Team:SYSU-Software/Engagement

SYSU-SOFTWARE IGEM 2015

Public Engagement and Education

Motivations:

iGEM is not only a competition standing at the front of synthetic biology, but also a good chance and a platform for future scientists and engineers to introduce synthetic biology to the public. Further, we should never “work behind closed doors” — though non-technical individuals may lack knowledge about synbio, they might provide us with many sparkling ideas and inspirations on our projects. More importantly, if our project is hardly understandable to the general public, then it cannot be a successful one. If we can establish a bi-directional communication with the public, we can get more feedbacks on our project and, based on the feedbacks, we can make our project more accessible not only to the scientists but also to the public.

Practices:

1.Garden party for introduction of synbio to the public Collaborated with SYSU_CHINA, we held a parade in the campus to introduce synthetic biology to the public. Our audiences included students of life sciences and many other majors, teachers of different backgrounds, and residents in the campus who are neither students nor teachers. Our parade includes 3 parts:
  • Watch a Video
  • Design a Circuit
  • Project Sharing
In the “Watch a Video” part, we displayed and explained several videos related to synthetic biology. Students of non-biological background were attracted to the videos. They said that they “We had never imagined (that) life could be so complicated!”. After watching videos about the process of translation and transcription, a student from Graphic Design exclaimed, “If only I could devoted myself to such wonderful research!” As for the “Design a Circuit” part, we designed a funny game. The participants were allowed to design gene circuit based on the genetic parts provided by us for specific purpose. At first, we thought this game would be very easy. All they need to do is just put the genetic parts in the right orders to complete a circuit. The situation, however, is quite different from what we expected. We explained to them what the promoter is, but it was so hard for them to understand, not to mention completing a circuit. Since most of the students lacked related knowledge, few students attended this game. And those who attended this game required a lot of hints to finish the circuit. In terms of the “Project Sharing” part, we presented the project of 2014, FLAME. We demonstrated the function of our software. They also gave us some suggestions, one of the most impressive being:

The public are interested in the games.

Photo of team members at the parade in the games.

“It’s awesome to generate a circuit automatically though I don’t know what exactly is a circuit. But what about finishing a circuit together? Say, working together?”

This remark did give us much inspiration: in this world full of competition and cooperation, why not make design a collaboration one? Via collaboration and co-development, we can even construct designs much more complex than we can ever imagine. (A good example is the sequencing of human genome, which was done by collaboration between several countries.)
Plus, most of our audiences have the same question:

“Does the simulation module accurate?”

Which is the one of the biggest challenges remaining unsolved.

2. Synbio Box: learn synthetic biology in a game.

“What are biological parts?
What are their functions?”
In the garden party, some one asked us these questions. It is difficult to explain to them, because they lack relevant knowledge on molecular biology. What if let them play a game and learn synthetic biology at the same time?
So we designed a game, Synbio Box, to help introduce synthetic biology to the public. Target players of this game is people who have not ever learned synthetic biology but have interested in it. We have promoted this game to other iGEM teams, to the public as well as to the freshmen. In the NCTU_Formosa meetup, meetup with high-school teams as well as the Peking CCiC meetup, we promoted this game to wet-lab teams, and they had great interest in this simple but enjoyable game.
The game is popular among WeChat. After trying on the game, some people gave us feedbacks. According to their feedbacks, we re-designed and improved the game. Now players can have more fun playing this game with the new game settings! For more details or if you want to download the game, please click here!

Zhengyang Wen is introducing Synbio Box in the meetup with high-school teams and wet-lab teams.

Qianhui Wan is introducing Synbio Box in the Peking CCiC meetup.

3. Meetup with high-school teams and wet-lab teams
High-school teams are dedicated to development of mobile applications. Without systematic knowledge of life sciences, they knew less about synthetic biology than us. Also, they needed advice on how to design software to meet the needs of synthetic biology community.
In summer, a meetup with high-school teams and wet-lab teams was held in the campus. At the beginning of the meetup we first introduced our project to high-school teams and wet-lab teams. Though it was still a proof-of-concept idea, the feedbacks that they gave us after they listened to our presentation provided us with insightful and meaningful suggestions.
In our presentation we introduced the game, Synbio Box, which was designed and implemented by us. The game combined basic knowledge in synthetic biology with the fun provided by the game. One of the feedbacks that high-school teams gave us is:

Zhengyang Wen is introducing our project in the meetup with high-school teams and wet-lab teams.

“It’s good combining entertaining games with serious scientific practices. Though I can’t understand what you do, but I can now understand synthetic biology a little bit via this funny game!”

The fact that the game, Synbio Box, was so attractive to high-school teams is beyond our wildest expectation. Maybe our project should turn “professionals-oriented” to “public-oriented” ?

4. A mini lecture to freshmen of life sciences
iGEM is a competition for the future generation. To attract more freshmen to the iGEM competition, as well as engage them into the practices of synthetic biology, we held a mini lecture to the 2015 freshmen of School of Life Sciences, SYSU.
For the first part, Zhengyang Wen introduced to the freshmen some basic knowledge of Synbio. Then Weilin Xu introduced what is iGEM. Then came the Xiao Feng’s introduction to our project, and Yi Shi’s introduction to Synbio Box.
When Yi Shi was introducing the “Synbio Box” mobile game to them, they were so surprised to find out that, although the game is on Synbio, it is very easy to play!
After Yi Shi finished her introduction to the game, Q & A session began. The questions raised by the freshmen were so professional. They were interested in 3A assembly, and asked us why the 3A assembly would work for standard parts. Also, they asked us many questions on our project or the project of last year. One of the questions, concerning the project of last year FLAME, is:

Zhengyang Wen is introducing our project in the meetup with high-school teams and wet-lab teams.

“Why a fixed framework would help?
It does not provide enough flexibility. ”

We believe that, flexibility and user-friendliness are not contradictory. For advanced users, we should provide more flexibility to them; but for amateurs, we should provide them with a user-friendly user interface, and try our best to cut down the unnecessary steps that users are not familiar with.

5. Poker on Safety

Through human practice, we realize the importance of propagating biosafety. Many people are very concerned about biosafety, but they are not familiar with what is biosafety; they lack knowledge on biology. Therefore, as a prelude to the release of our software, we want to promote the knowledge of biological safety to the public.
We decided to design a pack of poker, which has both practicability and general significance.
The design of text (which will be printed on the poker) is not easy, because the biosafety problems usually cannot be explained clearly in a few words, but space in poker is limited. So we designed the text as elaborate and concise as possible, to solve this contradiction. According to the suit of cards we design four parts, including the potential dangers brought by the development of biotechnology, the impact of biosafety on human beings, biosafety in agriculture, animal husbandry and food industry, laboratory biosafety guide. The poker not only aims to the promotion of science, but also introduction to biosafety in lab.
We hope that when people are playing poker, they are able to pick up some knowledge on biosafety. Hopefully scientists and non-scientists alike can learn something from the poker.

Zhengyang Wen is introducing Synbio Box in the meetup with high-school teams and wet-lab teams.

Qianhui Wan is introducing Synbio Box in the Peking CCiC meetup.