audience than a stand in a public arena.
Reason for contact: Empress Brewery is a successful kombucha brewery company that produces and distributes kombucha all over Norway and even the United States (8). Since they work with the same bacteria as we do, even though to produce a different product, we thought that it would be an educative connection for the public to know that microbes can be very versatile in their service to us. We also wanted to see how our cultures and co-polymer formation could look like on an industrial scale.
Input: We contacted them and then later visited their brewery where they showed us their kombucha production tanks that had the tea cultures where the bacteria were growing, and the approximately a meter wide bacterial cellulose pellicle floating on top. Together we concluded that the best and most-cost effective way for us to conduct a wide survey and even promote our project and iGEM would be through the hosting of bottleneck tags with our information on their bottles and distribution of flyers from their outlets. They also aided us in social media outreach via their Instagram page (9). They also sponsored us their kombucha drinks and jars of bacterial cellulose to use in our Education and Communication outreach.
Implementation: We created bottleneck tags that could go easily around the neck of their kombucha bottles. This way, they could arrive at their retail locations with the tags. We also went around Oslo to the various stores that’s sold their products and put bottleneck tags on the bottles. Additionally, we provided flyers to the store employees working at the outlets that they could give to customers. The flyers and tags had a QR code on them through which people could participate in our survey. The survey was designed in such a manner that through answering the various questions, thoughts about GMOs and space innovations were generated in the participant's mind. Later versions of the flyers also had a brief description of our project on the front and back. This allowed people to still be educated by our project even if they were disinterested in the survey.
The results of the survey can be seen in our HP page and we integrated their sponsored products in our Education and Communication outreach.
Our Problem: We wanted to conduct education outreach to high school students here in Norway, but a lot of us did not speak Norwegian nor did we have experience in scientific writing in Norway to properly create the infographics that we wanted to distribute to them. Reason for contact: Ketil Hylland is a Norwegian Professor of Toxicology and Environmental Science at the University of Oslo (10) who had the opportunity to perform environmental toxicology-based science demonstrations to high school students during the “Ungforsk Uke” (Young Researchers’ Week).
Input: He accommodated our request to join his science demonstrations for our project. He advised us to randomize our labeling in the different bacterial growth mediums, so that we can use the random labelling to quiz the students on which mediums they think have bacterial cellulose growth. Earlier, the actual names of the different sugars that we used were on the labels of the growth containers, thus not allowing for anyone to have to think much to know where the bacterial cellulose could be. He also notified of the fact that there were errors in the Norwegian writing of our infographic.
Implementation: Using his advice, we randomized the labeling of our bacteria growth containers to make it less obvious which containers would have bacterial cellulose. We also took on actions to correct our Norwegian in the infographics.
The result of this can be seen on our Education and Communication page.
Our Problem: To help us correct the mistakes in our Norwegian writing ofr our inforgraphic, we needed a native Norwegian speaker, who was also a student like us, but also had experience in teaching Norwegian students studying at the level that we were targeting. Reason for contact: As of this writing, Tor is a Master of Science student of biology who tutors students via Mentor Norge and has teaching experience (11).
Input: He examined the Norwegian writing we used on our infographic and suggested correction for our choices in Norwegian versions of scientific wording and gave input on alternative phrases to use that will make better sense in Norwegian.
Implementation: We took in his corrections and suggestions, hence made the infographic more effective Norwegian communication tool for iGEM and our project.
The result of this can be seen on our Education and Communication page.
Our Problem:In Norway there are only two iGEM teams, NTNU and UiO. However, the University of Bergen is lacking an iGEM team. This year we were the only Norwegian iGEM team and so we did not have a way to have easy collaborations, and even a lab-to-lab partnership within the same country. So, for the future, we thought that it would be advantageous to have more iGEM teams from the other universities in Norway.
Reason for contact: The University of Bergen is one of Norway’s biggest public universities and it still had not had an iGEM team till date. Hence, we contacted Professor Rein Aaslund from the section of Genetics and Evolutionary Biology at UiO who had also previously worked at the University of Bergen (12).
Input: We met with Rein and he offered to initiate contact with the University and inquire about individuals who would be interested in being a guide to future iGEM teams. He also advised us to create a timeline-based infographic of our iGEM journey, and the interdisciplinary aspect of iGEM to give an idea of what an iGEM project forms and evolves throughout the year and show that it is not all about lab work and that students and experts from different fields can contribute to iGEM.
Implementation: Taking his advice into account, we created an infographic that showed the timeline that briefly described our iGEM journey and the various skills and expertise outside of molecular biology that can and are employed in iGEM projects.
Also, based on this and the questions that were asked during the meeting with Rein, we also created an easy guide for teams to create an education outreach project which can be seen on our partnership page.
Our communication with experts and their feedback, and even lack thereof, aided us in making decisions and refining our project.
From the start of our project, we reached out to several experts and even companies that could have advised us and helped us in refining our project. We contacted experts in space surgery (NASA flight surgeon), experts working with food production in space, experts working in producing food from human waste, and even experts with whom we were inquiring about alternative applications of our theoretical co-polymer. However, we did not get any feedback from them, and so we could not integrate their direct input into our project. Nevertheless, we integrated what we could from their research that interested us into our project.
