Difference between revisions of "Team:China Tongji/Outreach"

1. Human Practice

• 1.1 Three Teams Communication Meeting 1
• 1.2 Three Teams Communication Meeting 2
• 1.3 Popularize Scientific Knowledge about Synthetic Biology
• 1.4 Communication Meeting with SYSU-China
• 1.5 Exhibition at Shanghai Technology Museum

2. Collaboration

3. Questionare

• 3.1 Introduction
• 3.2 Questionare
• 3.3 Analyses
• 3.4 Conclusion

1. Human Practice

This year, our team mainly focus on communicating with other iGEM teams and raising public awareness towards synthetic biology. Through our practice, we have learned more from each other and built sincere friendship among our team and other teams. Moreover, we promoted the public’s understanding of iGEM and our project.

1.1 Three Teams Communication Meeting 1 -- 2015.4.19

On April 19th, we went to Shanghai Jiaotong University to have a communication meeting .Three teams including SJTU-BioX-Shanghai,NJAU_China and Tongji have attended. In this meeting, we first introduced our project respectively. Then we raised some question and gave some advice on other teams projects. We not only considered these suggestions and perfected our projects but made friends with each other as well.

1.2 Three Teams Communication Meeting 2 -- 2015.6.8

On Jun 8th we had a meet-up with NYU Shanghai, SJTU and a behalf from ITB, at NYU Shanghai. This culture-mixed gathering covered not only those topics on our projects, but exchanging of our daily experiences as well. After this happy meeting, we had a general understanding about each other’s idea and set up a long-term union for mutual assistance.

1.3 Popularize Scientific Knowledge about Synthetic Biology -- 2015.6.22

On June 22nd,we had a class in Tongji primary school.

Firstly, we introduced iGEM and synthetic biology to them. Then, we briefly explained our project. We had adapted our project for a interesting story. So in this class, we showed them this story by PPT and our explanation. They were very interested about C.elegans and asked many questions about it.

After this class, these kids had more knowledge about synthetic biology and iGEM. We achieved our goal that popularizing scientific knowledge.

1.4 Communication Meeting with SYSU-China -- 2015.7.11

On July 11st, we communicated with the captain of SYSU-China. We exchanged some problems and difficulties that we met in our experimental process. This led us to make a summing up of the experience and lessons.

We showed our logo and gave some advice to each other. What’s more, we talked about the construction of our wikis.

1.5 Exhibition at Shanghai Technology Museum -- 2015.8.8

On Aug 8th, with 6 other iGEM teams, we made an exhibition at Shanghai Technology Museum. We introduced our project and the iGEM competition to the people who visited the museum that day. More than 5000 people have seen our project, what’s more, we had a good communication with other teams about our projects!

Teams include: NYU-Shanghai, Tongji, FDU, SJTU, SJTU-software, XJTLU, ZJU.

2. Collaboration

Since its inception more than a decade ago, synthetic biology has undergone considerable development and has attained significant achievements with the help of the engineering slant. However, there are still obstacles to build a cell. Engineers try to abstract the DNA sequences into some standard functional parts and assemble them using some principles in electrical engineering. So far, the limited understanding of biological system prevents us to combine parts and modules to create larger scale systems. The complexity of synthetic systems didn’t increase rapidly as the Moore’s law (Purnick and Weiss, 2009).

Cells sense the environment, process information, and make response to stimuli. To make cells work well in complex natural environments, lots of processes have to be preset to react to various signals. However, when well-characterized modules are combined to construct higher order systems, unpredictable behaviors often occur because of the interplay between modules. Another significant problem is that complex integrated systems composed of numerous parts may cause cell overload.

Figure 2. China_Tongji_iGEM_logo

Our design approach may lead to a revolutionary step towards system integration in synthetic biology. Potential fields of application include organism development, living therapeutics and environment improvement.

3. Questionare

3.1 Introduction

In order to know people' attitudes to iGEM ,Synthetic biology and Biology safety, we made this survey. From the result we have received, we get many useful information.

There are altogether 317 person filled in our questionnaire. Most of them(95.9%) come from all over China such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong, etc. Some of them(4.1%) come from other countries such as Congo-Brazzaville, Australia and so on.

3.2 Questionare

China_Tongji’s questionnaire about iGEM and synthetic biology.

3.2.1 How old are you?

Different age levels people have filled in this questionnaire, which demonstrates that our research is significative. Most of them are teenagers from 17-22 years old. It shows that teenagers are more interested to iGEM.

3.2.2 What's your major (or the major you'd like to study)?

People indifferent majors have filled in this questionnaire, which demonstrates that our research is significative. So we can unite other majors people to join in iGEM in the future. What’s more, we might set up aorganization to initiate other students some knowleage about iGEM.

3.2.3 Do you know iGEM (International Genetically Engineered Machine Competition)

It’s necessary to enhance people’knowledge about iGEM, because there are more than 50% people said that they never heard iGEM before! Only 3.47% people have joint it.

3.2.4 What do you think of Synthetic biology? (Multiple-choice)

Synthetic biology is an interdisciplinary branch of biology, combining disciplines such as biotechnology, evolutionary biology, molecular biology, systems biology, biophysics, computer engineering, and genetic engineering.

Option	Subtotal	proportion
I know it well.	11	3.47%
Know something about it.	41	12.93%
Only heard.	134	42.27%
I don't know this.	99	31.23%
I support that.	143	45.11%
I worry about that.	44	13.88%
I object to such thing!	2	0.63%
The total number	317

This question is a multiple-choice question. Most people just hear about Synthetic biology or even don’t know it .However, most people have positive attitude to Synthetic biology and very support it. So we can do more propagandize to change the mind of people who have opposed attitude to Synthetic biology.

3.2.5 For Synthetic biology, safety and science, which is the most important?

Most people think that safety is more important than science. I appreciate their choice because I think that the development of science is also need safety. Meanwhile, we won’t give up studying biology. Safety and science must advance side by side.

3.2.6 Rank the options below by the safety level that you think.

Option	Average score
Follow the rules in lab.	5.62
Mine safety training to the students.	4.66
Keep experiment materials only in lab.	4.31
Biology rubbish grading.	4.28
Specialty company deal the Biology rubbish.	3.61
Insist aseptic operation.	3.39
Do propaganda and education work about Biology safety.	2.42
incineration or buryed.	0.8
Others.	0.36

The higher the score, the more important people think the aspect is. They think “Follow the rules in lab” and “Mine safety training to the students” is most important. I suppose they have correct sense about Biology. It’s so fancy!

3.2.7 What do you think of transgenosis?

Only a few people think transgenosis is vicious thing. Most people think it has both advantages and disadvantages, we should adopt its good points and avoid its shortcomings.

3.2.8 Do you think Synthetic biology is useful?

Most people think Synthetic biology is of great significance. We can create many interesting organism that never exist before. We may apply these research achievement in production and scientific research.

3.3 Analyses

Chart 1: Relationship of the major and the knowledge about iGEM

From thischart, we can see that people in Biology, Science and Engineering know iGEM better.

Chart 2: the opinions people hold about synthetic biology of different ages

We have found in this chart that the young men have more confidence about Synthetic biology.

3.4 Conclusion

From these results, we can come to the conclusion that the popularity of iGEM is barely satisfactory. So it’s necessary for us to introduce iGEM and Synthetic biology to more people.And that is what we have tried to do.

The good news is that many people have high awareness of Biology safety.And they think it's possible to balance development and safety.Thus we will pay more attention to safety in our experiment.

Particularly worth mentioning is the moral support that many people give to us .Most of them have positive attitudes to Synthetic biology,which encourages us a lot.