Worldshaper-HZBIOX
Overview:
Our team finalized our partnership with
LZU-China in April because of the same topic about colonial treatment. We have
been keeping in touch for a long time and discussing and figuring out the
problems encountered. The areas we have been working together are as follows.
We are grateful for this experience of mutual help, and we have learned a lot
in this process.
•
Wet lab: Lysin gene
improvement
•
Education and public engagements: a synthetic biology-themed picture book promoted in Hangzhou Low
Carbon Museum and Landa Elementary School, co-launched some pup-science
articles on the self-media, co-hosted public activity in Hangzhou low carbon
science and technology museum
•
Human practices:
information shared and subsequent improve our applied design
•
Model: give useful
suggestion for our model
•
Applied design:
explore applied design and constantly improve it
TIMELINE
Figure 1 Timeline of partnership with
LZU-China
1 Wet lab: Lysin gene improvement
This year we wanted to design a lysin gene to initiate
the lysin gene after ingesting arabinose, thus cleaving EcN1917 after
finishing its work. We constructed a pGLO-lysin plasmid and
transformed it into DH 5α, E. coli MG1655 and EcN1917 (E. Coli Nissle
1917) strains, and characterized the effect of lysin on the growth of these
strains. Compared to E. coli DH5α, E. coli MG1655, we found that the
growth of EcN1917 was worse without adding arabinose. It is maybe referred to
the leaked expression of lysin. We shared these results with LZU-China and we
tried to using a medium copy rate plasmid vector and a low copy
rate plasmid vector respectively. But, very
unfortunately, the experiments did not succeed. My team repeated the
experiment using pGLO-lysin plamid, and finally succeeded. The results showed
that lysin expression induced by arabinose inhibited the growth of EcN1917 but
still poorer. So, it is still remain a problem need to be solved.
Figure 2 (A) Effect of arabinose on EcN1917 transformed
with pGLO-Lysin plasmid (Left: bacteria solution without arabinose, right:
bacteria solution treated with 30mM arabinose for 10h); EcN1917 colonies after
transformation (B: EcN1917 transformed with pGLO-Lysin plasmid, C: EcN1917
transformed with pSU plasmid, D: competent EcN1917)
2 Education and public engagements
For education, Worldshaper-HZBIOX, LZU-CHINA,
collaborated with SZ-SHD, co-launched a picture book about synthetic biology,
united promotion activity on WeChat official account and cohosted an offline
public engagement activity.
2.1 Picture book about synthetic
biology
For education, Worldshaper-HZBIOX, LZU-CHINA,
collaborated with SZ-SHD, planned to launch a picture book about synthetic
biology, mainly for children in the second to sixth grade of elementary
school, who lack education in the biology field. The whole process could be
divided into 3 phases: conceptual phase, feedback phase, and promotion
phase.
On 7th June,
all of our 3 teams had an online meeting with the Lifang Li professor, the
dean of the College of Liberal Arts at Lanzhou University invited by
LZU-China. She helped us refine our storyline and give our many useful
suggestions to make children more accessible.
However, synthetic biology is a vast topic, and considering the comprehension
ability of children, we decided to use cartoons to convey the construction
ideas of each of our teams. In the following few days, each team sorted out
its storyline. The whole picture book is drawn by the artist
Worldshaper-HZBIOX contacted and finished at the end of July.
Worldshaper-HZBIOX printed the picture book and shared to
the children participating in the engagement activity held in Hangzhou Low
Carbon Museum. Meanwhile, LZU-China shared the picture books to the children
of Landa Elementary School, both of which have achieved good publicity. And a
small-scale children’s preview was also conducted to collect the
feedback. For safety reasons, all our underage children’s surveys were
taken in their guardians' presence. (The detailed results of survey please
refer to the pdf attached below.)
Generally speaking, our picture book has basically
achieved the purpose of promoting synthetic biology to younger children, but
some children did not understand it due to too many professional terms and a
slightly obscure plot. We subsequently reduced the number of terms and
simplified the plot, and the final version of the book is shown
below.
2.2 Co-launched some pup-science articles on the
self-media
To raise citizens’ awareness about synthetic
biology, Worldshaper-HZBIOX, LZU-CHINA, and SZ-SHD set up a synthetic biology
column on the WeChat Official Account, posting articles and videos on it
weekly.
On August 3rd, our
three teams held an online meeting to discuss the schedule. Overall, we
discussed three topics about pop-science—colorectal cancer, synthetic
biology, and Human Practice sharing.
Figure 3: the meeting photo
For the first part, LZU-CHINA did
research about immunotherapy and synthetic biology, and Worldshaper-HZBIOX
paraphrased and posted onto self-media.
Figure 4: pop-science for immunotherapy and synthetic
biology
For the second part, we invite an
immunotherapy expert and interviewed her together. Then, Worldshaper-HZBIOX
summarized the given suggestions and posted them on self-media.
Figure 5: the interviewing summary and the photos of
online interviewing
Generally, we reached a brilliant promotional effect.
Thousands of people had read our pop-science articles. And also, we received
some messages from readers which indicated that the interests in our popular
science articles, and we have also achieved the goal of publicity and popular
science, such as some questions related to the prices and side-effect of
immunotherapy.
2.3 Cohosted an offline public engagement
activity
August 7, 2022, 1:30-4:30 p.m., we,
Worldshaper-HZBIOX, LZU-CHINA, and SZ-SHD team carried out offline
public publicity activities at the Hangzhou Low Carbon Science and Technology
Museum to publicize the purpose and significance of our project. The event was
attended by all members of the three teams in Hangzhou.
The purpose of this event is,
1.
Promote the discipline of synthetic biology.
2.
Share knowledge of synthetic biology.
3.
The harm of popular science cancer and the great contribution of
fruit flies in the field of genetic research have brought to people.
4.
Share the worries of cancer patients as well as medical
staff
At the event, the Worldshaper-HZBIOX team contacted and
implemented the venue and brought visitors many
spherical and long strips of candy, aiming to guide visitors to learn the
basics of synthetic biology through these abstract models. Visitors string
together candies with toothpicks and add long strips of gummy to the side,
completing a simple version of the DNA double helix model.
The LZU-CHINA team at Lanzhou University used plasmid
fragments to make E. coli balloons, which were introduced and shown to
tourists the structure of bacteria. The balloons are cute and are loved by
friends. The Sioux High School team, SZ-SHD, brought some pipettes for
painting, which made the activity more interesting. After mixing with paint
dipped in water, you can draw on paper after stuffing the tip of the gun and
absorbing the paint. In this activity, the imagination of tourists is
maximized, and beautiful pictures jump on the paper.
We popularized the characteristics of cancer, E. coli and
other organisms like tourists through large screens and speakers, and
emphasized the great threat of cancer to the safety of human life. Many
tourists stopped to watch and took out their mobile phones to take pictures,
and they were deeply aware of the dangers of cancer to life. Visitors enter
through the entrance and after completing the above activities, they can
redeem the corresponding rewards with their cards. They scrambled to write
their names on the autograph wall, and the scene was lively.
The masses said that this activity is unique and a good
supplement to the gap in the knowledge of some diseases that people may
encounter in their daily lives, which is a very meaningful activity, and hope
that there will be more and more such activities.
3 Human practices
During this season, we conducted several expert
interviews to clarify the immunotherapy treatment, applied design of our
probiotics, etc. The resources and the interview result we gained would share
with each other.
For example, we had research on the market for
sugar-based pharmaceuticals and probiotic-based powder drugs, but still
confused about how to make a pharmaceutical and the form of the drug we want
to make. We decided to make arabinose in the form of sugar pills, but we
didn't have a clear idea about the form of probiotic
medicine. In order to figure out exactly how we
would present a probiotic medicine, we interviewed a professor Feng. The
professor pointed out that generally probiotics are in the form of powder in
capsules. We shared these results and talk our ideas with LZU-China, then
promoted to further collaboration of applied design.
4 Modeling
In order to provide a reference for the
future application of engineered bacteria, Worldshaper-HZBIOX
wanted to do a mathematical modeling to analyze the influence of
arginine concentration on bacterial growth. One member of the
LZU-China team participated and worked with us to complete the construction
part with us.
5 Applied design
At an online talk about applied design, we exchange the
research results and our interview results with LZU-China and finally we
achieved cooperation
intention on applied design. According to our
interview results, capsules maybe a good choice
to ensure the activity of probiotics but we can't get into the lab and
LZU-China can. So we recommended ACA capsules to LZU-China
after a long literature review and research, and
LZU-China is mainly responsible for the
experimental part as for the experiment we
designed. LZU-China completed capsule
experiments between mid- September to
early-October. As below is the market research
result done by us and the experiment results done by LZU-China.
With help of LZU-China,
we have preliminarily verified our
idea.
