Collaboration
Myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) are conditions that can occur when the blood-forming cells in the bone marrow become abnormal. This leads to low numbers of one or more types of blood cells. MDS is considered a type of cancer. Our project this year focuses on the early diagnosis of MDS.
In the process of collaboration, we found that working together on open-source solutions in fact has never been so important than today. We have sought cooperation with the outside world, including university teams and enterprises actively, to improve our project in human practice, modeling methods, experimental design and so on.
In this year, we collaborated with HZAU-China and NJTech-China, then took part in, meetup in CCiC and joint science lecture. Therefore, we have benefited greatly from these initiative interactions for getting constructive suggestion.
1. Collaboration with HZAU-China
Figure 1. Group photo of collaboration with HZAU-China
We kept a good relationship with HZAU-China since 2018 iGEM. In July, we contacted with HZAU-China and went to the campus of Huazhong Agricultural University. Both aimed at diagnostic about blood, we held a face-to-face team meeting, and we two teams got better understanding of each other.
During this meet-up, we exchanged our suggestions for each other’s project. Our team members noticed that AI, the by-product in their Pathway B, is detrimental to human health and is not a safe substance, and we wondered how they dealt with it. They explained that they controlled the amount of AI in the safety range and make sure that it would not have any side effects for humans. At the same time, HZAU-China challenged the effectiveness of our detecting method for MDS, since gene mutation is not the sole cause for MDS, and our teammates admitted the existing limitation in our testing method and still contended that the recent diagnostic methods focused on the symptoms of MDS, while our method would detect the gene mutations in an earlier stage, which provided MDS patients with more time for therapy. Moreover, HZAU-China recommended us to refer to more recent, up-to-date papers, as we cited essays published in 2014.
In the process of the collaboration, we hope more people to know about the MDS and thrombus. We invited HZAU-China to participate in the public science lecture together on Bilibili Live.
Figure 2. Audiences actively cast their doubts on the bulletin screen
Finally, the Bilibili live-streaming was quite successful. Our broadcast room attracted 9532 viewers, and all the audiences were actively involved in the lecture, casting their doubts and asking for detailed explanation for their puzzles. We illustrated the knowledge in the easiest way to make sure that everyone can form an insightful understanding of these two diseases. We were delighted for the audiences’ appreciation and felt that we’d done such a meaningful thing.
Apart from the communication during the meet-up, we YiYe-China team and HZAU-China team formed a Wechat group for further discussions and communications. Additionally, they came up with the idea of adding a detection indicator in the MDS diagnostic test for hypertension, such as the concentration of TMA or TMAO in the blood. In this way, the patients can be detected for 2 diseases for one test. We discussed the practicality of this suggestion and then draw the conclusion that our method was based on the gene mutation in RNA splicing to detect MDS, while we were not sure whether gene mutations happened in hypertension patients, adding detection of hypertension to our existing testing method seemed not pragmatic.
Figure 3. Discussions about the detection of both hypertension and MDS
We've learned a lot from the communication with HZAU-China. Thanks to their doubts on the limitation of our existing testing method, we are attempting to refine our project; with the help of their suggestions, we have successfully solved the problem that we encountered in modeling; from their advice of binding two detections together, we've got some inspirations to make diagnostic methods much more convenient for the patients.
2. Collaboration with NJTech_China
NJTech-China is one of the most energetic iGEM pioneers in China, we are very delighted for the opportunities to exchange ideas of part registry online with each other. Meanwhile, NJTech_China also gave us beneficial suggestions to help us better and faster understand this competition.
Figure 4. Discussions about the part registry online with NJTech_China
3. Collaboration Within IGEM Community
In China, the CCiC provides an excellent platform for Chinese iGEMers to prepare for the Giant Jamborees. It has played a very important role aiming to promote the development of synthetic biology and improve the collaboration and communication of nationwide iGEM teams.
Figure 5. Audiences actively cast their doubts on the bulletin screen
In the conference, our team members carried out a comprehensive display of the project of detecting dysregulation of RNA splicing for MDS diagnosis using RNA splicing sensors. Then we had an open communication with other teams, and shared our experience discussion with excellent teams.
In addition, we also listened to the presentations from other teams and absorbed their advantages, which improved our knowledge and encourage us to contribute in a positive way to medicine and synthetic biology. In this procedure, we have a deep communication with various teams from China, including human practice, mathematical modeling, experimental barriers and so on, which have a profound impact on the later development of the project.
Synthetic biology is a rapidly growing research field of scientific and practical importance. Driven by the major idea of “Life meets everything”, we focused more on how to combine our project into human's life, and made our earth a better place to live.
Figure 6. Certificate of participation from CCiC