Contribution

Contribution Overview:

Our iGEM team's primary goal is to make a lasting impact on future iGEM projects by sharing the knowledge and innovations we have developed during our work. Through the creation of new parts, human practices engagement, and entrepreneurial efforts, we aim to provide a comprehensive set of tools, insights, and documentation that will be valuable to the synthetic biology community. By developing optimized biological parts, refining our approach to societal impacts, and exploring the practical applications of our project, we are dedicated to enhancing the foundation for future research and innovation in the field of synthetic biology.

This contribution reflects our commitment to advancing biological research, improving experimental workflows, and addressing real-world challenges through collaboration and innovation.

New Basic Part

Our part, BBa_K5209001, represents a significant advancement for the iGEM community, particularly in improving NIR-II deep tissue imaging. By introducing a mutation at Cys476 to Gly (C476G) in human serum albumin (HSA), we were able to disrupt the disulfide bond and expose a reactive thiol group near Cys477. This structural modification enhances the covalent binding efficiency of NIR-II dyes, particularly in biological imaging applications.

Through a combination of computational simulations and experimental validation, we demonstrated that the C476G mutation significantly improves the binding affinity of the protein for NIR-II dyes like CO-1080. This has led to enhanced imaging performance in mouse models, offering a reliable and reproducible method for preparing protein-dye complexes at room temperature.

BBa_K5209001 has wide applicability in areas such as biomedical imaging, surgical navigation, and disease diagnosis. By contributing this part to the Registry, we provide future iGEM teams with an easy-to-use, effective tool for their projects. Its performance and versatility make it an essential addition to the iGEM Parts Registry, contributing to more reliable and accessible imaging solutions for future synthetic biology research.

Integrated HP

First and foremost, engaging in on-the-ground communication with patients is crucial. Many people tend to focus more on communicating with the public, other teams, and experts, often neglecting the most important element—the patients themselves. Only through face-to-face communication with patients can we truly recognize the shortcomings of existing technologies and identify the directions we should explore. This helps us gain a clearer understanding of how our project serves humanity and society.

Secondly, regarding outreach and communication, we have discovered that distributing surveys on-site after presentations is very important. This helps us assess the effectiveness of our presentations and deepens our post-event communication with the audience. Such feedback is vital for the self-assessment of our Human Practice and for making necessary adjustments to our direction.

Finally, we have realized that in the construction of new media, utilizing interesting editing techniques to create popular science videos, or integrating internet memes into our outreach, can yield better promotional effects, especially in sparking the interest of younger audiences. This significantly enhances our efforts in promoting synthetic biology.

Entrepreneurship

Through the section of entrepreneurship, we have formed a series of public views on cancer prevention, health and our product design through preliminary market analysis and user portraits, so as to convey the gap in health awareness. We will continue to bring the commercialization process of our products to the public through social media, which can also help future teams gain some entrepreneurial experience and help them better plan the product development timeline. Future teams can draw inspiration from our innovative practice and carry out secondary innovation or micro-innovation combined with their actual situation, so as to promote the innovation and development of the whole industry. We also continue to build and expand our own social network, timely update our communication with professors, doctors and enterprise chairmen, and help them more quickly obtain market information, policy support and resource connection.We will continue to expand and optimize resources, which provides strong support for our own development, and potential resources as well as cooperation opportunities for other teams. Through resource sharing and cooperation, future teams can achieve their own growth and development faster.

We always hope to be able to contribute to the entrepreneurial attempts of more teams related to the diagnostic track, provide experience, and contribute to the prosperity and development of the industry.