Overview
Peking iGEM 2015 Team is trying to develop a new detection method based on the nucleic acid of pathogenic microorganism, with the aim of applying it to the diagnosis of pulmonary tuberculosis. It is worth considering for all the researchers of life sciences that how to put the achivements of the basic study into clinical practice. Human practice of Peking this year pays much attention to the identification of the clinical requirements, discussions on the feasibility of our project, and spread of knoweldge about tuberculosis and synthetic biology. By ultilizing the basic ideas of translational medicine, our team has set up a bridge between fundamental research and clinical practices.
Our team have achieved the following things:
- Investigation of the current epidemic situation of TB
- We’ve interviewed clinicians both in research institute and basic-level hospitals, and researchers of Beijing Research Institute for TB Control. We’ve learned about the epidemic status of TB in China, front diagnostic techniques and their clinical applications. Besides, we’ve visited the central laboratory of Beijing Research Institute for TB Control, and discussed with their researchers on our project, acquiring valuable improvement suggestions.
- Questionnaire survey
- We’ve investigated common people about their awareness of tuberculosis and synthetic biology. Analysis of the results reminds us and the government of the urgency to propagandize knowledge of tuberculosis and synthetic biology. Low awareness rate of TB is the cause of high TB burden in China, and a lack of public understanding of synthetic biology will also be an obstacle for us to promote applications of this new subdiscipline in clinical medicine.
- Team as a platform of we-media, new media and scientific popularization
- This year our team does a lot of work to propagandize knowledge of TB and synthetic biology to both adults and school students, along with the construction of a network platform with more than ** followers. We’ve adopted various means of popularization such as handing out propagandistic handbooks, giving lectures, showing them around iGEM lab, and giving messages to our Wechat followers.
- Ethetic discussions with the bioethicist
- We’ve conducted a discussion on the ethical issues in synthetic biology and our project with Doctor Xie Guangkuan of the Institute of Medical Humanities of PKU. A comprehensive assessment on the ethical problems of our project has been achieved after the discussion.
- Organization of CCiC
- From August 14th to 15th, Conference of China iGEMer Committee (CCiC) was held in Peking University. 34 teams, more than 300 iGEMers from all over China have attended this meeting, making it an excellent academic meet-up in the history of iGEM in China.
- An assessment of the economic aspect of our project