Highlights:
Our collaboration this year involves six aspects:
1 Cohost a global meetup
2 Cohost an offline education activity
3 Cooperate with other iGEM teams to make a comic book
experiment brochure
4 Attend an online propaganda
5 Attend an online meetup
6 Communication of topics with iGEM teams
1 Cohost
a global meetup
On August 6-7, 2022, Worldshaper-HZ, together with ZJU-China team from Zhejiang
University and ZJUT-China team from Zhejiang University of Technology, held an meetup involving multiple
teams, multiple fields and multiple forms (online/offline) at Zhihao Hotel Vienna, Zijingang,
Hangzhou.
As a cohost, we are in charge of attracting and inviting teams to participate,
designing the brochure, e-Labo, souvenir, poster, signature wall, badge, and flag, coordinating
volunteers, and providing the host. We invited a total of 20 teams from China and abroad to
participate in the meetup, 10 of them are from Zhejiang, Shanghai, Nanjing, Hainan, who came to Hangzhou
and presented their team project in-person; and 10 teams from Shanghai, Jiangsu, the United States,
Greece, and India attended our activity in the form of zoom online meeting and made project
demonstrations.
The purpose of this meetup is to provide an opportunity for different iGEM teams
to present their topics and exchange ideas with other teams. We aim to create a safe place for iGEM teams
to find their potential collaboration partners and maximize their scope of influence. During the meetup,
we planned free discussion times for the teams to achieve mutual idea exchange and discuss cooperation
details. Furthermore, we invited professional scholars from ZJUT to make comments on team projects and
give us suggestions to make possible improvements.
2 Cohost an offline education
We co-hosted an education activity in China Hangzhou
Low-Carbon Science and Technology Museum with Worldshaper-Nanjing. As a cohost,
we took the responsibility to arrange the activity space and volunteers, and to design the badge, games,
awards, and experiments. We are grateful for the efforts Worldshaper-Nanjing put into this education
program, such as taking the flight from Nanjing to Hangzhou and purchasing materials needed with us
together.
We welcomed all children to experience the beauty of synthetic biology by
introducing them to basic synbio, setting up a award-winning quiz section, and designing four synbio
experiments, including building the model of DNA using soft sweets and toothpicks, extracting the DNA of
bananas, painting using marbles to mimic the process of spreading bacterias in the culture dish, and
creating an unique “
cell fluid drawing
”
using acrylic paints
.
Presentation of Synbio
We utilized easy-to-understand language to introduce synthetic biology
as a charming subject and presented our project in a fun way to the children
Award-winning quiz
We designed 40 everyday biology questions for children to answer, and
awarded them for their active participation
Synbio Experiments
Children extracting
banana’s DNA with our guide
We experienced the excitement and thrill educating others about synbio. Through this
interaction with children, we want to cultivate the curiosity of them to their surroundings and motivate
more children to explore the unknown. In follow-up interviews afterwards, several kids expressed how they
are charmed by the beauty of science and want to explore more in the future. We are heart-warmed and find
the meaning of this education and ourselves.
Group photo of project staff
Two members from Worldshaper-Nanjing(first and second in left) and four
members in our team
3 Cooperate with other iGEM teams to
make a comic book experimet brochure
Our comic lab guide lists
several essential tools utilized in the field
of synthetic biology and biology in general: gel
electrophoresis equipment, sterilizer,
water bath, shaker, bunsen burner,
liquid chromatographic, and different types of microscopes. We cooperated with other two
iGEM teams, Worldshaper-Nanjing and
IvyMaker-China, to draw the apparatus and
explain lab protocols. We are in charge of marking the parts
and functions of each instrument on the drawing, so that readers could better understand the functions of
them. The comic lab guides are shared to mutiple high schools.
We hope to give an introduction
of equipments daily used during
our experimental work to inspire students to be interested in biology.
High
school students reviewing our comic book experiment brochure
Students from high schools, including Shanghai Shangde
Experimental School, Shanghai Pinghe School, Shanghai American School, reviewed our comic book
experiment and shared their thoughts
4 Attend an online publicity and education campaign
On July 10th, we hosted a joint public announcement activity with
Worldshaper-Shanghai, Worldshaper-Nanjing, Worldshaper-NJBIOX, Worldshaper-HZBIOX, GYHS, and
Ivymaker-China to discuss live promotions and blogs on the WeChat live platform to expand our target
audience.
First of all, one of the host teams introduced synthetic biology, aiming to spread
the word about synthetic biology. And then, each of the seven teams began to give their own presentation.
We introduced our team composition, division of labor, background
research, project principle and project
significance. Our biggest difficulties
was the processing of questionnaire. With the joint effort of the
seven teams, we mastered the design of questionnaire and
analysis of the survey results. This warm and helpful
atmosphere motivated us to give advice to other teams with our experience. This activity
allows us to better understand the situation and content of other teams to create a smooth communication
and cooperation process.
With the joint efforts of everyone, we mastered how to design the questionnaire
and analyze the survey results. In the process of the activity, the atmosphere was inclusive and creative,
no matter in the group discussion or documents drafting, we were willing to complete a variety of work ,
actively react and help each other.
5.Attend an online meetup
On July 16th to 17th, 27 iGEM teams from China attended an online meeting so that
each team can discuss the project and share some experience. Teams in this online meetup can look for
collaboration or partnership with other teams which have similar direction or method. During
the presentation, we introduced our project,
described the seriousness and the significance of dealing with
breast cancer, and showed our progress in human practice, including propagada of our project
in our school and professor interviews.
By watching presentations from groups focusing on CRISPR-Cas system, we learn
about diverse principles of different types of CRISPR-Cas system, and compare which of the method may be
more effective for detection. We also gain the ideas of human practice from other teams. By the
inspiration of the presentation, we design our own symbol that combine CRISPR-Cas and breast
cancer.
6.Communication of topics with
iGEM teams
6.1 Gothenburg-Chalmers
At 15:30 PM on 14th July, we had an online meeting with Chalmers-Gothernburg. In this
online meeting, they briefly introduced the content and progress of their project, focusing on cell-free
systems. We learned about their cell-free reporter system and blue-white spot screening, etc.
After Charmers-Gothenburg answered our questions, we also gave a brief introduction of
our project. A total of 8 members of our team attended the meeting as representatives and
shared our project from the aspects of team
information, significance of the project, background research, experimental principle, and team progress.
In addition, we also communicated the project progress of both sides and the progress of
all aspects. The aim is to further achieve collaboration and improve our experimental design regarding
cell-free system.
After the meeting, we created a slack collaboration subgroup to further discuss
difficulties we encountered and ways that can be helpful. We discovered ways to collaborate on wiki, HP
resources, and experiment design.
6.2 CPU-China
We held an online meeting with CPU team. Their project uses CRISPR-Cas 14 and the
idea is quite similar to our team’
s. More specifically, they want to use CRISPR-Cas 14 system to detect the
non-coding RNA which is important in the prognosis of several types of cancers. As a result, we
introduced our topic and the working mechanism of CRISPR-Cas 12 system when the specific target circRNA
present.
Moreover, we talked about the current progress of our projects and discuss the
possibility of sharing HP resources on CRISPR system as well as non-coding RNA. Furthermore, they
recommended an idea of using our CRISPR-Cas12A system to test their
components. Unfortunately, due to the pandemic and other factors, this idea
is unable to be put into practice. However, we cherish this opportunity to brain storm ideas
that can be beneficial to both teams and to exchange our experiences.
6.3 Patras Medicine
We formed a collaboration with Patras Medicine team from Greece.
In the first scheduled meeting, we talked about how can we collaborate in a rounded way due to our common
interest in circRNA and cancer early detection. We discussed ways to collaborate and shared our common
passion about cancer early detection.
After the meeting, we sent follow-up emails to each
other and came up with three ideas: joining their synbio dictionary by sending them our definition of five
synthetic biology terms; presenting our project to their podcast series; and sharing Human Practices
resources. We can feel their passion in Synbio and are surprised that our collaboration sparks new ideas
that is meaningful and creative. This common passion is not restricted by
distance.
6.4 GYHS
As we found in the seven-team joint public announcement, we and GYHS both applied the cell-free system as our experimental principle. Therefore, we communicated with each other through WeChat, introduced the project respectively, and exchanged ideas about the feasibility of exchanging our methods. Through communication, we found out that both of our projects need to adopt fluorescent image analysis in the final step of analyzing experimental results. Therefore, the GYHS team shared their experience with us about how to benefit from different image analysis software to improve our projects. We also shared our experience in hardware design and implementation, from which the GYHS team gained inspiration. Our friendship with the GYHS team grew as we exchanged ideas about difficulties high school students participating the iGEM competition have to face and how can we deal with pressure.
Experience Exchange on WeChat
7.Project Share in Biology Summer Camp
On 21st July, we made a presentation to 20 students who attended a 7-day biology summer camp in the laboratory，together with Worldshaper-HZBIOX. It intends to inform those biology students about our research topics and to hear their thoughts and opinions to further improve our project. We made a brief report on the principle of our CRISPR diagnostic method by sharing our daily wet lab log, our laboratory work and results, and how we plan to prove our theory through lab work. Furthermore, we introduced our dry team progress. It includes communication with teams
abroad, attempts to set up our Wiki website, interviewing clinical doctors for breast cancer and professors specialized in CRISPR techniques, and publishing social media articles. This mutual learning was successful. Our presentation motivates more students in the summer camp to introduce their projects to us and find similarities between their method and ours. After an enthusiastic academic conversation, almost all of them gave us positive feedback and encouraged us to share our progress with them weekly; we, on the other hand, also got inspired by their idea and questions.
