In order to explain how we would implement your project in the real world, We have carried out many interesting and meaningful activities conducive to public awareness.
In early April, XJTU-China and SUSTech-Shenzhen jointly held a publicity activity on the campus. During this period, we stimulated students' interest by distributing leaflets to introduce synthetic biology and igem competitions, as well as projects in previous years, and distributed questionnaires to conduct research on synthetic biology.
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Our team members considered that we have not been exposed to agricultural research, we chose and engaged in a project we were not experts in, simply students with the will to create a feasible and coherent project. To do so, we contacted s stakeholders, pecialists and potential users at each step of our project in order to get constructive feedback and crucial advice. Through the integration of information and the optimization of the project, we determined that our work is responsible and good for the world.
When designing the project, we consulted experts through a large number of research documents, such as “White Paper on the Development of China's Herbicide Industry”, considered the value of the project from the environmental, social, moral and scientific aspects, and summarized it into a table to clearly show our achievements, which further confirmed the practical significance of our project.
Yan Yan, Qikun Liu, Xin Zang, et al. Resistance-gene-directed discovery of a natural product herbicide with a new mode of action[R].the US：Macmillan Publishers Limited，2018：1-22.
We visited the Jiangshan Scenic Area in Shangluo City, Shaanxi Province, which is located in the depths of the Qinling Mountains in China. There is a large-scale planting of Qumai. Qumai is commonly known as "Ten Scenes", which has high ornamental value. In addition, the whole grass is used as medicine, which has the effects of clearing heat, diuresis, breaking blood and dredging channels.
During the field investigation, we personally experienced the process of manual weeding. Due to the hot weather and huge workload, we deeply felt the difficulty and hardship of manual weeding. Later, we had an in-depth interview with Uncle Ren Xiaofeng, a professional who planted Qumai, about why he chose manual weeding, his evaluation of commonly used herbicides and his acceptance of our project.
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For the reason of choosing manual weeding， because Qumai are herbs, spraying the herbicide may cause the persecution of the seedlings of Qumai, so we only choose artificial weeding, and it's not reasonable to use the machine to cut grass, because weeds that just come up is too small, and similar to seedlings. We can only manually use sickle to pull grass and cut grass, causing us a lot of trouble.
He indicated that there were some disadvantages in common herbicides. At present, glyphosate is commonly used, but the effect may be slow after spraying, and it will be inhaled, so it is necessary to plow before planting to prevent glyphosate from destroying the growth of the Qumai.
Accept and expect our results. Weeds grow too fast, there may be weeds after the next rain. Recently, Shangluo has a lot of rain, and weeds grow one after another, which will lead to the waste of a lot of manpower and material resources for weeding, and the growth of the Qumai is also slow. It would be great if there were such a herbicide!
Professor Chen Kunming is a doctor of science in botany and a doctor of development and cell biology. He is very interested in our project and has given us many suggestions and help. We mainly discussed the reasons why glyphosate has been gradually replaced and the suggestions for improvement of our project. The interview details are as follows.
Chen Kunming, Northwest A&F University
Among them, he talked about whether the production of glufosinate-ammonium analogues reached the lethal dose, which made up the design loopholes of our project. In the subsequent modeling test, we paid special attention to this, and we newly designed EPS synthetic circuit to ensure the effective concentration of herbicide in the soil. In addition, for the evaluation of production cost and application potential
In view of the reason why glyphosate has been gradually replaced, he pointed out that the safety of the use of glyphosate pesticides. A large number of authoritative studies have proved that normal use of glyphosate is very safe, and it is the most important pesticide at present. Most herbicide resistant transgenic crops use glyphosate resistant genes. Therefore, the safety of glyphosate may not be the main safety concern in the pesticide field. We should pay more attention to the problem of herbicide resistance. For example, resistance rather than safety is the main reason that restricts the application of glyphosate;
It is necessary to produce high yield and low cost as much as possible. He said that I think it is meaningful to research and develop the engineering strain of glufosinate-ammonium analogues. However, whether the engineering strain can produce high yield glufosinate-ammonium analogues to achieve the purpose of weeding is the main concern; Second, whether the production cost of the bacterial agent has application potential also needs to be carefully evaluated.
Objective:
Communication synthetic biology and its application in herbicide and pesticide field promote the spread of iGEM competition
Audience: primary schools, junior high schools, senior high schools, other public low acceptance of knowledge, and in order to stimulate public enthusiasm as much as possible, we designed a colorful, simple and vivid game to attract attention.
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Taking into account the low acceptance of knowledge, and in order to stimulate public enthusiasm as much as possible, we designed a colorful, simple and vivid game to attract attention.
Learn more about synthetic biology, iGEM and XJTU China through our platform http://igem.fun/aboutus/index.html
Up to 400+ visits per day, we have gained the attention and consultation of many people and achieved our goal.
The purpose of this cooperation and exchange is to hold a party and provide a platform for iGEM teams to guide each other. Our initial goal was to do a real face-to-face event, but the incertain sanitary situation led us to create an online event. We participated in the project together with CSU-China, SZU-China and CAU-China. All four teams made presentations and shared their projects during the meeting. The small and excellent meeting made our communication more in-depth
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During this meeting, we received guidance on modeling from SZU-China team members. In addition, we were surprised to find that SZU-China's projects are also related to agriculture. After the meeting, we reached a deep cooperation relationship.
During the exchange meeting jointly held by the four schools in July 2022, we were surprised to find that our projects with SZU-China belong to the agricultural field, so we reached a cooperative relationship
With the development of the project, we need to know more about the attitude of the public and the current use of herbicides. Because of the incertain sanitary situation, we can only carry out practical activities around the school. Therefore, we received the help of SZU-China，who replaced us to conduct a face-to-face interview with a rice company and the Shenzhen Institute of Agricultural Sciences.
At the same time, after interviewing Professor Hu, we sorted out some problems and our solutions, so we decided to communicate with the SZU-China team and recommended Professor Hu to them, hoping to help them. Later, they said that they had benefited a lot from their exchanges with Professor Hu and thanked us.
（click here to jump to be added to learn more: https://2022.igem.wiki/szu-china/collaborations）
