Team:UNAM-CU/Practices
Human Practices
Description
When we do science, we often forget that science should serve society, to make positive impact and change.
With our project, Proinsulitron, we seek to support mexican society.
First, by approaching a problem that is the first cause of death in Mexico: diabetes. The equipment is not intended to offer a cure, but a cheap way to treat the disease, also we have approached institutions, to understand, in a personal way, diabetic patients, with questions: What is the impact on you, to have a diabetic family? And, what is most difficult thing to cope with a disease like this?
Second, our team is looking outside the lab and closer to the community for teaching younger generations issues in our society that are poorly understood and can create a lot of controversy due to ignorance. To achieve this, the iGEM-CU team joined AIESEC in a project of popularizing science, called "Educational workshops for future scientists", in which children between 9 and 16 years old can approach science for education, fun and above all, to provide information in areas such as synthetic biology, mathematics, cellular biology and chemistry workshops.
IJALTI presentation
Place: Guadalajara, Jalisco Mexico.
Name: Proinsulitron and novel ways of treatment of diabetes.
Expositor: Alejandro Guzman Vendrell
We were invited to the the “Reto de innovación para el tratamiento de diabetes” roughly translated as “innovation on the treatment of diabetes’ challenge”. We used data collected by them on how the families deal with a diabetic patient and which problems they had, so we got to the following conclusions:
● One of the biggest problems is regulating the patients’ diets after being diagnosed.
● The treatment is uncomfortable in the case of injections but the alternatives are too expensive to even be considered.
● They have constant fear of glucose variation without they realizing it.
● They have trouble with knowing what to eat and how to count calories intake, and many of them don’t have a smartphone or a tool to easily count them.
● Those of humble background don’t quite understand at first the problems they will face.
This helps us discern the objective and work on that goal; we decided the project to be cost effective and to seek a solution to the issue of their treatment. We also talked about the other alternatives and how the welfare works for diabetic people. With this data we decided that our project must have the following things.
● · Must offer insight on a solution that is most cost effective to the people.
● · Will have a way to lessen the worry they constantly have.
● · Have to be comfortable and easy to wear and understand.
Outreach
As part of our project we gave talks in different forums about synthetic biology, mathematical modeling and our project in a diabetes context. The talks where given to different groups, not only those of scientific background.
Place: Tehuiztla, Morelos, Mexico
Name: Bacteria and insulin; mathematical modeling in biology
Expositor: Gil Gómez Carlos Andrés
Date: May 1st, 2015
This presentation was made as part of the VI RIIEME congress (investigation and innovation net on statistics education and educational mathematics by its Spanish name) and showed a general synthesis on what was being developed in our mathematical model.
The lecture consisted on a series of different graphics, explaining its utility and how they integrated to generate a model which shows the principal characteristics of the interaction between the principal components of our system.
Place: Mexico City, D.F., Mexico
Name: Mathematics in biology; applications and function
Expositor: Gil Gómez Carlos Andrés
As part of the meeting organized by GenetiX team at their campus, we were invited to give a lecture on how would mathematics be implemented in biology, specifically in the context of the iGEM competition.
We designed the presentation as a gradual introduction to the subject, with an explanation on what is Systems Biology, the emergence concept and how different natural variables could be compared and analyzed using mathematics to simplify complex ideas.
Place: Guadalajara, Jalisco Mexico.
Name: What is Syntetic Biology and why you should care.
Expositor: Alejandro Guzman Vendrell
This presentation was given in CampusParty Mexico 2015 as part of the cycle of student conferences in the night, we approached the issue of synthetic biology and how it is getting more and more relevant in the century, we gave the topics on its basic principles and how entrepreneurship in this area exists in other parts of the world.
Newspaper and magazine interviews
During our project we got interviewed by a magazine called “Muy interesante” that has some topics on science, we got interviewed on an article about biotechnology and the future of genetic engineering. We also were interviewed by two newspapers in Mexico City called Reforma and Excélsior, the latter newspaper made and article on the project and the difficulties we were having on the money issues.
Synthetic biology workshop for undergrads
With the help of our advisors we opened a course for undergraduate students on their last years of Biology , the workshop is focused on synthetic biology, there were given classes on the topics of mathematical modeling , bioethics computer science and programing, and molecular biology. The course had a curricular value and is a terminal option for their career; we got the attention of 10 students, two of which decided to become part of this year team, they worked on the modeling part and two more decided to apply for the next year team. The workshop helped to put synthetic biology in the radar of new generations not only in the science faculty but on other faculties such as Engineering, Chemistry and Medicine.
Science Workshops
Many iGEM teams make science workshops as part of their human practices, we wanted to follow this approach but found out that when the contest ends or if the team disbanded the workshops were not followed through. We want to change that, so we put ourselves in contact with AIESEC.
AIESEC
AIESEC is the world’s biggest student organization with presence in more than 129 countries, they focus on leadership programs, cross-cultural global internships and volunteer exchange experiences across the globe. It achieves this by exchanges with people of different cultures.
We are developing a conjunct program for a volunteer exchange experience in the social issue of science, the project is called “Playing with science” and is focused on reducing the scientific gap in Mexico and teaching children of elementary school about scientific topics like synthetic biology, chemistry and mathematics. Currently in Mexico science is not an important topic to most of the population, it is seen as difficult and complex subjects and because of this most of the kids dislike science, causing a general low progress in all scientific fields in the country.
“Playing with science” is composed by ten interactive programs which include a proactive relation between adults and kids using fun experiments.
In the following tab you can find more information about the AIESEC/IGEM-CU collaboration. In this document it is in Spanish but is all the workshops we will be making: workshops
We work closely with Elizabeth Diaz the Vicepresident of Incoming Global Community Development Program at the committee, the iGEM team do the planning and develop a manual of workshops to teach the trainees while AIESEC will provide the schools and the international trainees to give the workshops to children, the trainees will be from Colombia, Brazil and Argentina because of the Spanish language that is needed, the program is scheduled to be run on November 2015 , march 2016, June 2016 and August 2016. If the programs show success after the first two runs, it will be escalated to a national program to be implemented in all the committees of AIESEC in Mexico.
This is the way by which the project will be given continuity beyond the iGEM competition and independently of the team’s integrity, making a lasting impact not only on people of Mexico but on the international trainees that will give the workshops to children encouraging interculturality and work across nations.