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Summary
Throughout the project, interviews and human practice elements helped guide our project in new directions and provide insights on how our project could be adjusted for the needs of the plastics recycling industry, environment, or SDG guidelines. With that goal in mind, we planned our human practices in several directions.
Firstly, to plan out our human practices, we designed surveys for the public to discover potential weak points in public knowledge regarding our problem. To plan out our wet lab, we devised a series of questions for experts to verify and adjust our initial experimental design. The surveys helped us identify which areas the public is most interested in and shaped our experimental blueprint.
Secondly, to get opinions and feedback from experts in the fields of microplastics, synthetic biology, iGEM, and SDGs, we invited a variety of experts to interview. After said meetings, we shared the findings and opinions with the team, which was a great help as we were able to receive experimental materials, gain professional feedback, and make adjustments accordingly.
Thirdly, we contacted various other iGEM teams doing a similar project or from the Taiwanese region. We hope that by sharing iGEM experiences and pointing out each other’s potential areas of improvement, we can create a better project through recommendations on data collection efficiency or identifying new research directions. Notably, our meeting with iGEM RVCE Bangalore 2025 allowed us to share the entirety of our iGEM experiences, as they are not a participant this year and are seeking advice from our team to start up their projects.
Fourthly, we hosted international collaboration events, notably the postcard exchange event (refer to the SDGs page), to increase international and community engagement in our project and educate the public on the variety of projects across the globe. We also contributed to events hosted by other teams celebrating the environment and the iGEM community.
Lastly, we attended the local Taiwan Synbio Alliance (TGEM) event, which allowed us to receive professional feedback from experts such as Professor Kuang-Ta Lee, who guided us in modifying our experimental procedures.
Survey 1
Summary
Our Human Practices team surveyed the public to determine their knowledge about the problems and impacts of microplastics and their understanding of iGEM and bio-recycling solutions.
The survey was designed to assess public knowledge regarding microplastics and the potential of synthetic biology to address related issues. Accordingly, the survey is divided into public knowledge, sources, health issues, environments, and genetic engineering solutions. The survey results revealed that while 81.5% of respondents understood microplastics, significant misconceptions persisted. For instance, as high as 70% of student respondents were unaware that laundry is a source of microplastics and mistakenly believed that the food industry (44.4%) and chemical reactions (46.9%) were significant contributors. Additionally, there was confusion about how microplastics enter the human body, with many underestimating the role of inhalation and incorrectly assuming that microplastics can penetrate the skin (35.8%).
These findings underscored the necessity for targeted educational outreach to address these misconceptions, and our team has organized workshops, collaborative events, and social media posts to improve public awareness of microplastics’ impacts. The survey also showed strong public interest in genetic engineering solutions to combat microplastic pollution, with many respondents expressing a willingness to engage in lab experiments and learn more about the topic. Thus, this survey result highlights the feasibility and an overwhelming 56.8% support for our WAVEPLAST project, which is to tackle the degradation of microplastics through bioengineering techniques. In essence, this survey’s results suggest a promising direction for future educational efforts, emphasizing the potential of genetic approaches and fostering public awareness of microplastic pollution.
The section below shows notable responses from survey 1, which helped us identify common misconceptions:
Survey 1 — Public Knowledge on Microplastics
Figure 1: Self evaluation of microplastics knowledge based on public survey
Figure 2: Surveyed respondents’ belief on health effect of microplastics after entering the body
Figure 3: Public belief of microplastics in the environment
Survey 2
Our second survey was targeted towards professionals, centered around conceptual experimental designs, product ideas, our approach to the PET plastics problem, and the specific mutations and techniques we used. The aim of the survey was to collect opinions from experts, in order for us to evaluate our proposal.
Three experts were invited to answer questions relating to experimental conceptual design and our solution: Mr. Chris Ko, Dr. Zheng, and Ms. Penny Chen. Mr. Ko is a master’s graduate from the Department of Bioengineering, currently working at Hsinchu Science. He has worked on projects relating to PET before, aligning with our project. Dr. Zheng works at Golden Biotechnology Corp (GBC) and GoldenBiotech. As someone working in the industry, we hoped that he could provide us with valuable suggestions on the experimental methodology of our experiments and overall project. Ms. Penny Chen, lastly, is a Doctor of Medicine, and we hoped that she could provide another perspective on the issue through her biology knowledge.
From the results, we learned that although PETase degradation allows degradation into the fundamental components of PET plastics, there are still concerns on the topic of plastic waste and processing. Specifically, Dr. Zheng suggested that biological degradation is still a new technology and is unstable as compared to the traditional recycling method. However, given the negative effects of mechanical and chemical recycling, such as lowered quality and environmental pollution (see description), that is precisely the reason our team decided to pursue biological degradation — to increase efficiency and stability by creating enzymes with higher degradation rates and tolerance to temperature and pH levels.
On the topic of experimental procedures, we also received individual feedback from the respondents. On the choice of using IsPETaseS121E/D186H/R280A enzymes to increase degradation rate, we were advised to test individual mutations for efficiency to improve success rates. However, as experimental time was already limited by the time we received such feedback, we were unable to implement it. As an extension to the project, however, we could test out individual mutations before combination.
Furthermore, on our choice of using both E. coli (pGal promoter) and Yeast (T7 promoter), the experts preferred E. coli over yeast for higher success rates. Despite this, we decided to continue our plan of using Yeast, as papers show a 20-30 fold induction using the T7 as compared to the pGal promoter. Although the T7 promoter is less explored as opposed to the pGal promoter for E. coli, it opens up new possibilities of increasing degradation rates by the combination of a mutated enzyme and the T7 promoter on yeast.
Consultation Events/ Presentations
Prof. Kuang-Ta Lee
Why did we approach him?
We met Professor Kun-Ta Lee during the TGEM event. As a professor of biochemical technology at NTU, he is experienced in applied microbiology, enzyme purification, and iGEM. Since one of the possible extensions for our project is protein purification with E. coli, we decided to receive general feedback and advice on experimentation from him.
What did we learn?
After presenting to all professors and teams participating in the TGEM event, we talked to Professor Lee directly for feedback. We started off by discussing our presentation formatting, where we learned to further increase audience attention by making a more concise, professional presentation. Then, we moved on to discussions on the flow of our presentation. He emphasized that the flow of the presentation needs to be clarified, and we should outline our presentation in a way that ensures the audience follows the flow of our project and the reasoning behind every experiment or action we do. In terms of experimental design, Professor Lee demonstrated to us the importance of creating milestones that help us mark our project success, and that our experiments should connect directly with said milestones (KT. Lee, personal communication, August 25, 2024).
Why did we approach him?
We met Professor Kun-Ta Lee during the TGEM event. As a professor of biochemical technology at NTU, he is experienced in applied microbiology, enzyme purification, and iGEM. Since one of the possible extensions for our project is protein purification with E. coli, we decided to receive general feedback and advice on experimentation from him.
Applications to our Project
By giving us feedback on the project presentation and our experimental design process, Professor Lee helped us identify weaknesses in our presentation design that were difficult for us to discover on our own due to high familiarity with our own project. He also advised us to organize our project using milestones, specifically checking the success of each step (Starting from DNA to proteins) and making sure our wild type PETase works before we perform mutations. This process, combined with the design cycle, helped guide our project on a path with clear goals and indicators of success.
Mr. David Warner, Mr. Jim Morley, Ms. Menita Liu
Why did we approach them?
Mr. David Warner, Mr. Jim Morley and Ms. Menita Liu are business and economics curriculum teachers. We decided to consult them to evaluate our project as a business product. We were concerned about whether our project would be successful on a grander scale or in industrial usage. Therefore, we wanted to present our product to these business and economy teachers and receive the necessary feedback.
Figure 4: Our team representatives presenting to the economics experts for feedback
What did we learn?
In the meeting, Mr. David Warner, Mr. Jim Morley, and Ms. Menita Liu suggested that our project was too vague and lacked a specific implication of the product. They agree that global plastic issues are essential and understood that our project enzyme would be able to degrade PET plastics. However, they indicated our weakness in justification of the target audience. They suggested that we find a target audience that would benefit from using our product and contribute to global issue solutions. They thought that our product would be more of an industrial use product than a commercial product, knowing that it would be difficult for average households to handle genetically modified enzymes. Hence, they suggested we clarify our focus in the project design to fit the industrial use.
Applications to our Project
After concluding the information in the meeting, our team decided to focus on recycling industries as our target audience for our product. With our product being an extension of the current bio-recycling sector, we found a way to apply our products to a grander scale or into the industries. After this meeting, the storyline and structure of our project was much clearer.
Expert Interviews
SDGs stakeholder: Ying-Zhou Chen
Why did we approach him?
Ying-Zhou Chen is an advisor for SDGs in Deloitte Taiwan. Being our team’s SDGs adviser for the previous year, he gave strong suggestions. So we still decided to ask him for help this year.
Figure 5: Our meeting with SDGs stakeholder: Ying-Zhou Chen
What did we learn?
After presenting our project and discussing the SDGs relevant to our project (3.9.2, 3.9.3, 6.3, 12.4, and 14.1), he suggested that we stick with the SDGs containing stronger connections with our project. For example, 6.3 is about cleaning water, so something like chlorine pool tablets would have a stronger connection than our project (“due to us taking plastics away from landfills, breaking it down using bacteria, then recycling it into a high-quality product causing it not able to produce microplastic, so our water will be clean” is a little too far away). He also found 12.5 and 14.8 relevant and suggested we read more deeply into the SDGs and the new Global Plastics Treaty and circular economy (YZ. Chen, personal communication, June 20, 2024).
Applications to our Project
By giving us feedback on the project presentation and the SDGs, Mr. Chen helped us identify more SDGs relevant to our project and also helped us more clearly link our project with the SDGs we identified. He also gave us suggestions on what kinds of information we could find that would help our project. This meeting helped a lot since we learned a lot about SDGs and circular economy which we can then more clearly apply to our project.
Dr. HsiaoFen Han
Why did we approach him?
After we sent the gene out for sequencing, we discovered that the mutations we did were different from what we expected. Our instructor went to ask her friend about our failed attempt.
What did we learn?
We learnt that the IsPETase has a lot of repeated sequences, and it is usually hard to do cloning on this kind of gene. The professor suggested that we either make the primer longer to increase the specificity or just synthesize the whole mutated sequence because it’s actually not that expensive nowadays.
Applications to our Project
We learnt the reason for our mutation failing and how we could adapt our procedure which is discussed further in our engineering page.
Mr. Chao-li Huang
Why did we approach him?
Professor Huang is an assistant professor at National Cheng Kung University Taiwan. A study he participated in, along with Professor Ng, “Exploring PETase-like enzyme from shotgun metagenomes and co-expressing Colicin E7 in Escherichia coli for effective PET degradation” caught our attention. Also working on increasing PET degradation efficiency by E.Coli, his expertise aligns with our project’s goals (Chao, 2024).
Figure 6: Our meeting with Mr. Chao-li Huang
What did we learn?
Dr. Huang, in our meeting, suggested primarily how we could conduct dry lab experimentation to predict our mutated enzyme activity. The mutations in our enzymes are new and unexplored by current research, which increases the need to use dry lab predictions. Dr. Huang suggested to us that we could test out our mutations and check if there is a change in affinity to PET, which we could use to predict the efficiency of our enzyme. He also emphasized the importance of using visualization software to predict where our mutations are in terms of the enzyme and offered to provide us with the tools for predictions. Furthermore, Dr. Huang pointed out that yeast, as a eukaryotic cell, is less predictable as opposed to the prokaryotic E. coli (CL. Huang, personal communication, August 27, 2024).
Applications to our Project
After talking to Dr. Huang, we acquired a much better understanding of using dry lab tools to predict our enzyme efficiency, which we used to predict mutation sites (see parts). By his advice, we decided to test out our mutations. Furthermore, his suggestions for potential reasons for our first round of experiments showing unfavorable results helped us adjust our protocols in a way that prevented the same problem from occurring again.
Prof. Grace Ng
Why did we approach her?
Professor Ng is a professor at National Cheng Kung University Taiwan. A study she participated in, “Exploring PETase-like enzymes from shotgun metagenomes and co-expressing Colicin E7 in Escherichia coli for effective PET degradation” caught our attention. Also working on increasing PET degradation efficiency through the E. coli medium, her expertise aligns with our project’s goals.
Figure 7: Our meeting with Prof. Grace Ng
What did we learn?
We started the meeting by briefly introducing our project and showing our data to the professor, she immediately found errors and how we could improve. We started with agarose gel electrophoresis data, the professor suggested that we label every band of the DNA marker, and flip our image 180°. Professor Ng also suggested we run the plasmids again due to the lack of clarity. After looking at the SDS-PAGE gel picture, the professor also suggested we label every band of the DNA marker, flip our image 180°, and also told us to calculate the protein size again because 30 kDa (what we labeled as our protein) isn’t the size of IsPETase. Because when we did our functional assay, the T7-IsPETase plasmids were stored in DE3BL21 bacteria, and the professor said genes stored in DE3 bacteria are not stable, she decided to send us some bacteria that contained the IsPETase gene so we could run the gel as a control. When looking at the RT-qPCR data, she identified the same problem as us, which is that it does not show any induction. When looking at our co-culture data, she suggested we change from using PET film to PET powder (higher surface area) or p-nitrophenyl butyrate (their publication uses that, because it also has the ester bond IsPETase break, and the products can be checked using UV-visible spectra(400 nm)), and she decided to send us both chemicals. She also suggested we change from using whole cells to using crude protein to do the co-culture. At last, she showed us their presentation slides and taught us how to make our hooks (G. Ng, personal communication, August 27, 2024).
Applications to our Project
Firstly, we received advice for our wet lab experimental designs, from which we implemented PET powder and p-nitrophenyl. Secondly, we received suggestions regarding the finalization and application of our projects, giving us ways to complete the design cycle by designing a physical reaction space on top of our enzymes. Lastly, as for the display, she suggested that with limited time, we could work on animations demonstrating our ideas, and encouraged us to be more imaginative and creative in product design and application.
Mr. Dong Lu
Figure 8: Our meeting with Mr. Dong Lu
Why did we approach him?
Mr. Lu is a PhD student who worked on a technology that can enhance the efficiency of PETase-degrading plastic (“The enhancement of waste PET particles enzymatic degradation with a rotating packed bed reactor”). We asked about the technology they had and the bio-recycling industry (D, Lu, personal communication).
What did we learn?
We learned that our experiments could also use weight change before and after the PET powder co-culture experiment to determine the degrading efficiency. Also, the p-NPB assay to check the function of our enzyme only needs 1 minute because it reacts quickly. He also suggests we add a pH buffer when doing co-culture experiments because the terephthalic acid produced affects the enzyme’s degradation rate. For their paper, we learned the rotating packed bed’s pros and cons, and we could keep using our shaking incubator because our enzyme couldn’t withstand the impact of a rotating packed bed. He also gave us ways for us to calculate PET plastic’s crystallinity and the enzyme’s activity. Lastly, their technology isn’t going in the industry because it is too expensive.
Applications to our Project
We improved our experimental design on the two co-culture experiments. With the p-NPB assay’s time shrunk to 1 minute, a pH buffer was added to the PET powder assay, and the weight loss of the powder was also tracked.
Ms. Mariella Siña
Why did we approach her?
Ms. Siña is a Ph.D student focusing on the potential impacts of microplastics on organisms. With her input, we are hoping to add more insights to the problem, as well as evaluate our project success.
Figure 9: Our meeting with Ms. Mariella Siña
What did we learn?
Ms. Siña’s interview brought up several important effects of microplastics on organisms and humans, as well as potential solutions to the financial problems of the relatively costly enzymatic recycling method.
In terms of organisms, she pointed out that plastics can affect small organisms by occupying space in their stomachs and causing a sensation of fullness, leading to eventual death. The same applies to marine organisms, a focus in our project. She told us that in fact, there have been tests on fish species that support the fullness sensation theory. Furthermore, for marine organisms such as corals, microplastics could become carriers of E.coli and other microorganisms, killing the corals and affecting the entire related food chain.
In terms of human health, Ms. Siña informed us that there have been discoveries of microplastics in human vein or artery blockages, suggesting a potential correlation between microplastics and such blockages. This suggests that microplastics in the human body may have more severe consequences than we think, especially since plastics are now much more commonly used (M. Siña, personal communication, September 17, 2024).
Applications to our Project
Ms. Siña’s feedback helped reiterate the connection between our project and the SDGs. For SDG3, her idea of human vein blockages potentially resulting from microplastics in the human body shows the requirements to decrease levels of microplastics in the environment. For SDG 6 and SDG 14, relating to water pollution, the effects of microplastics on marine organisms such as fish and corals again strengthens the connections between the issue we are attempting to solve and the SDGs.
On top of giving us insights on the microplastic problem and SDGs, Ms. Siña also informed us of the current ongoing debate in the recycling industry, where a potential solution to the financial problems of recycling is making the companies that produce these plastics pay for the majority of the recycling fees by government intervention, while consumers pay a small amount. This proves that there is demand for a heightened degradation and recycling rate, that would help incentivize companies to pursue recycling, and specifically the more environmentally friendly bio recycling. Although a lot of these ideas are still in discussion it provides a clear future direction for recycling, proving that enzymatic recycling can see itself in the market in the future.
Prof. Mindy Hung
Why did we approach her?
A meeting with SDGs expert Professor Mindy Hung was hosted on September 19th, 2024, to consult on project sustainability aims, clarify SDG goals, and ask for other potential goals of focus. Professor Mindy Hung is a professional who analyzes sustainable practices in projects and industries. Therefore, her opinions and suggestions benefit our project's storyline and focus.
Figure 10: Our meeting with Prof. Mindy Hung
What did we learn?
During the meeting, we discussed our current SDG focuses with Professor Hung. Professor Hung gave suggestions on our presentation, stating that the current model needs a connection between motivation, product design, and results. She also suggested that the presentation clarify the intention behind each decision and how it contributed to the SDGs. Finally, she thinks that the current project lacks justification for social impacts and wants us to focus more on impacts on society than on the environment..
Applications to our Project
We concluded that an additional SDG should be added to the project, SDG 17, Partnership for Sustainable Development; applying Professor Hung’s suggestions, our project became more apparent with the storyline and motivations. We also covered the social aspect of the Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) goals, for which we lacked justification before this meeting (M, Hung, personal communication, September 19th, 2024).
Mr. George Snyman
Figure 11: Precious Plastic Company Logo
Why did we approach him?
Mr. Snyman is a part of the precious plastic project. As someone familiar with the plastic recycling industry, promotion of plastics recycling and challenges on the way to increasing plastic recycling, we hoped to receive feedback and knowledge on increasing public awareness, as well as the scale of our plastic recycling projects.
Figure 12: Our meeting with Mr. George Snyman
What did we learn?
Although precious plastic works on small scale recycling by individuals, Mr. Snyman suggested that rather than working on individual awareness, it is more effective to contact companies, whether on the local scales or to larger companies. Furthermore, he suggested that many large companies currently incorporate the corporate social integration (CSI) fund, which allows small businesses and projects with detailed plans, missions, visions to receive funding and support from large companies. Giving the successful example of Coca-Cola, he suggested that with a clear proposal and positive experimental results in the lab, there are approaches that would allow funding for industrialization of the project (G. Snyman, personal communication, September 25, 2024).
Applications to our Project
According to Mr. Snyman’s feedback, although the process for governments to make changes in law requires 3~5 years of effort, since plastic pollution and environmental awareness in general has become a much more important topic of discussion, it is likely that this process could be sped up in the future. This provides a potential extension to our project: to continue our project further, with a clear business plan and continued successful experimentation, there is a clear pathway to how we could implement our project into the firm/ industry scale.
Team Collaboration meetings
Outaouais team
Figure 13: Our meeting with the Outaouais team
The Outaouais team’s project is strongly related to our’s, as both of us focus on PET degradation with PETase specifically. Different from our idea to enhance the efficiency of PETase from E.Coli and yeast, The Outaouais team’s project is to eliminate steps of protein purification by making the bacteria secrete the enzyme outside of itself. The project information from the Outaouais team is very valuable for our project. Their idea combined with ours can potentially become an extension of both of our projects. Our design would enhance the efficiency of PETase, their project would simplify the process of protein purification, making our PETase enzyme a potential commercial production. The Outaouais team also shared their approach to integrate their project into the systems by working with the recycling industry. Our team would later pick up this idea and integrate our project by interviewing experts in the microplastics and plastics recycling industry for their opinions on our project, which could then help us make further adjustments and formulate an commercially-feasible plan
RVCE Bangalore team
Figure 14: Our meeting with the RVCE Bangalore team
Although this year, RVCE Bangalore is not directly participating in the competition , they are going to be a part of iGEM 2025. Our meeting with their team helped guide them through forming a completely new iGEM project, as well as the importance of SDGs, community outreach, and feedback from professionals. We hope that with our contribution, they are able to start off a brand new creative project next year!
UCM Madrid team
Figure 15: Our meeting with the UCM team
The UCM team focuses on a problem similar to ours. The UCM team focuses on the degradation of plastic with LCC (leaf-branch compost cutinase.) In our meeting we discussed the limitations of PET plastic, as it is not manufactured from a renewable resource. Regarding the wet lab experiments, they suggested that we try to freeze PET film and smash it into tiny fragments, increasing the surface area reacting with PETase. Their suggested way of experimentation may help us with getting more apparent experimental outcomes that our machinery could more quickly detect, as we were struggling at first to find significant results.
Furthermore, our project could be directly applied to theirs since they are also working on producing PHA bioplastics using none other than our product monomer, TPA. If we can increase degradation rates and, hence, TPA production rates, we can aim to improve the rates of PHA production, too.
CSMU x NCHU TAIWAN team
In our meeting, the team discussed their challenge of developing more effective treatments for neurodegenerative diseases, specifically focusing on producing levodopa through plant-based methods and testing its efficacy in zebrafish models, while also enhancing experimental accuracy with AI and innovative techniques. Currently, treatments for conditions like Parkinson's disease primarily manage symptoms, with levodopa being a common option, but they do not cure the disease. Their project aims to improve levodopa production using Nicotiana benthamiana as a plant-based platform for enzyme expression, followed by testing in zebrafish models. Additionally, their human practice initiatives aim to raise public awareness about Parkinson’s disease and the potential of synthetic biology through educational outreach. This includes podcasts aimed at a general audience discussing Parkinson's and iGEM challenges, presentations for university students with project posters during iGEM week, and YouTube videos that explain synthetic biology to all audiences, fostering greater accessibility and understanding of scientific advancements.
VIT team
Figure 16: Our meeting with the VIT team
The VIT team's problem addresses the critical issue of high UV Index levels in Vellore, Tamil Nad, posing significant risks to skin health; there is an urgent need for effective protective measures against UV radiation. The current sunscreen includes toxic retinol and iron oxide. Their project idea is to enhance the gene coding for Violaxanthin BCH & ZEP from Capsicum annum & Synthetically modify E.coli BL21 to convert beta-carotene to violaxanthin. Their project includes a dry lab section, which we want to learn more about because it is something that we were lacking in our initial design. We also discussed the cost and finance. The conventional way to produce cosmetics is expensive, and their project can make them cheaper and more effective. Therefore, we learned about their method to measure financial improvements through the project.
IISER-TVM team
Figure 17: Our meeting with the IISER-TVM team
The IISER-TVM team focuses on the problem of beauty industries in India cutting down sandalwood trees to extract the oil, which poses a serious threat to this species. By cloning their modified bacteria, they can first degrade PET plastic into TPA and EG, then synthesize the sandalwood oil from the degraded products using another enzyme. This process helps with deforestation and plastic pollution at the same time. Since they are not using genetically modified PET degradation methods, our project could be applied to theirs. If we could increase TPA and EG production rates through enhancing PETase enzymatic degradation, we can help them improve their production rates, too.
We mostly exchanged our ways of educating others and also focused on other human practices things like finding experts or attending/holding other events. Because they also hosted lecture-like events, they suggested we use very simple language every time we start a lecture because we could always make it harder, but when students decide to give up due to the difficult concepts we deliver, it’s much harder to get their attention back again. They also had a hard time finding experts, with the help of the UCM team (which we both collaborated on before), we concluded sending out hundreds of emails to everyone in the field.
Other HP contributions
McMaster iGEM Sticker book
McMaster iGEM decided to create a sticker book and collect stickers from international iGEM teams, with the mission of creating a simple and easy way for teams to showcase their project, especially to audiences unfamiliar with synthetic biology. Our team submitted 4 stickers that best represent our project, to join them on the journey of inspiring more projects and introduce our project to more!
Figure 18: Stickers sent to McMaster’s sticker book
Figure 19: Our page on McMaster’s sticker book
IISER-TVM World Environmental Health Day Celebration
Under their invitation, we joined the World Environmental Health Day Celebration on Sep. 26, hosted by iGEM IISER-TVM. Their project, focusing on the production of sandalwood oil, wants to celebrate the day by displaying plant-derived fragrances from all around the world.
Figure 20: IISER-TVM’s instagram post cover and our contribution
Our team’s contribution featured Mothballs, a fragrance extracted initially from camphor trees in the 17th century in Taiwan. It is used as a pesticide and deodorant. After the rise of the oil refining and petrochemical industries, it was replaced by chemicals. However, the shape and smell remain in the homes of the majority of Taiwanese citizens. By sharing the fragrance, we aim to share Taiwanese culture while being a part of the celebration for the environment.
iGEM McGill BIOME Book
The BIOME book is hosted by McGill, and this year with their theme of RNA or DNA-related proteins, we decided to join their collaboration to promote our project even further.
We submitted BamHI, which is used in our project to cleave the palindromic sequence 5’-GGATCC-3’ after the first guanine to create a sticky end.
Taiwan Synbio Alliance (TGEM)
Figure 21: Presentation during TGEM (on stage & team booths)
From August 25 to August 26, Taipei-KCISLK-V2 held an iGEM seminar called tGEM, where they invite teams from Taiwan to interact with each other. On the first day of the seminar, our team presented our project in a booth provided by the organizer. We received feedback from other teams’ members and instructors, including what future directions we can follow and where we can apply our products in the real world. We also listened to other group’s projects and gained insight from their research. On the second day of the seminar, we got to present our project in front of different professors, which was also a mock presentation that allowed us to practice for the actual iGEM jamboree. We discovered that other teams incorporated effective hooks and fluent transitions for their presentation, which our team lacks and can be improved for future events. After talking to Professor Kuang-Ta Lee from the field of molecular biology and application of biotechnology, we realized that we should emphasize on the innovative aspects of our project. We also modified our presentation slides according to the professors' suggestions, deleting or merging pages that can save our presentation time for other important content. Some experienced students who attended the iGEM competition from past years also gave us some suggestions. They pointed out that our presentation is unclear, and our issues as well as solutions, can be addressed more effectively by showing a picture of the complete storyline, allowing the audience to understand our research more thoroughly.
Instagram page
Figure 22: Part of our instagram page
Our Instagram page @igem.kcisxiugangtaipei allows us to promote all aspects of our project to the public through social media. The page consists of environment-related day celebrations, project and team information, progress updates, and event details. We plan to reach out to the public through such a medium, allowing them to view and learn about the iGEM community and the potential hazards of PET microplastics (as discussed on the SDGs and Education pages).
Further Extension
Applications of TPA in iGEM 2024
Through a series of team meetings with teams working on similar projects, we surprisingly discovered several uses of one of our major products after degradation — TPA. The interconnectedness between our project and others demonstrated possible extensions and collaboration chances.
iGEM UCM Team
The UCM team’s presentation showed us that their project, on top of producing TPA from leaf and branch compost cutinase (LCC), also works on producing PHA (Polyhydroxyalkanoates) bioplastics using TPA. This means that if our product is capable of producing TPA at a higher rate, we could help enhance efficiency of the production of the PHA they are using.
Figure 23: UCM team’s post explaining their project
iGEM IISER-TVM
The IISER-TVM team’s project focused on using TPA to produce sandalwood oil, an essential oil obtained currently by cutting sandalwood trees, an environmentally unsustainable method. Again, if our project could be used to enhance their efficiency, it could be a future direction our project can go
Extensions on Human Practices
Although we have found stakeholders and researchers relating to our project, we were unable to connect to Carbios, a company working with PET degradation that holds many patents of mutated PETase enzymes that are put into industrial use. If we could connect to the company, or other companies using PETase enzyme degradation, we would be able to obtain more information on the industrialization and scaling up of PETase degradation.
Citation
Chao, 2024, Exploring PETase-like enzyme from shotgun metagenome and co-expressing Colicin E7 in Escherichia coli for effective PET degradation. ScienceDirect.
