Team:SZU China/Achievement

Achievement

Standard Biological Part registration

In the past 9 months, we have gone through brainstorming, experimental design, biobrick combination, system verification, human practice and wiki making, ect. Through our hard work, our project has been greatly developed and we are fully prepared for the Giant Jamboree. We have submitted 12 biobricks and they are transiently transfected into different cell lines to verify the working efficiency of our system. What’s more, we performed our human practice with Cancer Mutual Aid Association, Shenzhen Sencond People’s Hospital and Moonbay Primary School. We also cooperate with Nankai and LZU-China. We believe we deserve Gold Medal since we have met all the requirements for it.

Judging Criteria

We have designed and constructed 12 parts, including 6 basic parts and 6 composite parts. Among all this parts, three of them are improved from previously existing Biobrick Part or Device. All of these parts were well documented on the part registry pages. They are listed as follows:

Part Number	Nickname	Part Type
BBa_K1722000	hUPII	Basic Part
BBa_K1722001	shTERT	Basic Part(Improved)
BBa_K1722002	hTERT	Basic Part
BBa_K1722004	tRNA	Basic Part
BBa_K1722005	Rluc	Basic Part(Improved)
BBa_K1722006	SV40(En)	Basic Part(Improved)
BBa_K1722007	hUPII+AckRS	Composite Part
BBa_K1722009	hTERT+GFP	Composite Part
BBa_K1722010	hTERT+tRNA	Composite Part
BBa_K1722011	shTERT+tRNA	Composite Part
BBa_K1722011	shTERT+tRNA	Composite Part
BBa_K1722013	shTERT+tRNA	Composite Part

hUPII(BBa_K1722000) is well documented in the registry and accepted. It is the highest quality basic part of our team and it deserves the Best Basic Part.

hUPII+AckRS(BBa_K1722007) is well documented in the registry and accepted. It is the highest quality composite part of our team and it deserves the Best Composite Part.

Human practice outside the lab

As we concerned, human practice is not only associated with the publicity of synthetic biology but also what significance we can achieve basing on our project. This year SZU IGEM team has conducted a survey and interviewed professor Mr Caizhiming to find that the patient’s psychological state would largely influence the process of cure.Referring to the Group psychotherapy, we organized a meetup and invited a few veterans on defending against cancer for the cancer patients to heal their isolation. From the meetup the patients learned the significance of a stable psychological state and receive care and encouragement from us. When seeing the patients from sobbing to burst into laughter, we felt obliged to make a difference in their lives.

Education and public engament

As for the education,SZU IGEM team visited primary school students this year to illustrate the basic knowledge about synthetic biology and our project. It’s surprising for us to see their strong interest regarding to cancer,biology that some students came with more questions to ask after the lecture. Inspired and influenced by students’ passion, we decided to undertake to be their mentors on biological research and personal development. In terms of public engagement, we participated the Cultural Festival of Life and science in which exhibited our projects to the university students. Nevertheless we visited cancer patients in the hospital where we share our concerns and our project to extend hope for them.