Difference between revisions of "Team:UFSCar-Brasil/social.html"

Revision as of 02:08, 9 September 2015

In 2015, Brazil faced a dengue epidemic, and São Carlos was not different (Wiki link). Despite the campaigns to encourage people to take action for disease prevention (which mainly consists in eliminating sites with accumulated water, where Aedes aegypti mosquitoes can reproduce), this effort is ineffective in combating the disease. So, we had the insight to contribute to awareness of local population, showing that there are people working on developing alternative (and possibly more effective) solutions to this problem.

Dengue is an urban disease and capable of reaching all social classes. Although wealthy neighborhoods have less mosquitoes breeding grounds and richest population has access to improved health services, São Carlos was ravaged by the disease as a whole. Then, we choose a neighborhood that represents the living conditions of the majority of the population as the target to our intervention. We chose the neighborhood São Carlos 8, which faces the problems that can increase dengue cases (such as the accumulation of waste, for example). Also, this neighborhood has a social organization that assists education of 6-13 years children in the neighborhood, which was very receptive to our proposal. Thus, we decided to conduct our activities at the community center PROVIM Dom Luciano de Almeida.

As our audience would be children, we have developed a playful and fun way that allowed both approaching dengue issues and approximate children to University reality and research developed there. Thus, our team organized the play "The mighty bacteria against dengue", which addressed the main aspects of the disease, ways of common and alternative prevention, in addition to the role of science in meeting demands of society. The piece was made up of five characters, interacting with each other and with the children. Among the characters, we highlight our “repellent bacteria” (bug-shoo) and the “tire-eater bacteria” (Rubber Bye), representing Brasil-USP team. Therefore, this activity was a moment of interaction between the two teams, which used the themes of their projects in favor of awareness about dengue.

At the end of the presentation, the audience was divided into 10 groups to carry out the planting of Crotalaria juncea seeds, a plant that supplements dengue prevention. Crotalaria is a plant from Fabaceae family which attracts dragonflies, natural predators of A. aegypti eggs and larvae. Thus, we conducted the planting of Crotalaria seeds in PET bottles, helping to reduce the garbage dumps and mosquitoes breeding sites.

This intervention gave us a happy opportunity to unite members of our Team. Seeing the smiling faces of the children and their curiosity for our bacteria costumes really inspired UFSCar-Brasil!

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          <div class="row">
            <h3 class="ui header" id="overview">Social</h3>
-           <p>Diseases transmitted by insect vectors, such as malaria and dengue, affect significantly the Brazilian population. In our city, São Carlos, this year in summer the public health organ featured a big number of cases. Working in this problem,
+           <p>In 2015, Brazil faced a dengue epidemic, and São Carlos was not different (Wiki link). Despite the campaigns to encourage people to take action for disease prevention (which mainly consists in eliminating sites with accumulated water, where Aedes aegypti mosquitoes can reproduce), this effort is ineffective in combating the disease. So, we had the insight to contribute to awareness of local population, showing that there are people working on developing alternative (and possibly more effective) solutions to this problem.</p>
-            our project consists in the development of an alternative repellent of that currently sold in the market and more or equally effective in preventing mosquitoes bites transmitted diseases. The main compound in current repellents is DEET (N,
-            N-diethyl-m-toluamide), a toxic molecule which at certain concentrations could be lethal, and therefore must have strict control on their use in products. The main characteristic of our repellent is the long duration when compared to other
-            products and the replacement of the compound DEET by D-limonene. Instead, the D-limonene has low toxicity, is highly volatile and present a pleasant smell.</p>
-           <p>Our proposal is building a bacteria carrying out the production of D-limonene via limonene synthase. To enable long term storage at room temperatures, the bacterial cells that make up the repellent will be plasmolyzed, with suspended metabolism,
+           <p>Dengue is an urban disease and capable of reaching all social classes. Although wealthy neighborhoods have less mosquitoes breeding grounds and richest population has access to improved health services, São Carlos was ravaged by the disease as a whole. Then, we choose a neighborhood that represents the living conditions of the majority of the population as the target to our intervention. We chose the neighborhood São Carlos 8, which faces the problems that can increase dengue cases (such as the accumulation of waste, for example). Also, this neighborhood has a social organization that assists education of 6-13 years children in the neighborhood, which was very receptive to our proposal. Thus, we decided to conduct our activities at the community center PROVIM Dom Luciano de Almeida.</p>
-            considered a dormant state. The maintenance of this state will be obtained by a solution of polyethyleneglycol (PEG) that will raise the osmotic pressures. Once in contact with the skin, the PEG solution will be diluted by sweat, inducing
-            an osmotic shock in cells. Then the universal stress protein promoter (UspA) will be activated and will induce the expression of limonene synthase. Beyond PEG, other compounds such as glycerol and metal ions in low concentrations will compose
-            our insect repellent cream, in order to sustain the bacteria to the required metabolites building and posterior enzyme activities. In this way, the distribution of our repellent may become feasible, allowing its use.</p>
-           <p>To overcome those problems with limonene synthase folding, we used constitutive promoters for the expression of chaperones from all Escherichia coli available classes (like ClpB, DnaK and IbpA / IbpB). It will reinforce the stockpile of chaperones
+           <p>As our audience would be children, we have developed a playful and fun way that allowed both approaching dengue issues and approximate children to University reality and research developed there. Thus, our team organized the play "The mighty bacteria against dengue", which addressed the main aspects of the disease, ways of common and alternative prevention, in addition to the role of science in meeting demands of society. The piece was made up of five characters, interacting with each other and with the children. Among the characters, we highlight our “repellent bacteria” (bug-shoo) and the “tire-eater bacteria” (Rubber Bye), representing Brasil-USP team. Therefore, this activity was a moment of interaction between the two teams, which used the themes of their projects in favor of awareness about dengue.</p>
-            naturally produced during osmotic shocks (heat-shock proteins) in bacteria. Our goal is to improve protein solubility, indirectly creatinga toolkit for protein solubility enhancement for future iGEM teams. . Besides, reducing the occurrence
-            of insoluble bodies and improving the production of limonene.</p>
-           <p>Finally, a way to ensure the biosafety in the use of our repellent and keep a control of bacterial cells is the use of a system of programmed death or Kill Switch. This system will work with two suicide genes: Killer red, a protein which trigger
+           <p>At the end of the presentation, the audience was divided into 10 groups to carry out the planting of Crotalaria juncea seeds, a plant that supplements dengue prevention. Crotalaria is a plant from Fabaceae family which attracts dragonflies, natural predators of A. aegypti eggs and larvae. Thus, we conducted the planting of Crotalaria seeds in PET bottles, helping to reduce the garbage dumps and mosquitoes breeding sites.</p>
-            oxidative species generation destroying the DNA (plasmid and chromosomal) allied to a potent RNAse which will avoid any contribution of RNA to host or normal microbiota. These genes will be switch on through an association with a zinc sensitive
-            promoter triggered by zur proteins which associate with zinc and avoid the expression of them allowing the bacterial growing. After long periods of repellent action, bacteria activities will decrease zinc concentration in medium, which allows
+ <p>This intervention gave us a happy opportunity to unite members of our Team. Seeing the smiling faces of the children and their curiosity for our bacteria costumes really inspired UFSCar-Brasil!</p>
-            the gene activation and cells death.</p>
          </div>
        </div>

Difference between revisions of "Team:UFSCar-Brasil/social.html"

Revision as of 02:08, 9 September 2015

Policy & Practices

UFSCar-Brasil Team impacting society

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