We believe that there is a lack of communication with other iGEM teams, that there is still much room for progress in our project, and we also hope to get the guidance of professional judges. Therefore, we participated in 2024 CCiC. At this exchange meeting, we learned an important lesson, that is, how to carry out effective human practice activities, understood the two-way dialogue between the project and the community advocated by HP, and made us realize the effectiveness and importance of mathematical modeling. We also focused on building our modeling work later. At the same time, the judge teacher raised questions about the food safety issues involved in our project and the public's acceptance of our project. We focused on thinking about the problems in these two directions, so that we had a new direction of efforts. We solved this problem by consulting professional departments, understanding the legal provisions, and consulting the iGEM organizing committee.
At CCiC, we listened to the reports of other iGEM teams, initially understood the advantages and highlights of each team's projects, and also provided new ideas for our own project development. In addition, we have made contact with other teams based on plants and hope to make common progress through communication in the future. In short, this CCiC has benefited us a lot. It has provided valuable experience and suggestions for the success of our project.

Hubei Synthetic Biology Open Conference

We actively participate in academic conferences in the field of synthetic biology, aiming to learn the advantages of other teams, understand our shortcomings and further improve them. For example, we participated in the 2024 Hubei synthetic biology open conference, which was hosted by the College of life sciences of Hubei University and actively participated by several synthetic biology teams.
At the conference, researcher Xiao Yi from Shenzhen Institute of advanced technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences introduced synthetic biology and synthetic biology competition to us. During the meeting, several iGEM teams in Central China reported, which promoted the communication and cooperation between us and iGEM teams in Central China, and also promoted synthetic biology to the public.
In addition, we also held a round table meeting, where several senior professors exchanged views on the relationship between their research fields and synthetic biology, and shared their experience of bonding with the field of synthetic biology. And encourage us to join the team of synthetic biology. In the Q & A session, we asked Mr. Xiao Yi about how to integrate science and art. Mr. Yi suggested that artists should effectively participate in scientific research and stimulate their deeper understanding of science through this personal experience. It can also improve the expression of art. Mr. Xiao Yi also suggested that the art majors in our team should start from simplicity, and then understand each other, so as to complete more creative work.
We also asked Mr. Xiao Yi whether our project is in line with the concept of synthetic biology, and Mr. Xiao Yi clearly affirmed our question. Because our project involves plant chromosome doubling technology and gene editing technology, which is to redesign existing natural organisms.

Synthetic Biology Challenges

2024 Wuhan Seed Industry Expo

In order to further grasp the industry information, understand the current industrial demand of the rice industry, and whether the project can help solve the problem of industrial demand, we participated in the Wuhan Seed Industry Expo on June 3, 2024.
We won an exclusive booth. At our booth, the students of the team introduced the research background, technical principles, project progress, and product data and application to the visitors. Further promote the innovative projects of the team.
In the afternoon of June 4, six student representatives of our team introduced polyploid nutrition fortified rice to important leaders such as the vice governor of Hubei Province and the mayor of Wuhan who came to visit again. They paid special attention to our project and highly affirmed our work. We also talked with Mr. Li, a professional enterprise consultant. After learning that the project is still in the stage of small-scale cultivation in the laboratory for the time being, Mr. Li said that unlike traditional breeding to improve the yield, the application of the project will make a disruptive contribution to the universal nutritional value of staple grains. Through this activity, we learned that the practical application of polyploid nutrition fortified rice in agriculture is still rare, so we still need a lot of practice to further implement. It confirms that our project can help solve the problem of industrial demand. We also learned that in addition to achieving excellent quality, it is also important to promote good products through cultural and creative, marketing and publicity channels.

Team Communication

On March 24, we went to Wuhan University with the HUBU-China team to communicate with the WHU-iGEM team. There, the other two teams introduced their projects to us. We found that the HP work of the HUBU-China team had carried out extensive research and sample statistical analysis. The WHU-iGEM team attached great importance to their project safety personality, which provided many references for us to adjust our project later. Moreover, they raised questions about the homozygosity rate of our project's gene editing. After the communication, we consulted our PI and found a solution. See Experiment for details