Overview

This year, our team focused on "Inclusivity" to make synthetic biology more accessible to the public. We wanted to increase opportunities to know and learn about synthetic biology for not only iGEM members and scientists, but also the general public. To achieve this goal, we invented a software called "Genochemy". We intended to help people experience synthetic biology and its engineering process through software that allows them to create and learn gene circuits.

How will Genochemy contribute to society? For iGEM members, it helps to explain their projects with live visuals in an easy-to-understand way. For example, they can explain what gene modification is by a virtual organism’s color and motion change. When they use Genochemy in education and human practices, it will be able to encourage many people to join synthetic biology. For the general public, Genochemy eliminates barriers to accessing science. We made Genochemy fun to play, even for those without knowledge in biology. While we provided detailed operation aids and explanations, we did not display mathematical formulas. Results are shown in graphs and changes in the organism, making them intuitively understandable.

We also considered the accessibility of Genochemy. To avoid burdening the player, we mainly paid attention to the game's visual aspect. We devised the color scheme and shape of blocks so that any person could easily distinguish them from each other. We also made Genochemy available in multiple languages. Japanese and English versions are released now, and 600 people around the world have already played it.

Bridge iGEM and the world

Genochemy offers the opportunity to experience biological experimentation without going to a lab. The benefits are immeasurable for the general public.

For iGEM members, Genochemy is a very useful tool for education and human practices. Through education and human practices, many people told us that it is difficult to understand the design of gene circuits and their results even if they are explained. Genochemy can visually demonstrate the design of gene circuits and how the organism reacts in a motion, making it easier to tell iGEM activities to people unfamiliar with synthetic biology. Genochemy will help iGEM members to attract more people to the world of synthetic biology.

For the general public, Genochemy lowers the hurdles to learning synthetic biology. For people who lack laboratory space, synthetic biology seems to be an unreachable world. iGEM UTokyo wanted to provide the experience of synthetic biology with them. Genochemy is open to anyone, anytime, anywhere, regardless of age, location, or knowledge of biology as long as connected to the Internet. Thus, it contributes to bridging synthetic biology, which is often completed inside the lab, to the outside world. We thought it was important to make learning fun, so while we provided detailed operation aids and explanations, we omitted displays of mathematical formulas that are difficult to understand at first glance. Instead, we used graphs and color changes of the organism to help users intuitively understand the results.

Usability

No matter how great the content of the material is, if it is not easy to use, it will be difficult to share it with many people. Therefore, we have paid a lot of attention to usability. The most crucial point is that Genochemy can be played anytime, anywhere, as long as connected to the Internet. Anyone can play with Genochemy on their computer or tablet. There are benefits to the general public, who may not have access to a lab. For example, they can study synthetic biology as soon as they think of it. The simplicity of operation is also important. Genochemy uses Scratch-like block programming that allows for intuitive operation. We equipped a tutorial to teach users how to play Genochemy, so that they can learn operation methods while working on the tasks. In addition, when you put a cursor on each block, a tooltip that has an explanation appears in order to help people with no knowledge of biology play Genochemy. Based on the interview for color-blind people, the colors and shapes of the blocks are easy to identify for them.

While it is fun to design a gene circuit the way you want, we made quizzes for those who wish to deepen their learning. Quizzes by difficulty level promote effective learning by enabling "input and output" of synthetic biology knowledge.

What we learned

This year we did nine education activities and used Genochemy six times.

We received feedback and learned some important things to promote synthetic biology in our society. Most impressive was the number of people who were amazed at the potential of living organisms. Genochemy is software for "programming organisms", so users were surprised and amused that such a thing was possible. Many of them found it interesting that they might be able to make organisms behave the way they wanted, or organisms behave in unexpected ways. From their reactions, we felt that Genochemy could be a trigger to spark their interest in synthetic biology.

However, there is still a challenge. Mainly, the difficulty of making it easy to understand. Although we carefully decided on block names and detailed explanations, some parts cannot be fully conveyed by the software alone (e.g., what does "expression" mean?). For this point, we were strongly inspired by LEGO School Human Practice and then we oriented our goal to "low entrance, high ceiling", which means that it is easy enough for anyone to begin but has the potential to take the user to a very high level. We will continue to improve Genochemy so that anyone can start learning synthetic biology from scratch.