Sustainable

Sustainability means thinking long term for our projects. Our team believes that sustainability is a responsibility, so we initially prioritized environmental friendliness and social benefits in the design of our projects.

We are committed to finding a balance between increasing the nutritional value of cucumbers and minimizing the potential impact on the environment. We actively contacted local plantations in Beijing to learn about and observe the growth characteristics of cucumber in the field at the cucumber planting greenhouses, including its growth cycle, adaptability to the environment, and interrelationships with other organisms. At the same time, literature review was conducted to understand the gene expression patterns and to establish a foundation for our study to ensure that our program is safe, effective, and will not cause unintended interference with other organisms or ecosystems. Therefore, we chose a natural mechanism-based approach to promote flavonoid production in cucumber epidermal hair cells through the CsTBH-CsPAL co-expression module, which is based on a natural biological process that not only enhances the content of flavonoids in cucumber, but also strengthens the resistance of cucumber to environmental stress, reduces the use of pesticides to a certain extent, and further mitigates the interference with the environment.

We fully consider the practical application value of the project and hope that it can bring positive impacts to the society. In agricultural planting production, the increase in the content of flavonoids in cucumbers can improve the quality and nutritional value of cucumbers, which in turn will help farmers increase their income. In a conversation with Song, the director of the plantation, our project was recognized by frontline farmers, who can expect to see significant economic gains when they are able to grow healthier and more valuable cucumbers. For consumers, flavonoid-rich cucumber as a natural nutritious vegetable will also become a better food choice, not only can taste the different taste of cucumber, but also for their own health to bring many benefits, to meet the public demand for healthy, natural nutritious food. And we are also through the online and offline channels for science popularization, publicity, education activities, to guide people to form a more scientific, reasonable healthy eating habits, and further enhance the sustainable development of our research results.

Sustainable development is an important challenge for all-mankind, and it is also our responsibility as iGEMers. We will continue to work hard to improve the project design, to provide practical evidence for future modification of plants to produce more useful metabolites, and to ensure that the results of our research can bring real benefits to the society and the environment, contributing to the creation of a better future with positive impacts on mankind.