Overview

Due to the COVID-19 situation, we combined online and offline forms of education to achieve our promotion goal. After considering the feasibility and the general idea of our research topic, the main target people are middle school or high school students and adults.

Using online social platforms, such as Tencent meeting, Wechat, etc., our team’s progress, synthetic biology, or the academic concepts related to our project like CRISPR system and breast cancer pathogenesis were introduced to the public.

As for offline education, we organized school publicity presentation in the early stage and also hold promotion activities in Hangzhou low-carbon science museum as well as gave out a presentation about our topic towards students that attended a biology summer camp. Moreover, we also collaborated with other iGEM teams to make a comic experiment brochure and brought to school to share with our classmates and teachers.

 

The education and communication activities we held are as follows:

1 Live broadcast publicity

2 Promotion activities in Hangzhou low-carbon science museum

3 Project share in biology summer camp 

4 Publicity activity on campus

5 The comic Book Experiment brochure

6 Self-media updates

 

Our goals

 

Our goal this year is to spread the word about early screening and synthetic biology for breast cancer.

Theme 1: Breast cancer

There is no doubt that breast cancer is still a disease with high morbidity and mortality in today's society, which is a great trouble for people. In the early stage of the iGEM project, doctors from the PLA General Hospital told us that the incidence of breast cancer was varied, but if we could arrange early screening in advance, it would be beneficial to reduce the incidence of cancer and improve the cure rate. We actively promote early prevention and early screening for breast cancer. We are committed to using synthetic biology methods to solve our various problems and design cell-free CRISPR-CSA systems to achieve early breast cancer screening, faster results, improved sensitivity and specificity, saving time and cost.

 

Topic 2: Synthetic Biology models

Although synthetic biology is changing the world by osmosis, little is known about the subject. We plan to tell interesting stories based on the iGEM theme. In order for our program to reach out to different groups and individuals in all fields, we decided to diversify our activities.

 

 

1 Live broadcast publicity

First of all, we held a joint public announcement activity with seven iGEM teams from Shanghai, Hangzhou, Guangzhou and Nanjing to expand our target audience through Wechat live streaming platform. In this activity, teams from different regions participated in the discussion with students and teachers. Because iGEM activity process needs to complete different fields, different stages of work tasks. An active and cooperative team can complete the project of the whole team with high efficiency and quality, so this activity also allows us to better understand the situation and content of other teams, and the communication and cooperation between everyone is very smooth! 

2 Offline publicity activity in Low Carbon Science Museum

Later, we held some offline publicity activities during the summer vacation to communicate and contact with more people and continuously improve the influence and popularity of the team. Together with another iGEM team, Team Nanjing, we held an interesting science popularization activity in Hangzhou Low Carbon Science and Technology Museum. In this activity, we asked children to build their own DNA models. In creating these models, people can experience that each section of DNA in biology has a different design, which can further guide their interest in biology and explore the unknown genetic secrets of cell structure. At the same time, in order to maximize the children's interest and exploration in biosynthesis, we provide them with pigments and tools to create a unique "cell fluid painting". The mixing and matching of different colors represents the flow of information between cells, and the finished work shows how different cells in an organism work together to create a beautiful picture.

3 Project share in biology summer camp

On 21st July, We we made a presentation towards 20 students who attended a 7-day biology summer camp in the laboratory. The aims for presentation are to introduce our research topics towards those biology students and hear about their thoughts as well as the opinions. Moreover, we made a brief report of our current laboratory work and results. By sharing the daily wet lab log and pictures, we talked about the principles of our CRISPR diagnostic method and how we plan to proof the idea through lab work. Furthermore, we also introduced our dry team progress: communication with teams abroad, trying to set up our Wiki website, interviewing clinical doctors for breast cancer and professors specialised in CRISPR technique and publishing social media articles. The effect of this presentation was quite good, we interacted with students and exchanged ideas.

 

4 Publicity activity on campus

Due to COVID-19 quarantine requirements, movement in public places is still restricted. We found that school was the easiest place for us to organize activities. Our first choice was the high school biology community, which has a lot of biology enthusiasts. At the same time, under the influence of the biology community, students of all grades can participate. In a relatively simple and easy to understand language, the topic and related knowledge of our team were introduced through PPT, including CRISPR technology, RNA targets, etc., and the competition we participated in - iGEM was also introduced. While popularizing science and making public announcements, some students also asked questions about the discovery and application of CRISPR, and discussed with me about the existing early screening for breast cancer.

 

Apart from that, another school speech was held in Hangzhou Foreign Language School for 500 students in school and also all the staff. On July 10th, 2022, together with the team leader from Worldshaper-HZBIOX, we organized an early project promotion in school. The aim is to introduce students to the iGEM competition as well as our research content. TThe speech mainly focused on the introduction of our team composition and division. Moreover, the introduction of causes of breast cancer as well as the current diagnostic methods were given.

At the same time, we actively promoted the support of the school club for our publicity activities. The content of the first poster mainly introduced the rules, concepts, characteristics and history of iGEM competition (the history of the Chinese team). In terms of results, it was a good start; Some students in my school are attracted to things like web design (programming) and computer modeling. This publicity campaign successfully got a senior one student to join the next iGEM competition.

5 The comic Book Experiment brochure

We also made biological laboratory and instrument manual with 2022iGEM team Worldshaper-Nanjing and Ivymaker-China. We selected several instruments commonly used in the laboratory and drew them, and marked the parts and functions of each instrument on the drawing, so that readers could better understand the functions and roles of each instrument. 

Together with Worldshaper-Nanjing and Ivymaker-China, we brought comic book experiment brochure to schools and share with our classmates respectively. We promoted our experiment brochures in Hangzhou Foreign Language School, Shanghai Shangde Experimental School, Shanghai Pinghe School, Shanghai American school, Nanjing Foreign Language School and Nanjing Foreign Language School British Columbia Academy.Our brochure received quite a lot positive feedbacks as well as praises from students and teachers. People were quite interested in how the laboratory equipment works and asked our personal experience when doing the wet lab work. In general, our delicately made brochures were quite popular for peer students.

5

6 Self-media platform

6.1 Create WeChat official account and Weibo account

We regularly publish articles about our project progress such as the weekly summary or reflection for wet laboratory work and some interviews. At the same time, our articles also include introduction of some research related content. For example, we would refer to relevant documents about the CRISPR Cas technique and the cell-free system to introduce those biological definitions and applications in simple words aimed at promoting our research topic toward the public.In terms of Weibo account, we found that there is actually a forum in Weibo about breast cancer. As a result, we posted our project overview in this forum in order to promote and collect practical information from other users.

 

6.2 Create Instagram account

In our Instagram account, it is mainly for contacting with abroad 2022iGEM teams and enlarge our research promotion toward people worldwide.  We post our daily routine in wet laboratory in video channel and also posts for team member introduction and project overview.