Education

Talks and Lectures

We gave talks to high-school and PhD students, spreading awareness of iGEM, Synthetic Biology and its hands-on engineering philosophy.

International Summer School Talk

The University of Bath’s International Summer School is an annual virtual programme accessible to all international students in Year 12 (or equivalent) looking to start University in the following academic year. For the duration of the course, the students have access to daily lectures and seminars delivered by our academics, allowing an insight into studying at university. E-Mentors are also on hand to guide them through the process and answer any questions about coming to and studying in the UK. We had the opportunity to discuss our project to the international high school students. We gave an overview of Synthetic Biology and gene circuits and the pressing problems of phosphate depletion and pollution. The students had many questions on how to organize themselves to take on a project of this magnitude and complexity. Their interest in iGEM and Synthetic Biology was clear, leaving us hopeful that future students may continue to foster a competitive Synthetic Biology culture at the University.

Gregorio explaining the concept of gene circuits at the Bath International Summer School.

Discover Bath Talk

Discover Bath is a summer programme which aims to give prospective undergraduate students a taste of first-year life and study at the University of Bath, together with the opportunity to gain an alternative acceptance offer. We were invited to give a talk on iGEM, synthetic biology and our project on creating a circular phosphorus bioeconomy. We gave an introduction to iGEM, the purpose and format of the competition; it was the first any student had heard of iGEM. Not only were the goals of the project presented but also some of the challenges encountered along the way such as networking and fundraising core aspects of a researcher’s career. This was further acknowledged by Dr. Julia Sero who hosted the programme, pointing out that these are skills that go beyond a competition and are relevant to all future members of academia.

Sanger Institution Presentation

The Wellcome Sanger Institute is a world-renowned institute in the field of genomics situated in Cambridge. PhD students from the institute were invited to come to the University of Bath for talks and other activities. We were able to discuss how iGEM works as a competition, with the many aspects that we are encouraged to engage with such as collaborating, entrepreneurship and considering real-world implementation. We presented case studies of past winners from the therapeutics (Tainan 2019) and diagnostics (Leiden 2020) tracks given that the Sanger Institute students had a particular interest in medicine. We then went over our experimental design as well as how we plan on empowering users through our hardware. We had discussions with some of the students who were interested in hearing more on how we would implement the relevant safety measures. Students who had previously participated in iGEM shared their stories , it was interesting to see the differences between the course of our projects. We received positive feedback from the organizer, Megan Gozzard, stating the following:

“The talk was really great, and I had many students come up to me afterwards with exclamations that it has inspired them to compete and to think of aspects of their PhD in a ‘iGEM’ style.”

Alexz presenting the problem of phosphorus depletion to the Sanger Institute PhD students.

Lastly, we gave an hour and a half lecture at the esteemed Bath Royal Literary and Science Institution (BRLSI), engaging members of the public young and old on the opportunities and risks of synthetic biology, and how we used it to address the pressing danger of the phosphorus crisis. Throughout the process, we learnt not only how to make synthetic biology accessible to any audience, but also what different audiences were interested in, whether that be the methodology, theory or the applications and safety.

Jeremy presenting the issue of aquatic phosphate pollution to the BRLSI.

Jeremy explaining how we implemented genetic cirucits to the BRLSI.

Educational Pamphlet

We developed pamphlets communicating the principles and philosophy of synthetic biology to audiences of different ages and levels of knowledge. We iterated on a single poster design, tailoring it for both a general audience and a specialised audience, allowing a much broader reach and a natural progression for members of the public comfortable with the initial pamphlet. Through iteration and multiple rounds of feedback, we came to understand the levels of assumed knowledge for a member of the public and came to refine what the key points we wanted the public to take away and what they reasonably would take away, rather than explaining every little detail. Our pamphlets, digital, short and easy to print, were translated into Portuguese and circulated in Brazil to social educational programmes, giving young children a perspective of high-level science that is changing the world. See Inclusion

Tips on Teaching Synthetic Biology

As with any exercise in education, the Audience comes before the content. It matters very little what you want to say to the audience if they a) cannot understand it or b) are not interested. Therefore, before preparing your slides, consider the following:

1. How much do my audience know already?
2. What do I want them to take away? Or put another way, if they only could remember a handful of points, what would those points be?
3. What will they reasonably take away?

But Why?

1. Is your audience the general public? Then teach to a year 8 level of Biology. Why? While A level (high school) content such as ATP and the central dogma of Biology is creeping into GCSE (middle school) education under new specifications, do not assume that knowledge exists in the general public, or even current GCSE students themselves. "Round down" when assuming knowledge. That is, if you are teaching to A level students, teach synthetic biology at a GCSE level. Unlike their course material that they will revise and attempt over several years, your short 20 minute Synthetic Biology talk will come and go, with little opportunity for reinforcement. Therefore, teach at a level where the audience understands upwards of 70% of the material, with new content either applying their knowledge to a new context or filling in gaps. If you have (alot of) time however, you can go into more detail, like we did in our 90 minute long BRLSI talk where we introduced circuitry, requiring 20 minutes to explain and contextualise well.
2. If a point is important, treat it like it is important, and repeat it throughout your talk! You can bluntly have recap slides that go over your key points at frequent intervals, or you can weave your core concepts into the messages of your subsequent topics, like any good lecture.
3. Even if you hammer home a point countless times, if the human brain sees no value in remembering something, it will forget it; a mechanism that defends your finite brain from the terabytes of information flowing into it every minute. Always bring home an abstract scientific topic or discovery by discussing the real world implications of your points, like any good "News and Views" article. Explaining complex science, especially to public audiences, requires constant justification and recapitulation of why, for example, thinking about genes like circuits, or organisms like machines, is something the audience should remember. At regular intervals in your talk, intersplice a "So What? slide to ground your ramblings on circuits in the biosafety risks of genetically engineered organisms and dual use, for example.

But most of all, have fun teaching and let your enthusiasm shine through!

Project Legacy

This was the first year that the University of Bath has participated in iGEM. We wanted to take the necessary steps to ensure that Synthetic Biology carries on within the department’s interests, that our iGEM journey catalyses the emergence of a strong and vibrant Synthetic Biology community at Bath and this is what we called Project Legacy. We worked closely with our Supervisor Momna Hejmadi, Associate Dean of Teaching and Learning, and Dr. Zoe Burke on how we could achieve this. Our team was offered a variety of opportunities to present our work and demonstrate our findings to a wide audience during the upcoming academic year within the University. This is an ongoing collaboration in which many talks are scheduled for long after the end of the iGEM competition.

Broadening Horizons

Broadening Horizons is a module within the Molecular Biosciences MSc course in which students are required to idealize a project to promote sustainability. They have the option of building a theoretical business or educational material for promoting sustainability. Naturally, there are many lessons that iGEM offers that coincide with some of the considerations these students will need to have. We were offered the opportunity of giving a brief presentation on 06/10 on our project and what iGEM is. This set the groundwork for a much more in-depth presentation we will be giving on the 19/10 that will discuss how the competition works, what the journey was like for us, the science behind Synthetic Biology and our design as well as the outreach and hardware work, we managed to do. These are valuable lessons to be put forward as they pertain to student's module criteria as well as their careers.

Gregorio and Jeremy showing off our Promotional Video to the Masters students.

Advances in Molecular Biotechnology

Like Broadening Horizons, Advances in Molecular Biotechnology is a module within the Molecular Biosciences MSc course that covers recent technological developments in Molecular Biotechnology. Synthetic Biology is an exciting and relatively new field that is yet to be fully explored within the University’s curriculum. This November, we will be offering an in depth talk about the science behind our experimental designs, first going over the basics of Synthetic Biology and then how we applied these fundamentals to achieve our desired results. Beyond that, we already have confirmation that 2023-2024 cohort for this module will be using our malate and phosphate biosensors for their practicals. This is a testament to how our current project will lead on to the development of future researchers at the University of Bath.

SCOPE (Science Community Of Practice in Education)

This forum was established in 2019 in the Faculty of Science and is aimed at sharing good ideas, practices, resources and opportunities to collaborate on education projects and career development for staff through informal mentoring and support. Members of SCOPE come from academic and professional staff across disciplines in Life Sciences, Pharmacy, Chemistry, Physics, Maths, Computer Sciences and Natural Sciences. Given its multidisciplinary nature, this forum is the perfect platform for us to share our project and we will be doing so on 20/10. IGEM promotes collaboration between members from different backgrounds, working together towards a common goal. Here we will show how the diversity in our group led to our success and how this mindset could be adopted for future projects.

Faculty of Science Employer Advisory Board

This Board comprises members from industry, NGOs, Public Sector, Civil Service, Social Enterprise, Business organisations, National/International SMEs or Large Multinationals. The objective of the board is to support the faculty's strategic direction as it relates to early talent or providing strategic support in the development of one of the Universities core objectives: Excellence in Education. As it is student led, iGEM is the ideal project to discuss on this Board. Our team managed to not only set up with our supervisor the first appearance of the University in the competition but to also have a project with successful outreach, hardware and lab work all organized by the future academics of the University. We will be discussing our success with the board this november , presenting on how the Education provided to us by the University allowed us to pursue our work.

A First Time iGEMer's Manual

In our Partnership with BioBrussels, we developed a manual for future iGEM teams on how to go operate within the competition. We had this idea given that it was the first time both of us had participated (more information on Partnership). The lessons learnt provide key insights as to how teams may choose to conduct themselves. This manual will be very helpful for those who intend on participating and for this reason, we’re also looking at implementing it within our respective Universities in future iterations of the competition.