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Key achievements

Collaborated with 2015 iGEM teams, we…

1. developed a tool for tracking mouse movements with NJU-China. Download online.
2. mentored high-school teams SKLBC-China and SKLBC-DGSYZX on software project planning.
3. collaborated with SYSU_CHINA and held a garden party.

Collaborated with Academic Division of Youth League Committee, we…

held a mini lecture on iGEM and Synbio to the 2015 freshmen of School of Life Sciences.

Development of Mouse Movement Tracking Tool for NJU-China

During their project, 2015 wet-lab team NJU-China needs a tool that can track the dynamic movement of mice in the cage.


Demand: In their in vivo experiment, they recorded the movement of mice in the cage. The video was about two hours long. Then they needed a tool to fulfill the following three requirements.

1. The tool should be able to identify the existence of the mice in the cage. The problem is that the mice was always moving, and the tool must set a point on the mice to track their movement.
2. The tool should be able to record the coordinate of the mice’s current position.
3. The tool should be able to generate a heat map, to show how frequently the mice stayed in the light cage and in the dark cage.

Figure 1: Tracking of mouse movements in the cage.

Tools that can track the movement of mice exist; however, they can only track the movement qualitatively, without the detailed records of coordinates of mouse position.

Figure 2: Positions of the mouse at different times represented as coordinates.

Solution: According to their demand, we developed a tool in July. This tool can not only track the movement of mice in the cage, but also record the coordinates of mice’s position as well as accordingly generate a heat map.

To Download the tool, please click here!

Figure 3: A heat map generated by the tool, showing the relative frequency with which mice stayed in particular position.

Mentor on Software Building for High-School Team SKLBC-China and SKLBC-DGSYZX

During the summer, a meetup was held in Sun Yat-sen University. There were wet-lab teams (SCUT-China, SCUT and SYSU-China), a software team (SYSU-Software) as well as high-school teams (SKLBC-China and SKLBC-GDSYZX).

In the meetup we talked about the relationships between software teams and wet-lab teams. Zhengyang Wen and Shengkun Dai, team members of us, gave advice on project design to members of high-school teams SKLBC-China and SKLBC-GDSYZX. Wen and Dai taught them how to discover the needs of wet-lab teams, and gave them advice on how to design software that meets the needs of wet-lab teams. Also, we gave them instructions on scheduling the project.

Figure 4: A meetup in Sun Yat-sen University

Figure 5: Dai and Wen talked about how to plan different aspects of a project.

Figure 6: Dai gave a presentation on how software teams can meet the needs of wet-lab practices.

Collaborated with SYSU_CHINA and held a garden party in Biology Festival

In spring, we held a garden party in the campus with SYSU_CHINA. This activity aimed at introducing synthetic biology to the public, and engaging the public in the practices of iGEM. In the garden party, we made use of various kinds of activities and games to introduce the basic ideas of Synbio and iGEM. SYSU_CHINA introduced how experimental iGEMers did great jobs in a living cells, while we talked about how software can help explore the extraordinary world of life made up of DNA.

Figure 7: Festival

Collaborated with Academic Division of Youth League Committee and gave mini lecture to freshmen

In early September, we held a mini-lecture to 2015 freshmen of School of Life Sciences of SYSU. In the lecture, we talked about the basic knowledge and ideas of Synbio, and motivated them to participate in iGEM.

Figure 8: A mini lecture to freshmen.