Overview
Our team's education and outreach activities this year focus on two goals:
The promotion and education of synthetic biology in general.
The publicization of our project in detail.
The first aims to spread the basic knowledge and fundamental principles of synthetic biology to the general public, including BNDS students and Chinese communities, so they can learn about the ever-growing industry. The second focuses on publicizing the hazards of gut dysbiosis and discussing our project's advantages and drawbacks in detail with professionals and other teams.
Through biotechnology class teaching, music shows and art exhibitions, and project workshops with other teams, we have made great progress in achieving our goals.
BNDS Biotechnology Class and Clubs Co-teaching
At BNDS, a great biology community exists, and there are many opportunities awaiting students to learn and join in the wonderful world of biology. However, when it comes to synthetic biology in particular, students lack the chance to get hands-on experience in experiments. To satisfy students' strong curiosity, while also spreading the influence of synthetic biology and iGEM, our team continued our cooperation with the BNDS biotechnology class and clubs.
Figure 1. Teaching biology experiments during cooperation with BNDS biotechnology class.
We co-taught synthetic biology with the "BioCamp" club, including lecturing on DNA, gene expression, PCR, and SDS-PAGE, to assist their understanding of challenging biotechnology questions in biology competitions. BNDS-China took charge of the lecturing part: we made beautiful, logical slides, and presented them with our valuable first-hand accounts, attracting many students to join our biology clubs. We also collaborated with our school's biotech course, implementing microorganism experiments, such as sterilization, cell culturing, and plasmid extraction. The students were amazed by the scientific and prudent process of the experiment, and when they eventually got their hands-on experience, the fruits of their own work were always rewarding and satisfying.
Figure 2. Teaching experiment procedures during "Biocamp" club.
Our efforts helped BNDS students achieve great results in worldwide biology competitions, including gold medals in the British Biology Olympiad (BBO) and USA Biology Olympiad (USABO), at the same time infusing fresh blood into synthetic biology fields and the iGEM community.
Club Fair Publicity
With the start of a new semester, we wanted new people to join us in our synthetic biology journey, so we participated in our school's annual club fair event, where we introduced the iGEM competition and our club to Grade 10 freshmen. We hope that through our passionate and thorough introduction of iGEM, we can leave a great impression on passers-by and recruit new talented people into our team.
Figure 3. Publicizing BNDS-China during school's club fair.
With our thoughtfully curated pamphlets and artistically designed banners, we promoted the highlights and core values of iGEM. Our brochures helped us achieve our goal of informing people about the field of synthetic biology while demonstrating our dedication and love for it.
Agar Art Exhibition
Art is a great way to educate people while having fun. This year, we chose to incorporate synthetic biology with art in the form of agar artwork. Through transforming plasmids that constitutively express vibrant fluorescent proteins and chromoproteins into E. Coli BL21 (DE3), our agar plates depict adorable animal figures and viral game characters. Our experimenters let their imaginations fly wild and drew pictures such as their signature animal Corvus, and some representative figures in the game Plants Vs. Zombies.
Figure 4. Agar plate artworks presented in agar art exhibition.
For the safety of our exhibition, we firmly sealed the plates twice to prevent bacteria leakage; during the exhibition, the plates were placed under plastic covers, and the audience viewed them from a 2-meter safety distance.
Figure 5. Student watching the displayed agar plate artworks.
Though synthetic biology products are now becoming more prevalent in the world, people might still hold stereotypical grudges or safety concerns towards them. Some might believe that synthetic biology is a technique far from our daily lives; some might argue that they are still in the experimental process and cannot be safely used. Through our agar art exhibition, we demonstrate our confidence in the future of synthetic biology products, asserting that it is a market with unlimited potential, waiting for people to discover and expand on with their creativity. Through feedback from the audience, we learned that we have dispelled some of our audience's doubts and also promoted our project to them. We hope that the influence of synthetic biology can continuously grow, just like the bacteria we have cultured countless times.
iJam Band
Apart from agar art, BNDS-China also formed a band called iJam. Consisting of talented individuals who love music, we composed and recorded our original song "Don't Cry After". It is inspired by a metabolite in our project, DCA, and it expresses our love for synthetic biology while introducing some basic info about our project and gut dysbiosis. We arranged two solos and even a rap into our song, which satisfies a wide variety of music lovers, assisting our promotion goals.
The lyrics are a vivid representation of our experiment process, which was undeniably exhausting, but full of surprises and little moments of happiness. The lyrics are as follows:
(Verse)
To the fifth to the shades
Door locks us in hallways
Breaking astray, Breaking astray
Too late, to wake
Tiny holes on black plates
Fragile us incubate
Pipette away, Pipette away
Under blue rays
(Chorus)
16 hours in the bed
Minus eighty minus breathe
Stop the grow of price time trader
Fluorescence is everywhere
(Rap)
We do not cause traffic jams!
Don't spread us on piece of bread!
Someone jammed your door but not us!
We are iJam!
A synthetic band of musicians!
After some fun rehearsal sessions, our band was ready: we recorded a music video and entered the audition for our school music festival. Although we failed to reach the final stage of the music festival, we still got a chance to perform it at our school's monthly band concert, which was an absolute blast. Not only did we acquire a handful of music fans, but we also promoted our project and synthetic biology to many BNDS students, potentially planting a seed of love for synth-bio in their hearts.
Figure 6. Photo of iJAM band.
The WeChat Official Account
Our official WeChat account, BNDS_China, is still being operated and publishing more articles on topics of our project, iGEM, and our human practice content. So far this year, we have published our 2023 project description, one introduction on iGEM, one on synthetic biology, and multiple interview/human practice content recaps for our 2024 project. One of our highlight articles in 2024 was our interview with Ms. Geng, providing various fun facts about our gut and introducing the underlying dangers of gut dysbiosis. She uses vivid metaphors and her real-life cases and presents to us the diversity and also fragileness of our gut microbiota in a fascinating and comprehensible way. For more details, please see our interview with Ms. Geng on our Human Practice page.
As of October 2024, our efforts have rewarded us with 300+ followers, and our published articles and videos have accumulated over 12,500 views. Compared to just a year ago, BNDS_China acquired nearly 200 increase in followers and 9500 increase in total views, showing concrete evidence of our success in our promotion and education goals.
Figure 7. Home page and one published article.
Public Lectures & Connecting With Our Peers
Lecture Outline
This year, all of our lectures and project descriptions follow our strictly curated outline, with minor adjustments according to the different audiences, so that our presentations are given with consistency while being informative, communicative, and effective. Our PowerPoint outline is divided into the following main parts:
Part 1: Project Background and Goals. We first introduce our project background, presenting data we have collected from our readings and our questionnaire, and we give our analysis of the data, which shows convincing evidence of the prevalence of gut dysbiosis in China and also around the world. Following our data interpretation is our project objectives, explaining how we want to approach and resolve the problem in an effective and eco-friendly way.
Part 2: Project Design. This is the main content for most of our lectures, where we explain the underlying logic system and design pathway that we used in our experiments. We first present our two logic gate systems, then we continue to put our emphasis on the detailed parts of our system, introducing the design of our biosensors and effectors.
Part 3: Experiments in Action. This part is presented jointly with part 2, as we integrate our experimental results into our parts description, such as the graphs and electrophoretograms, so that we can interpret these data in context. We would also mention some challenges or anecdotes during the process, to make this part more intriguing.
Part 4: Human Practice & Education. We started off by introducing our potential stakeholders and analyzed how we could adjust our project according to their advice. Then, we put out the various interviews we conducted and summarised our learning. Our educational efforts and events were introduced last in this part.
Part 5: Project Safety. Lastly, we mention the safety protocols we adhered to during our experimental process, and our cold-inducible switch design ends the entire lecture.
Through this carefully designed presentation outline, we have been able to achieve our educational goals with ease with the following events:
CCiC and Live Streaming
On July 14, we participated in the CCiC online presentation, giving a lecture on our project to professional judges. The stream lasted for approximately 2.5 hours, during which more than 3500 people watched it. The audience is diverse, with both trained professionals and beginners who simply want to explore a brand-new field of biology. Hence, we put our concentration on Parts 1, 2, and 4 for this particular stream, so that both the judges and newcomers are able to comprehend our design logic.
Figure 8. Poster of CCiC online presentation.
Figure 9. CCiC presentation livestream screenshot.
Figure 10. CCiC presentation PPT screenshot.
Figure 11. CCiC presentation livestream data.
At the end of the presentation, the judges raised a few questions about our experimental design and our project market, which we answered with ease. After the stream ended, we won great approval from the judges, recognizing our scientific logic and project influence, and the encouraging comments under the stream were also heart-warming. It was a great honor to share our project with both professionals and synthetic biology enthusiasts, and seeing other teams' projects was really inspirational and educational for our future projects.
BNDS x UCAS Cross-talk
Since 2018, BNDS-China has collaborated with the iGEM team from the University of Chinese Academy of Science multiple times, holding seminars and meetings to discuss our projects. Our friendship with UCAS-iGEM continues this year as we introduce each other's projects and improve mutually. We follow the originally designed outline this time, as we are communicating with high school seniors and undergraduates who have a comprehensive understanding of both molecular biology and synthetic biology.
Figure 12. Discussion during BNDS x UCAS Cross-talk.
Both of us focused on logic gates this year, giving us a common topic to discuss while also increasing our communication efficiency. UCAS-iGEM constructed 16 different logic gates by using CRISPR and recombinase to alter genetic pathways, while we utilized AND and NOR gates at the system level in our project. They provided practical advice for our dry lab design and modeling parts, which was their forte; we shared our experiences and methods during our wet lab, sparking new ideas for their experimental procedures. We were honored to hear their comments, stating that our project works as their downstream product and opens up a new market for their gates.
Figure 13. Photo of participants in BNDS x UCAS Cross-talk.
After exchanging souvenirs, our cross-talk came to an end. Thank you for inviting us, and we look forward to our collaboration next year, UCAS-iGEM!
BNDS x NMU Cross-talk
Nanjing Medical University joined our exploration of gut dysbiosis this year. They are a group of undergraduates who major in medicine, and provide great advice and profound insights for the future adaptions of our project.
We started off by introducing both of our works to each other. Since the audience was undergraduate students who had more practical experience and theoretical knowledge, we focused more on how we designed our experiments and computed our models. NMU's forte was in mathematical modeling, so their models of the logistic growth of bacteria and their dynamic kinetic model of the metabolites provided great insights and inspirations for our modeling to refer to. Since we're also devising a metabolic stress model for specific metabolites, such as IAA and butyrate, their models assist us in justifying our design of food detection.
Being medical undergraduates, we also inquired NMU students about gut dysbiosis and the potential diseases that might come with it. We prepared a short list of questions for them, and NMU was kind enough to reply to our questions in text form, detailing all the diseases and their hazards. Our Q&A file is shown below:
Figure 14. Screenshot of online BNDS x NMU Cross-talk.
One of the most influential notions that NMU students mentioned is that IBD is an abnormal immune response, and it is also a long-term chronic disease, similar to diabetes. Once the patient gets it, the disease accompanies them for the rest of their life. Hence, the treatment approach should be to control the inflammation for a long period of time. Our use of butyrate was approved by NMU, and they also listed out specific medications and drugs that we can research on, potentially providing us with more helpful metabolites that we can utilize.
Through this cross-talk, we also realized that our project needs to serve people on a long-term basis and integrate modeling, human practice, and biological approaches in order to achieve the best treatment effect of controlling the symptoms. We truly appreciate NMU students for their eager assistance and their time.
Gut Alliance
With the prevalence of gut problems in China, it is hard not for other teams to notice it. Hence, we formed a Gut Alliance with six other teams, whose projects also concentrate on the solutions and alleviation of gut diseases.
Through a brief sharing and discussion of our projects, we discovered that there were a lot of commonalities in the origins and pathogenesis of the various gut diseases, and our discussion aided us in the comprehensive understanding of gut problems.
Many undergraduates with access to more advanced technology were in the Gut Alliance, which brought new insights into treating solutions and potential future adaptations for our project. Some schools designed bio-sensing modules, which were more complex than our design, while others have innovative ideas like using the Cas9 system to amplify their curing genes. Through making contact with other teams, we were greatly astonished by the creative ideas of our peers, and we believe that through the combined power of multiple teams, we can eventually achieve our goal of controlling gut diseases.
BNDS x BIT x RDFZ x BJWZ at BIT
Our old friend, Beijing Institute of Technology, invited us to their campus this year to give a mutual lecture. Another guest BIT invited was the team at the High School Affiliated to Renmin University of China and BJWZ's high school iGEM team. Together, on September 20th, we presented our projects to more than 60 undergraduates at BIT.
Since our audience was college students who have some experience with synthetic biology, we briefly walked them through the biotechnology we used in our projects, then focused on introducing and explaining our project for the most part. We presented in an informal and comprehensible way for our audience.
The structure of our talk is as follows:
Part 1: Introduction to Synthetic Biology by the BIT Team. Here, BIT introduces what synthetic biology is and its applications. This helps undergraduate students interested in the topic to understand iGEM better.
Part 2: Introduction to Synthetic Biology Techniques by the BNDS-China Team. The undergraduate students already have knowledge of basic biotechnology techniques. So, we decided to share about more advanced biotechnology such as kinetics analysis, genome integration and logic gates. This approach fosters collaborative learning among undergraduate students, broadens their knowledge base, and attracts their interest in delving deeper into synthetic biology.
Part 3: Presentation by the RDFZ-CHINA Team on the responsibilities and values of synthetic biology in the fields of sustainability. This section highlights the different aspects of sustainability related to synthetic biology, which is an important aspect that gives insights on how synthetic biology could help solve world problems.
Part 4: Introduction to the projects of the three teams. We plan to use concrete research examples to help undergraduate students understand what iGEMers are doing for the community.
Our communication continues downstage, discussing the AHL part of BIT's team and the IAA part of RDFZ's team. Although their metabolite wasn't the exact same as ours, their modeling methods were also very inspirational to us. As our conversation continues, we truly feel the passion and love of synthetic biology these peers have through their words and expressions. This is what links us together and motivates us to push the entire industry forward.
Figure 15. Photo of participants in the lecture delivered by the Gut Alliance BNDS x BIT x RDFZ x BJWZ at BIT.
BNDS x BIT x RDFZ at BNDS
As an act of returning kindness, on September 29th, BIT team members and RDFZ team members came to BNDS, and gave a lecture introducing synthetic biology. Our school supported this, and more than 50 students filled the seats of Xunwan.
The basic structure of the lecutre is similar as the talk at BIT. However, since the lecture is aimed towards high school students and serves the purpose of educating and promoting, we focused more on explaining what synthetic biology is and some basic biotechnologies. We also used vivid metaphors and humorous language to keep the audience hooked, which better achieves our educational purposes. The audience gave us their full attention as they all listened carefully and some even made notes on the technology we introduced. When our lecture ended, we answered some questions and also handed out evaluation and feedback forms for BNDS students to fill out. We found out that we received great reviews from our listeners, commenting that the lectures were clear and concise, and made them want to explore the field more.
Through this lecture, we helped high school students get to know this new field of synthetic biology, and maybe ignited their interest to investigate further and even join iGEM next year.
Figure 16. Photo of participants in the lecture delivered by the Gut Alliance BNDS x BIT x RDFZ at BNDS.