Team:Tianjin/Practices
Overview
As Peter Carr, the director of judging said, "Human Practices is the study of how your work affects the world, and how the world affects your work." To make synthetic biology accessible to public and address some questions "beyond the bench", relating to ethics, sustainability, safety, environmental impact and feasibility, we, Tianjin iGEM team, well planned a variety of human practice activities.
Educational & Public Engagement
By hosting Science & Education Exhibition in Open Day on our campus where over 30,000 people entered our campus and Showed their interest in our exhibition , we worked with people of all ages and education levels, from children to adults, to spark new scientific curiosity, to enhance their understanding of biology, specifically synthetic biology and to establish a public dialogue from voices outside the lab. Additionally, through holding such science lecture for students, making yearly social practice report,we did our utmost to make synthetic biology accessible to both students and teachers.
Recycling & Reusing PET
Primarily, we read quantities of journals to learn about overseas and domestic conditions of recycling and reusing PET. Meanwhile, in order to obtain information concerning the status quo of Chinese recycling of waste PET, we attended the 10th seminar on China’s plastics industry and interviewed project-related experts, thereby acquiring the experts’ concerning ethics, environmental impact and economic analysis of our project. What we did assists our team in exploring the prospect of the project.
Local Hospital Visit
We were decided to hear more stakeholders’ voice about our protein chip, and we hoped to learn about the current information about tumor detection means and obtain experts’ feasibility and risk assessment of our project through human practice activity. Thus, we went to General Hospital of Tianjin Medical University to get experts’ professional advice and investigate the needs of patients.
Talks & Media
We held panel discussions and attended various meetings and seminars in order to exchange ideas and refine our project. Meanwhile, we presented our project with more in-depth details to more than thirty Chinese iGEM teams in Central China iGEM Consortium. (More details) Besides, not only did we utilize online media involving Twitter, Wechat, Renren Blog and wiki to expand the influence of our activities and synthetic biology, but were involved to write Biweekly Newsletter, which can be regarded as a collection of information and introduction about most iGEM teams and a better access to exchange teams’ ideas conveniently.
Survey Questionnaire
In the process of building a new iGEM team, we discovered several problems in the development of iGEM in China. As a result, in order to investigate the current situation of iGEM at home and abroad, and find solutions for our team and more Chinese teams, we designed and carried out a survey questionnaire on university involvement in iGEM. More than one hundred iGEMers replied to assist us in gathering iGEMers’ perspectives and feelings.
Team Collaboration
In cooperation with other ten iGEM teams, we collected issues of each team and posted a questionnaire in order to understand different people’s views on project-related issues in different regions of the world and make publicity for synthetic biology. Also, our team members visited and communicated with some teams in depth such as Tsinghua-A and NKU.
Seek Sponsors
We contacted with more than one hundred companies, most of which are biotechnology companies. We introduced the iGEM and our project to them and showed our sponsorship proposal. When looking for sponsorship, we not only obtained the sponsor fees but made better promotion of iGEM and synthetic biology. With the opinions from the experts, we can better our project. Additionally, we also harvest a lot of experience and deepen our understanding of our project when going out of school and contacting workers and experts.(More details)
Educational & Public Engagement
Science & Education Exhibition
On Saturday 4th April 2015, Tianjin University opened its doors to the general public for its fourth White Crabapple Season Open Day, where this year we hosted a stand. Over 30,000 people entered our campus throughout the day and visited our Science & Education Exhibition.
Figure1.do biological experiments for public
Our team spared no efforts for this exhibition aiming at spreading knowledge related to synthetic biology and information about iGEM to non-specialists such as primary and secondary school students. Before TJU Campus Open Day, we posted an article concerning IGEM and the science exhibition on WeChat platform, which grabbed more than five hundred people's attention.
Figure2.bring children into the magic biological world
On that day, public were attracted by our Science & Education Exhibition and it's believed that they could resist the charm of synthetic biology no longer. Specifically, we conducted a variety of hydrophobin-related experiments and prepared bizarre microbial colonies exhibitions which could be observed by anyone under a microscope and had a strong appeal to the audience. Besides, we designed fun games about biology in order to attract the crowds. The forms of fun games contained answering biological questions when jumping rope, identifying plant organelles , and explaining what iGEM is , what synthetic biology is, and describing our project in more detail after reading our poster about iGEM and our team. Additionally, visitors and students were able to harvest our elaborate theme postcards or badges about iGEM after they completed games and answered questions correctly. We also encouraged the people we spoke to to share their feelings and concerns about the Science & Education Exhibition and synthetic biology.
Figure3 .the elaborate theme postcards and badges about iGEM
The event was a huge success. Over 30,000 people visited the open day, and our stall was constantly busy for at least 8 hours until we handed out all elaborate gifts and snacks. Through our exhibition and individuals' active engagement, more citizens got to know about our iGEM team and more students became more stimulated in learning synthetic biology. Also, some academics discussed about our project with us and we exchanged views. A lot of people complimented the clarity and attractiveness of our poster and loved their elaborate gifts.
Figure4 . our board and poster designed for iGEM
On balance, we held an innovative public perception activity related to synthetic biology and our project, which sparked new scientific curiosity, and established a public dialogue from voices outside the lab.
Science Lecture
On 11th April, our team gave a science lecture to ones who were curious and interested about synthetic biology and our project. Some students of engineering majors and nearly half of freshmen of life science major attended this science lecture. Chenmao told them about what iGEM is and described our project in plain terms. Yige explained to them about what synthetic biology is and some practical and stimulating ideas about synthetic biology. Then, Prof. Yang shared his idea on what synthetic biology would best be used for. Finally, Xuemei showed students 20 minute TED lecture by Juan Enriquez that told us about profound changes genomics will bring in business, technology, and society.
Both students of engineering majors and life science major enjoyed the science lecture, with some students commenting on synthetic biology--it was "so cool"! Several of freshmen also sincerely thanked us for the science lecture, and said that they were eager to be iGEMers next year. Overall, we held a science lecture related to synthetic biology and our project, which received a great response and sparked students' curiosity towards synthetic biology.
social practice report,
The end of September, the yearly social practice report will be held in Student Activity Center of Tianjin University. Yige and Xuemei who are in charge of human practice will report and display some of human practice activities which are related to society and education. In some degree, we will show our activities in front of the whole school and lead them into the fascinating world of synthetic biology.
Recycling & Reusing PET
Is waste PET Really That Big A Deal?
In 2007, there were more than four (4) billion pounds of PET (polyethylene terephthalate) plastic bottles that were burned or ended up in landfills, roadsides, streams and oceans. With the rapid increase in production of PET, there is more and more waste PET discharged into the nature. Although PET is versatile due to its high inertness, nontoxic nature and moldability into various useful products, it is non-biodegradable. The products of PET can become a huge waste after their useful life is over. It will occupy quantity of space and the landfill or incineration can be harmful to the environment, so the recycling and reuse of the waste PET has become one of the major subjects of environmental protection.
Figure1. waste PET bottles
Recycling And Reusing Of PET In Western Countries
At present, PET recycling method can be divided into physical recycling method and chemical recycling method [1] In foreign countries, PET is mainly recycled by chemical recycling method, that is, depolymerizing PET into terephthalic acid (TPA), dimethyl terephthalate (DMT), ethylene glycol (EG) and so on, then take advantage of intermediate raw materials (BHET) or monomer (TPA, DMT, EG, etc.) [2], which can be aggregated into PET or synthetic polyurethane, unsaturated resins, etc. There is no denying that it is one of the most effective and scientific way of dealing with PET waste. Also, there are some new ideas in Canada and America.
For example, The Planet Bottle (TPB) is designed to oxo-biodegrade through the inclusion of Reverte additive. The Plant Bottle is manufactured from sugar cane and virgin PET pellets, 35% and 65% respectively, They have been advocating a total switch to 100% rPET – with Reverte – to deal with the reality that some companies are largely unsuccessful in their weak pursuit of a socially responsible position on recycling and reuse. They said, "We think that recycling is good, but 100% rPET with Reverte is best ".
In January 2009, ENSO Bottles, of Phoenix, Arizona was introducing a biodegradable PET plastic bottle that could change the way we think about plastic. Enso bottles are not oxo-biodegradables or PLA (Polylactic Acid). ENSO bottles are 100% biodegradable and 100% recyclable PET plastic bottles. Our PET bottles will biodegrade in anaerobic (no oxygen, no light) and aerobic compostable environments.
[1] Xiangjian K.&Zihe Z. The research of alcoholysis in polyethylene terephthalate scrap [J]. Journal of Plastic Industry, 2012, 86:86-90.
[2]Ayman M. Atta,Manar E. Abdel-Rauf,Nermine E. Maysour,A. M. Abdul-Rahiem,Abdel-Azim A. Abdel-Azim. Surfactants from Recycled Poly (ethylene terephthalate) Waste as Water Based Oil Spill Dispersants[J]. Journal of Polymer Research,2006,131:.
Recycling And Reusing Of PET In China
Recycling of PET was mainly using physical recycling method in China. Compared with physical recycling method, chemical recycling method makes it easier to develop circular economy and has better prospects. In recent years, chemical recycling method has been developed rapidly in domestic recycling of PET, meanwhile, related technology is also gradually mature.
In order to know more current information concerning Chinese plastics industry, we attended the 10th seminar about High technology and industrialization of China’s plastics industry on 31th July.
Figure1. Prof. Chen’s report
We obtained a lot of information from the seminar. One of lecturers, Prof. Wu, who is devoting himself to producing engineering plastics based on recycling PET bottle, primarily told us about the current situation of recycling waste PET. Prof. Wu said that China recycled about 1000 tons PET bottles last year, half of which were imported. He said foreign countries usually recycle PET waste bottles into PET new bottles, which has mature technology but costs a lot of money while domestic plants usually recycle PET waste bottles into PET fiber and textile auxiliaries, The technology is hard to come out PET fiber with high quality so that many plants stopped their production. And the technology used to generate cotton fabric has been evaluated for performance and found to give good results. The chemicals used during depolymerization and reuse of PET are inexpensive and comparatively less harmful to the environment, which offer advantages in the chemical recycling of polyester waste. Specifically, PET is depolymerized through glycolysis to obtain the virtual monomer BHET in its pure form and then to use it as a starting material for preparing softeners useful for the textile industry [1].
[1]S.R. Shukla,Ajay M. Harad,Laxmikant S. Jawale. Recycling of waste PET into useful textile auxiliaries[J]. Waste Management,2006,281:.
Figure 2. Prof. Wu’s report
Besides, we learned about his leading project aiming at recycling waste PET bottles into PET engineering plastic. In his perspective, the key points of recycling waste PET were lowering the standards of PET bottles’ quality and good performance of recycled products. Therefore, they created unique secondary processing technology to generate engineering plastic which possesses a fine plasticity like metals and can be knocked by a nail like a wood block, aiming at manufacturing engineering plastics PET/PE alloy(special pipe material) ,solving the recycling and regeneration industry of waste PET and upgrading PE pipe industry.
Environmental Impact And Economic Analysis Of Our Project
After knowing about the status quo of Chinese recycling of waste PET, we interviewed plastic-related experts after the seminar in order to seek for experts’ assessment of our project and explore the prospect of its development.
When asked about the significance and the possibility of industrialization of facilitating enzyme degradation of plastics, Prof. Wu directly affirmed that our ideas was of great value and did good to environmental protection. The original intention of our project is to protect the environment and reduce the environment load. Not only is enzyme degradation an environmentally benign and highly efficient pathway, but we don’t need to consider processing temperature range of polyester that must be concerned during thermal degradation of polyester.
Nonetheless, Prof. Wu let us know that we will still have a long way to go if we want to put our project into practice. The primary issue is the cost of the budget, and it doesn’t mean cost of enzyme degradation technology, but it is about investment in PET bottle recycling process. Specifically, it should be concerned about the sorting of plastic bottles, the separation of bottles, cover and tags and the process of crushing, washing and drying. Specially, PVC bottles are hard to tell apart from PET bottles, but one stray PVC bottle in a melt of 10,000 PET bottles can ruin the entire batch. For this reason, it's understandable why purchasers of recycled plastics want to make sure that the plastic is sorted properly. Equipment to sort plastics is being developed, but currently most recyclers are still sorting plastics by hand (and in the third world), which is a hard, expensive and time-consuming work. In a word, plastics also are bulky and cumbersome to collect.
Prof. Wu added that, however, if there was no better way to solve the environmental problems caused by waste PET, it would be really crucial to study the degradation of PET. In the present age, domestic plants usually recycle PET waste bottles into useful textile auxiliaries such as spinning fiber which cannot be utilized widely. If the production of spinning is too excessive to be exhausted someday, other methods of recycling waste PET such as enzyme degradation will be considered.
After that, we asked a female expert. She said, in some cases, the recycled and modificated PET is even more easily than the new one. In other words, the economic value of new material may not high. Thus, if we can guarantee the efficiency of enzyme degradation with the aid of hydrophobin and the appropriate cost of sorting and recycling of waste PET, it will be feasible to put our project into practice for reducing the environmental effects of PET and cleaning up the world.
Plastic is one of indispensable materials in daily life. With the astonishing development of biological industry, researchers focus their attention on biodegradation of waste PET. Undoubtedly, if we can successfully find a kind of bacteria used in highly efficient degradation of PET, biodegradation will be the best way to address the waste PET pollution fundamentally.
[1] Xiaochun W.& Jianfei Z. PET Degradation [J]. Synthetic fibers, 2002,06 : 5-8.
Local Hospital Visit
At present, the main methods of detection of metastasis are lymph node biopsy, bone marrow biopsy and imaging method. However, main methods have some drawbacks. For example, the acquisition of histological specimens causes a kind of trauma that brings unacceptable pain to patients. Meanwhile, imaging method is difficult to be used widely for early diagnosis as they may not detect small tumors, for one thing, they usually cannot detect small tumors with diameters less than 0.5-1 cm during early HCC diagnosis. The development of proteomic technologies makes it possible to screen and discover novel serum biomarkers for cancers. Scientists have already found some differential proteins which are potential cancer biomarkers, and these proteins have close correlations with cancer initiation and progression. Besides, antibody microarray, a new proteomic technology, has been established for cancer serum biomarker discovery. Antibody microarray is a high-throughput method with high sensitivity and specificity, and integrates multiple detections into a mini-system. Multiple antibodies are immobilized on the surface of chips, and then this chip can be subjected to detect levels of various proteins in a sample simultaneously [1] .
We were decided to hear more stakeholders' voice about our protein chip, and we hoped that we could have a better understanding of our project. So we read some related journals. In addition, we hoped to learn about the current information about tumor detection means and obtain experts' feasibility and risk assessment of our project through human practice activity. Thus, we went to General Hospital of Tianjin Medical University to get experts' professional advice and investigate the needs of patients.
Primarily, the female oncologist we interviewed told us some current information about methods used to detect tumor in hospitals in china, their effect, and their advantages and disadvantages. Current detection methods mainly consist of lymph node biopsy, bone marrow biopsy and imaging method as described above. As she knows, it is generally not to rely on checking serum during clinical diagnosis, but through X-ray, endoscopy, pathology detection method or low-dose CT. Pathology detection equals to extract tissue samples from patients for testing, which is not the most accurate and commonly used method but a must before being confirming case. In addition, there exist other awesome but in-development methods such as extracting blood samples from patients and doing the whole-genome testing--a new cancer treatments.
Also, there exists the detection of tumor markers for tumor detection. No matter tumor marker is tumor-specific or tumor-associated, the relationship between tumor marker and tumor's appearance is confusing, complex and indirect. Specifically, more than 500 tumor markers has been screened, the degree of correlation between tumor and marker can't be determined and we can only show that there is a possibility of suffering from cancer after detecting the markers. Nevertheless, multiple markers detection can improve the accuracy of tumor detection.
What's more, the female oncologist assessed our project about the possibility and feasibility). She admitted that hydrophobin our project uses is able to better maker detection sensitivity and she ensured that the method can be applied to track the changes about concentration of some known tumor markers as an innovation, aiming at detecting whether patients are experiencing some of relapse warning signs and taking appropriate measures during early relapsing stage timely. Meanwhile, when using a small dose of serum samples to complete detection, it is easy to collect samples and alleviate patients' pain safely (feasibility assessment). In other words, it's demonstrated to a safe detection method for patients and an efficient and sensible means for doctors (risk assessment). It's believed that our idea will be put into practice one day when we heard about the news that a Stanford sophomore named Theranos has developed novel approaches for laboratory diagnostic tests using blood. Her company's blood-testing platform uses a few drops of blood obtained via a finger-stick rather than vials of blood obtained via traditional venipuncture, and utilizes microfluidics technology whose timeliness and high sensitivity is similar to our idea in some degree. Finally, we interviewed a few nurses in division of oncology, and we were impressive about the feeling they described, "Every day is both horrible and precious".
The visit to General Hospital of Tianjin Medical University plays a crucial role in our human practice, and we are indebted to them all for their timely help. They shared current information about tumor marker detection with us, whilst advising us on some aspects of our project, especially the design of our final product and its implementation.
Dongmei,G. HCC multiplex quantitative antibody discovery chips Construction and Clinical Validation [D]. Fudan University, 2012.
Talks
Discussion Panels
In order to optimize our project and have a well-developed plan of human practice activities, we held weekly discussion panels. These panels were extremely helpful in optimizing the design and implementation of our project. It is worth mentioning that most of discussion panels we held were really inspiring where a few experts in synthetic biology kindly attended our panel meetings which were made of 21 undergraduates majoring in biology, biochemistry, chemical engineering, pharmaceutical engineering and etc. Meanwhile, these experts also advised us on human practices.
2015 Bioeco
On July 23rd, we participated in 2015 International Conference for Bioeconomy, which is China's most influential technology platform and professional exhibition about life sciences and medical technology. At the opening ceremony, we heard experts' reports and thought a lot about bioeconomy and our project. Professor Sang, academician of Chinese Academy of Engineering, pointed out Chinese pharmaceutical enterprises lacked pharmaceutical innovation and investment in research and development, so Chinese new drug market was monopolized by large international companies. Then, Professor Marshall, the winner of Nobel Prize in physiology and medicine in 2005, told us his story about research and industrialization in Tianjin. We learned about the thought about transfering scientific research results into efficient industrial production capability and putting products into market.
What experts said makes us think about product design of our project, we've been thinking about that our project is also bio-economy, the protein chip can fast and accurately detect condition of patients' health and the plastic degradation can save a lot of resources. It's possible we can create something for bio-economy as long as we do our utmost in research. Meanwhile, inspired by the Professor Sang and Professor Marshall, we began to concern about whether our project was creative in cancer treatment and could be put into practice we plan to go to local hospital to consult with stakeholders and address the problems. (Local Hospital Visit)
The 10th Seminar On China's Plastics Industry
On 31th July, in order to know more current information concerning Chinese plastics industry and seek experts for assessment of our project, we attended the 10th seminar on high technology and industrialization of China's plastics industry hosted by CPPIA(China Plastics Processing Industry Association). The guests and speakers in attendance were a mix of academics from universities interested in plastic and industry representatives. From the seminar, we obtained a lot of information such as the status quo of Chinese recycling of waste PET, the difference between domestic and abroad recycling of waste PET. Finally, we had some brief talks with some experts, introducing our iGEM team, what's more, two experts told us their opinion about our project. (More details)
Figure. Prof. Wu's report
Central China iGEM Consortium
In the middle of August, our team attended CCiC(Central China iGEM Consortium) held by Peking University School of Life Sciences. The meeting focused on offering iGEMers a platform to display their project progress as the iGEM's rule and learn from other teams. This could be regarded as a bridge for communications among different iGEM teams to share their academic insights, and a great opportunity of team projects display and deepening the understanding of synthetic biology. On the first day of the event ,we listened by our heart to expert's reports, heard about other teams' projects which were stimulating and innovative and handed out about a hundred questionnaires during the conference. Also, we communicated with the professionals who had gathered at the conference.
On the second day of the event our project was presented by Bowen and Chenmao who could fully explain our project from all perspectives and give best presentation of the work that our team had been done. The presentation was followed by a few minutes' Q & A session. All of the questions were answered concisely and professionally by the team.
Coffee breaks, lunch and dinner time were used as networking opportunities. We made friends with the attendees and presented our project with more in-depth details to other teams. Undoubtedly, it is believed that attending this conference really bolstered our knowledge about synthetic biology in general. This was an amazing first experience giving our very first presentation.
Media
Biweekly Newsletter
It is universally acknowledged that iGEMers need a communication platform to introduce their programs, share innovative ideas, ask for help and reply to their counterparts. Though we have Wechat, Twitter and etc., indeed, these platforms cannot connect every team. Therefore, our team was involved to write two issues of Biweekly Newsletter, which can be regarded as a collection of information and introduction about most iGEM teams and an open and easy-to-access platform for exchanging ideas conveniently.
We introduced Tianjin Team and our project in the 5th issue about project update and displayed our modeling introduction in the 6th issue about special software issue. And it's believed that other teams can have a better access to know about us and share their innovative ideas with our team through this electric platform.
Internet Platform
Online media involving Twitter, Wechat, Renren Blog and wiki was well utilized to expand the influence of our activities and synthetic biology. These platforms aided us this year in sharing information and spreading scientific knowledge about iGEM and synthetic biology with our website's audience. Besides, we published some articles to draw individual's attention to facilitate our human practice activities. Specifically, Twitter is a platform that is used to communicate with foreign iGEM teams, which has more than 150 fans. Wechat is also a great interface to convey a more humanistic view of iGEM and synthetic biology to Chinese students and scholars, where our article was read by more than 500 individuals. In addition, Renren also provided a great opportunity to lead our university's students to get to know iGEM and synthetic biology and be encouraged to join our team. We can offer diversified methods for you to get familiar with the iGEM. No matter whether you major in bioscience or just are curious about synthetic biology, JOIN US!
University Involvement In iGEM Survey Questionnaire
During the process of building a new iGEM team, we discovered several problems in the development of iGEM in China. As a result, in order to investigate the current situation of iGEM at home and abroad, and find solutions for our team and more iGEM teams, we, Tianjin team, designed and carried out a survey questionnaire on university involvement in iGEM. More than one hundred iGEMers replied to assist us in gathering iGEMers' perspectives and feelings. Undoubtedly, we count it as collaboration and appreciate each team sincerely. (the school name list).
There are some of conclusions according to iGEMers' reply. (Survey Questionnaire Data )
1.The ways of knowing about iGEM are distinguishing. Overseas students mainly were told by students or friends and informed by college teachers, taking up 54% and 39.7% respectively. Yet in China, more than three quarters of iGEMers we interviewed knew about iGEM by iGEM teams' publicities, with 44.26% of iGEMers getting related information from students or friends. As is shown, foreign teachers and students may contact more closely and the information dissemination from iGEM team is of great value.
2. As for the limiting factors for their teams joining in iGEM, there exits divergence.
In China, 77.05% of iGEMers we interviewed think that their knowledge reserve is not enough rich and the research should go further whilst 42.62% of the students confirm topic selection is difficult. Some of the students believe that one of limiting factor is the lack of funds. Compared with domestic iGEMers, over 65% of overseas iGEMers argue the lack of funding is most severe. Generally speaking, the high expenses and inadequate fund are the limiting factor for most iGEMers.
3.At home and abroad, over 80% of the students is out of enthusiasm for scientific research to join iGEM teams, while other students regard rewards on material and credits as an attraction for participating in iGEM. Therefore, the majority of iGEMers pay more attention to synthetic biology itself, their mental improvement and growth and the opportunity of contacting with like-minded friends instead of material things.
4.As the data shows, both overseas and domestic team members think strengthening the relationship between iGEM involvement and credits reward can enhance students' involvement in iGEM. Meanwhile, vigorous publicity and promotion made by schools and labs and achievement reward for outstanding students and teachers are also attractive.
5.Most foreign and Chinese teams' projects were decided through team discussion and panels instead of steming from teachers' idea, which mirrors the students' intelligence and teachers' respect. In addition, iGEM is a worldwide synthetic biology competition, but attracts students of different specialties, which is advantageous to integrate various ways of thinking and spark innovation.
Additionally, there is something iGEMers want to share with us as follow.(For more iGEMers' feelings)
"At the begining it was very enjoyable and enthusiastic for me but when the deadlines became major limiting problem for our progress, it forced me in the laboratory working. Still it is a good opportunity for being a part of team and overcoming some problems and trying to catch good results and performance make me happy and more willing to work in science."
"iGEM allows me to solve real-world problems using knowledge from classes, and has been a great way for me to gain comfort in a lab setting, insight about working on a team, and experience managing my own research project. It's been a very meaningful part of my life!"
"It is a great opportunity to do real science in a real lab, to experience challenges that a real scientist faces and to get the experience of a real teamwork that has real consequences. "
"This is my third year in iGEM. I am the team leader of this year's team. I take part in WetLab, P&P, Modeling, wiki designing and everything else. I always wanted to be even a small piece of biological sciences from my childhood. I am extremely happy to take place in METU iGEM Team, where everyone works with enthusiasm and excitement to discover new frontiers. A biology laboratory where we work iGEM is the place where I can live and work till death , and it is also the only place where I feel as immortal as my love of science."
"iGEM is a real thrill. I think it is the first opportunity we have as sophomores to do real research including thinking of a research project and planning your own experiments. It's really a deep dive into synthetic biology but I think we can learn very very much from taking part in iGEM."
"The iGEM means to me much more than a competition. I am working with other students who share my interests and my illusion about making real our own idea. This is also a great opportunity to learn about things that typical subjects do not teach you or can't be studied. In conclusion, I feel like I am living a great experience, and I just hope to take with me as much as I can learn."
"Routine in wet lab work, a view for how things work, how problems can be solved in the lab. Technical knowledge. More pronounced understanding of some biological mechanisms. Learned how to design plasmids and experiments. Get to see one project from beginning to end. team work. Interesting human practices experiences that you would never get otherwise. Contact to expertns and teams from other countries. VERY COOL, would always recommend."
Trans-regional Questionnaire
In cooperation with other ten iGEM teams such as Beijing Institute of Technology and The Chinese University of Hong Kong University, we collected some issues of each team and posted a questionnaire in order to understand different people's views towards project-related issues in different regions of the world and make publicity for synthetic biology. (Questionnaire link)In the meanwhile, we added some questions to explore people's attitude toward plastic recycling around the world such as plastic classification and degradation. In conclusion, we received 473 pieces of reply, and a host of individuals think it is of significance to biodegrade plastic, nevertheless, more than three quarters of people we interviewed didn't concern about the legislations and regulations about plastic classification, recycling and reusing.
Obviously, the regional cooperation is able to know about opinions in other regions of the world and strengthen bilateral and multilateral communication and cooperation that establish an interactive and friendly bridge among iGEM teams.
Meet Tsinghua-A and Nankai
Tianjin iGEM established a profound friendship with Tsinghua-A and Nankai University a few years ago. On 13th August, our team members came to Beijing, communicating with Tsinghua-A in depth. Firstly, we visited their laboratory, and observed some experimental operations. Then, we introduced our own project to each other and exchanged views of some practical problems in the experimental during the meeting. Meanwhile, iGEMers in both teams who were in charge of modeling discussed for a long time. Both of us harvest a lot from each other. In a word, the exchange activities enhanced our thoughts of project successfully.
We became increasingly aware of the high costs containing experimental material cost, human practice activities spend and registration fee. Our lab was able to cover only a part of the budget. Thus, we hoped to make more and more people who are involved in the field of synthetic biology know our project and do our utmost to persuade them to sponsor us.
We got in touch with more than one hundred companies, most of which are biotechnology companies. (quite part of companies)We introduced the iGEM and our project to them and showed our sponsorship proposal. (Chinese Version) in order to make them interested in our team, sponsor fees and provide experimental materials, technology support. There were quite a few companies directly refusing us which made us very depressed at first. In addition, some experts in companies talked with us very friendly and put forward useful suggestions for us although they did not provide financial support. It's believed that collecting the opinions and suggestions of some officials helped us to improve our project, making it more meaningful. Fortunately, a few companies committed to the value of our project and wanted to support us.
During the event of looking for sponsorship, we not only obtained some sponsor fee from the society but made better promotion of iGEM and synthetic biology. Having listened to the opinions of the experts, we can better our project. Additionally, we also harvest a lot of experience and deepen our understanding of our project when going out of school and contacting with workers and experts.
