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Human practices

In Chile, little is known about Synthetic Biology. There is only one Chilean start’up (web page) really related to this area, and universities only began to participate iGEM since in 2012 Team UC_Chile.

To answer these questions, we developed a diffusion plan of this methodology based on three activities:

Diffusion about
synthetic biology

Awareness-raising activity in high schools

Synthetic Biology is still little known in Chile but its numerous applications and its rapid development at international scale make it relevant to teach in educational institutions. Moreover, pupils are the future professionals of the country, so it is necessary to broaden young minds introducing Synthetic Biology, how it works and its collaborative vision. This would help forming responsible citizens.

Since this kind of activity was new for the high schools the team worked with, teachers helped with internal diffusion and they also invited other teachers and authorities of the institution.

The introductive activity

To make sure all these concepts had been understood, the team organized a game in which the pupils had to find the word corresponfing to the projected picture and some sweets were given to the winners!

Right after this game the pupils were asked what they thought about the genetic modification of living beings...and the conversation reached the topic of Super Heroes and improved human beings!

Activity in the Mariano de Schoenstatt high school. On the left: our team leader making guess to the pupils the key concepts explained in the previous presentation. On the right: pupils playing the game to win sweets!

The Legos workshop

The practical activity was based on analogies between the genetic parts of biological systems and the different standardized parts of the game, as it is shown in the picture below.

Representation a genetic module (top) assembling standard pieces of legos (bottom).

Pupils had to assemble promotors, RBS, coding sequences and terminators, represented by pieces of different colours and lengths, and make the modules interact between them with pieces of wool. This way, they could represent events like activation or inhibition of a promotor and production of a protein. Activation, inhibition and production were symbolized by green, red and white threads, respectively.

Example of a representation of a genetic circuit: UV light enhances the production of lactate, which inhibits the repressor “Inh” of the module responsible for the production of the Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP). Conclusion: in the presence of UV light, GFP can be produced.

The value of workshop

The goal was to make the pupils collaboratively find solutions to the exposed problems, which difficulty grade increased as the workshop progressed. The workshop can be downloaded here. The team also elaborated an electronic glossary to make sure that the concepts wouldn’t be forgotten after the activity.

Girls from the high school solving the challenges of the workshop.

As it was the first time that such an activity was implemented, the team asked for students and teachers feedback, in order to improve the pedagogical material for the next collaboration with an educational institution.

The value of workshop

If you are interested in knowing more about how the activity was received, here you can read some comments and see a video recorded at the end of the last activity. If you want to see more photos, please visit our gallery.

Acknowledgments

We want to thank the two high schools we worked with, for the coordination of the activity and the opportunity they gave us to make the pupils discover this new method: Synthetic Biology. We particularly thank the diffusion of the activity on the website of the high schools. Here you can see the article written on the websites of Colegio Mariano de Schoenstatt, and Colegio La Maisonnette.

We also particularly want to thank the Chilean National Commission of Cooperation with UNESCO, which provided us its support to realize this activity through a letter (download here)

Diffusion of a Synthetic Biology course in the Engineering Faculty

Last year, for the first time, was implemented an optional course of Synthetic Biology in the Engineering Faculty, that everyone from the different Departments could take. As it was planned to open the course this year too, two members of the iGEM team decided to be part of the teaching staff, to re-design and improve the first version of the course, taking advantage of the experience gained with iGEM and including the open source philosophy.

To do that, we used all the social networks we had and the institution diffusion channels, designing a poster and several short posts that showed the connection that synthetic biology has with Engineering. Moreover, the team organized an activity opened to the entire Faculty, in which the teacher could talk about the course and answer the questions pupils had. The team made an introduction to Synthetic Biology with an activity very similar to the workshop realized in high schools. Even so, very few people registered the course. Twelve people came to the activity realized in the Faculty and 5 registered the course. However we felt we were giving birth to something that could impact the Faculty, so the motivation to design the course is still intact.

Diffusion of a Synthetic Biology course in the Engineering Faculty

The teaching staff, iGEM team members and the students who came to learn more about Synthetic Biology together after the activity.

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More photos of the students,working on solving the exposed challenges with legos.

Students listening to the explications of the teacher Alvaro Olivera, about the Synthetic

Synthetic Biology Platform

Considering the different projects of OpenBio-UChile, it appeared they would have more impact if they came from an organization bigger than a Faculty Organized Group. That’s why we joined an initiative launched by a professor from the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Fernán Federici aiming to gather people from different Chilean Universities and related to Synthetic Biology into a global organization which could be a Foundation or NGO.

At the date, the organization is composed of members from three universities, the majority coming from the University of Chile since many students are part of OpenBio-UChile. This initiative was born in March, 2015 and the members met every month to define what would be the objective of the organization, its activities and the ways we could diffuse them.

Mision

We are a non-lucrative, collaborative and open source organization, pioneer in promoting Synthetic Biology development in Chile to establish a continuous diffusion and education and generate tools about this technic. Centralizing information about Synthetic Biology and diffusing it through a Web platform will enable us to reach a large spectrum of Chilean society.

Vision

To convert into the most relevant organization for the Open Access to knowledge about Synthetic Biology in Chile.

Conection with the environment

FabLab UChile

Since the idea of our project had born talking with the Fab Lab of the University of Chile, as mentioned in the atritubution section, on conception idea. We presented our project to the director of the Fab Lab, who wrote us a letter of inquiry.

We also went to talk with Andres Briceño, co-founder of the Santiago Fab Lab, to make our project cross the frontier of the University and see if there was a real need or interest for biological PLA. There, we discovered other ways to use PLA, since in this Fab Lab they combine PLA with other biodegradable materials such as wood to make composite materials and help the technology to reach the market. Indeed, if PLA is quite used to build prototypes, product designers don’t like working with it because plastic products are not as attractive as wood products, for instance. So the idea of mixing PLA with a more “esthetical” material such as wood allows a friendly design for many objects, which makes composite PLA a good candidate for new 3D-printed products. Moreover, composite PLA can have better mechanical properties than PLA according to the material it is mixed with, and can last more than 2 years without losing its biodegradable properties, which allows a wider range of uses.

FabLab Santiago

When we presented our project, Andres Briceño agreed that although costs can vary a lot according to the country of origin, it is expensive to buy PLA. He added that if we could demonstrate our fabrication process is cheaper than the current ones, the project would turn very attractive for many digital fabrication laboratories, for he gave us his support at the end of the visit, signing us another letter of inquiry.

We reached the Government through the Ministry of the Environment, which manifested its interest through a letter of inquiry, in which it recognizes the importance of “the fabrication of biodegradable materials which implies fewer possible impacts on the environment”.