Human Practices

Our project aims to explore more effective ways to treat neurodegenerative diseases through comprehensive research. In our study, utilizing synthetic biology techniques, we demonstrated that rose flavonoids have significant inhibitory effects on neurodegenerative diseases. We aspire to make a positive impact on society through targeted outreach and awareness campaigns, providing support to individuals suffering from circadian rhythm disruptions, those battling neurodegenerative conditions, and even patients with Alzheimer's disease.

With the rapid development of modern society, mental stress has been increasingly affecting people's lives, and the associated problems are gradually emerging. Our iGEM project stems from a deep concern about the link between late-night habits and neurodegenerative diseases. As a high school student team, we are passionate about leveraging synthetic biology to address the challenges brought about by sleep deprivation. Drawing inspiration from comprehensive literature reviews and population surveys, we are committed to highlighting these critical issues and making a positive impact on the community through our project.

The significance of our project lies in providing an accessible solution for individuals with circadian rhythm disruptions, helping to reduce the risk of neurodegenerative diseases. Additionally, it offers a promising method to slow the progression of early-stage Alzheimer's disease (AD). Unlike traditional treatments that often have side effects, limited efficacy, or high costs, rose flavonoids emerge as a natural and safe option with broad potential applications. This gives us strong motivation and confidence in our research and development efforts.

Although rose flavonoids have demonstrated potential health benefits such as antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties in laboratory studies, there is still a lack of human clinical trial data. Therefore, before promoting the use of rose flavonoids, it is essential to ensure their safety and efficacy for human use. Additionally, it remains uncertain whether long-term consumption of rose flavonoids could lead to unknown side effects. Further research is needed to evaluate their long-term impact on humans, as the absence of clear data could pose health risks.

We recognize that while rose flavonoid is promising, its research and application also present ethical concerns and challenges. Throughout the research and promotion process, it is crucial to ensure safety and efficacy, respect intellectual property and equitable access, and minimize negative impacts on the environment and animals. Additionally, we must maintain transparency and avoid misleading advertising. In line with our commitment, our project will strictly adhere to iGEM’s Safety Regulations, ensuring all operations follow safety guidelines, and we will not conduct unapproved research activities, such as animal testing, without proper reporting.

In iGEM, Human Practices serves as a crucial initiative to inspire the next generation of biological engineers to consider the broader implications of their work. This involves not only understanding the reasons behind their projects but also examining how their innovations might influence the world and how global factors could shape their work. The Human Practices initiative is dynamic and evolving, with the iGEM Human Practices committee reassessing and refining the program each year to ensure that teams are encouraged to engage responsibly and ethically.

From the very beginning, we strategically planned our Human Practices, focusing on rose flavonoids, the impact of sleep deprivation and the related diseases. We created two tailored reports for different audiences: one for professionals and the other for the general public.

Initially, following in-depth discussions within the team, members divided responsibilities to collaboratively develop and refine a survey aimed at the general public. The goal was to understand public awareness of the harms caused by sleep deprivation and their knowledge of potential treatment solutions. Through on-site interviews, we gathered valuable, practical information, which played a crucial role in understanding the public's needs and clarifying our research objectives.

Subsequently, we had the opportunity to interview a doctor from Beijing Friendship Hospital affiliated with Capital Medical University and the president of a biotech company. Both are seasoned professionals in the biomedical field, with experience in the life and health industries, and their insights greatly contributed to our Human Practices work. They shared valuable perspectives on the potential of rose flavonoids, which deepened our understanding of the project. Additionally, Dr. Jiang explained the harm of sleep deprivation and its associated health conditions. After the interviews, we summarized the discussions and organized the professional insights gathered. This process not only enhanced the quality of our survey but also provided valuable insights for our research, laying a solid foundation for future work.

In the following days, we made significant contributions by providing experimental data and collecting public opinions on sleep deprivation, neurodegenerative diseases, and rose flavonoids. This was instrumental in advancing our research on rose flavonoids as a potential treatment for neurodegenerative diseases. We also conducted a thorough analysis of all the survey results, ensuring the comprehensiveness and safety of our final research.

Moreover, through social media platforms and messaging apps, we gathered insights into public demand for rose flavonoids, helping us better understand the market scale and product design. This also laid a solid foundation for preparing our entrepreneurship segment.

Staying up late has become a major health problem in the contemporary society. Through the observation of our guardians, teachers and peers, we noticed a prevailing problem of staying up late amongst middle-age and younger generation. We conducted the following sample interviews to statistically determine the prevalence of the issue of staying up late, and to test people's ground knowledge about circadian rhythm disruption and the neural degenerative diseases. After finding an unsatisfying result of people's unawareness on this health subject, Squirrel-Beijing reached out to professionals for advices on our project design, including biotech company leader, tea business owner and doctor, identified the principles of our project.

To raise awareness on the harmful impacts on CRD, on our social medias we made attempts spreading our value, popularize the knowledge of AD, and familiarizing internet users with the effect of rose flavone. On the other hand, we designed the bottled sugar-free rose flavone tea as our product.

Interviews

i. Why interview?
The researchers conducted around fifty interviews to acknowledge the prevalence, the frequency, and the extent of their circadian rhythms disruption (CDR), to understand people’s knowledge about the long-term impacts resulted from staying up late, and to get their opinions on health products. The interviewees range from 14-year-old adolescents to 50-year-old people. In addition, we wonder if the answers given by different age groups would diverge.

ii. What to interview?
Different age groups: adolescents, people in their twentieth or thirtieth, and the middle-aged.
Interview ideation: the definition, the personal condition, the short-term and long-term effects of staying up late and the market of related health products.
Interview content:
What do you think is the standard for staying up late? Do you usually stay up late? Do your family / friends stay up late?
What is the main reason for your staying up late? How to keep your brain awake?
Do you feel that staying up late will affect the work and life of the next day? How did you feel after staying up late?
Do you know anything about the long-term impact of staying up late? What disease could people end up with? Have you ever tried using health care products to relieve the exhaust of staying up late? Have you ever seen that kind of products?
We are in a scientific research project, trying to extract the active ingredients in rose flavonoids and develop a functional tea to repair the neuronal damage caused by passive late nights, to prevent or alleviate neurodegenerative diseases. Are you interested in our products?

iii. Interview sample:
[Adolescent]:
Ms. Niu, a 16-year-old student
· What do you think is the standard for staying up late? After 12:00, or don't sleep
· Do you usually stay up late? I don't often stay up late, and I stay up late at 12 o'clock.
· Have family/friends stayed up late? Yes.
· What is the main reason you stay up late? (Busy at work?) Do you need playtime after working late, resulting in less sleep, a vicious cycle? Academically, recreationally. (subjectively don't want to sleep) swipe your phone, read blogs, can't sleep.
· What are the ways to keep the brain awake? When you are sleepy, hold the ruler with your thumb or index finger, and if you want to sleep, the ruler will fall and you will wake up.
· Do you feel that staying up late will affect your work life the next day? Yes, it will be sleepy, it will affect the state, and I will regret it
· How did you feel about one of the few late nights you had before? It will be more energetic, but it will feel guilty when you stay up late
· Do you know what the long-term effects of staying up late are? What diseases can it cause? Caused by physiological problems caused by staying up late. Staying up late can damage your eyesight, damage your brain, and affect the quality of sleep afterwards. Depression, cardiovascular disease.
· Have you tried supplements to relieve late nights? Not
· Have you ever seen the promotion of health supplements for staying up late? Not.
· We are conducting a scientific research project to try to extract the active ingredients in rose flavonoids to develop a functional tea to repair the neuronal damage caused by passive staying up late, so as to prevent or alleviate neurodegenerative diseases, are you interested in learning more? No. Because I don't usually drink tea.

[Office worker in their twentieth / thirtieth]:
Mr. Chen, 26 years old, working in an Internet company, has weekends off and usually does not work overtime.
· What do you think is the standard for staying up late? Sleep after 1 a.m.
· Do you usually stay up late? often
· Have family/friends stayed up late? The family is less likely to stay up late. Friends stay up a lot late. There are very few people who don't stay up late in this business.
· What is the main reason you stay up late? (Busy at work?) Do you need playtime after working late, resulting in less sleep, a vicious cycle? Work and play.
· What are the ways to keep the brain awake? There is no way.
· Do you feel that staying up late will affect your work life the next day? Depends on how well you sleep after staying up late. Generally, it is unlikely to affect the next day.
· How did you feel about one of the few late nights you had before? Compare sinful but happy.
· Do you know what the long-term effects of staying up late are? What diseases can it cause? It is not very clear, and it is speculated that it may affect endocrine.
· Have you tried supplements to relieve late nights? I've used melatonin for a while, but it doesn't feel like it's working.
· Have you ever seen the promotion of health supplements for staying up late? I haven't seen much of this propaganda other than the brain platinum I saw when I was a child.
· We are conducting a scientific research project to try to extract the active ingredients in rose flavonoids to develop a functional tea to repair the neuronal damage caused by passive staying up late, so as to prevent or alleviate neurodegenerative diseases, are you interested in learning more? I'm interested in knowing, but I feel like it will take a long time for the product to be marketed.
· Summary: People who often stay up late may also be unaware of the chronic diseases and irreversible brain damage that can be caused by staying up late. The public's knowledge gap about the long-term effects of staying up late is also one of the starting points (significance) of our research.

Middle-aged parents:
Mr. Lv, age:48, Job: finance (has weekends off and is usually flexible).
· What do you think is the standard for staying up late? Go to sleep after zero.
· Do you usually stay up late? Stay up late, 3-4 times.
· Have family/friends stayed up late? Yes, colleagues and friends.
· What is the main reason you stay up late? (Busy at work?) Do you need playtime after working late, resulting in less sleep, a vicious cycle? A certain amount of entertainment is needed after the work is done.
· What are the ways to keep the brain awake? Watch the video, play chess.
· Do you feel that staying up late will affect your work life the next day? Yes.
· Do you know what the long-term effects of staying up late are? What diseases can it cause? Cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, emotional instability, easy fatigue.
· Have you tried supplements to alleviate the effects of staying up late? Occasionally.
· Have you ever seen the promotion of health supplements for staying up late? Seen.
· Have you been exposed to propaganda advocating not staying up late? Contacted.
· We are conducting a scientific research project to try to extract the active ingredients in rose flavonoids to develop a functional tea to repair the neuronal damage caused by passive staying up late, so as to prevent or alleviate neurodegenerative diseases, are you interested in learning more? I usually carry concerns on new products.

iv. What’s the takeaway?
1. Recognized standard of staying up late: Most interviewees agree on that not going to bed until later than 24 or 1 o’clock is defined as staying up late.
2. The reason for staying up late: Some people stay up late to complete the work or study assignment, while most of them stay up late for entertainment due to a tired day of work.
3. The feeling of staying up late: Most of the interviewees share similar feelings of staying up late, such as dizziness and slowed brain function.
4. The long-term impact of staying up late: few people know specific chronic diseases and body disorder that may develop as a result of staying up late, while some interviewees mentioned that CDR could affect endocrine system and nervous system, which is approaching the scientific research outcomes, suggesting that our project has a potential value in publicizing health-care knowledge which is closely related to global citizens’ daily life.
5. To put our product on market: Regarding that a majority of the public is not equipped with systematic biology knowledge, we have to make a clear statement of how the product can function and that it is not followed by side effects.
6.To set the product price: The price should be sensible, as most people expressed that they have some interest in the product but the price is an important aspect to consider.

Here’s our takeaway from the interview: Most interviewees agree on that not going to bed until later than 24 or 1 o’clock is defined as staying up late; Some people stay up late to complete the work or study assignment, while most of them stay up late for entertainment due to a tired day of work; Most of the interviewees share similar feelings of staying up late, such as dizziness and slowed brain function; Few people know specific chronic diseases and body disorder that may develop as a result of staying up late, while some interviewees mentioned that CDR could affect endocrine system and nervous system, which is approaching the scientific research outcomes, suggesting that our project has a potential value in publicizing health-care knowledge which is closely related to global citizens’ daily life; Regarding that a majority of the public is not equipped with systematic biology knowledge, we have to make a clear statement of how the product can function and that it is not followed by side effects; The price should be sensible, as most people expressed that they have some interest in the product but the price is an important aspect to consider; Since people know relatively less about health products, we designed our products to be acceptable for them and accessible in daily life.

b. Document research The literature review focused on the relationship between circadian rhythms, sleep, and neurodegenerative diseases, as well as the potential role of flavonoids in diseases such as Alzheimer's disease (AD). The importance is highlighted, and the potential therapeutic effects are explored.
Circadian rhythms and neurodegenerative diseases: Literature reviews the effects of circadian rhythms and sleep disturbances on neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, and Huntington's disease. Research suggests that circadian dysrhythmia and sleep disturbances may drive pathological processes in the early stages of these diseases. In Alzheimer's disease in particular, the accumulation of amyloid plaques is closely related to sleep quality.
Sleep disorders in neurodegenerative diseases: In patients with Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, etc., sleep disorders can occur decades before typical symptoms appear. Sleep deprivation is thought to exacerbate neurodegeneration and accelerate the deposition of amyloid plaques in Alzheimer's disease.[1]
The role of flavonoids: The literature also reviews the antioxidant properties of flavonoids, especially flavonoids and carotenoids present in roses. These compounds may play a role in the prevention and treatment of neurodegenerative diseases by scavenging free radicals, reducing oxidative stress, and protecting nerve cells from damage.[2]
Conclusion:
Better understanding of neurodegenerative diseases
Understand how staying up late hurts the brain
Flavonoid compounds were found to be effective for treatment, and the research topic was refined
Understand the physicochemical properties of rose flavone

In the investigation section, we crafted a questionnaire including 21 questions to identify our targeted audience, understanding the common issues related to staying up late, and people’s preference on tea——our intended end product. We distributed this questionnaire widely across Beijing, gathering insights from over 1000 participant aged 15 to 60 to ensure the accuracy of the data collected. Our thorough research into flavonoid substances assures us that our products are safe, consumable, and effective in addressing specific symptoms. By facing toward the population of staying up late, we aim to bring comfort and relief to those who are acing short sleep durations and demanding morning responsibilities. After a deep investigation through surveys, research, and data collection, we are confident that our end product, the tea bag, will serve as a friendly and effective daily solution to help alleviate physical discomfort. .

Result Visualized Analysis

Conclusion:
Gender and Age Distribution
In this survey, male participants accounted for 34.23%, while female participants accounted for 65.77%.
The age group is mainly concentrated between 31 and 50 years old, with those aged 41 to 50 accounting for 30.55%, and those aged 31 to 40 accounting for 16.82%. The student group accounts for a relatively large proportion, at 30.65%.

Distribution of Work Types
Among the participants, students account for a relatively large proportion, at 30.65%, followed by administrative management and finance and accounting, accounting for 13.23% and 12.34% respectively.
Sleep Habits The participants' sleep onset and wake-up times are quite dispersed, with sleep onset primarily concentrated between 23:00 and 00:00, and wake-up times mainly concentrated between 6:00 and 7:00.
The physiological discomfort caused by staying up late mainly includes fatigue and drowsiness (87.16%), attention dispersion (57.51%), etc.; psychological discomfort mainly includes significant emotional fluctuations (43.68%), memory decline (63.98%), etc .
Sleep Monitoring and Supplement Usage
The proportion of individuals who frequently experience deep sleep is 61.89%, while the proportion using sleep monitoring devices is relatively low, at only 10.61%. The proportion of individuals using supplements to alleviate staying up late symptoms is relatively high, primarily using vitamin supplements (34.03%) and energy drinks and coffee (23.58%).

With Mr. Luo

We first conducted an interview with Mr. Luo, the chairman of a technology company. During the interview, we asked several different questions in order to understand two main aspects: the product's commercial value and conversion possibilities, as well as the final pricing of the product. Mr. Luo mentioned that the product can not only help consumers improve early Alzheimer's prevention, but also support some rose-related agro-industries like . At the same time, the product currently has some investment value to attract companies to convert it. In terms of pricing, it is important to consider the effectiveness of the product and the target audience. If the audience is wide, the price should be lower. If it’s narrow, then the price should be higher. In addition, the product should also consider its sustainability and whether it can be consumed over a long period of time to get the best out of the product. We can basically determine that the pricing of the product needs to be based on the target audience and the effectiveness of the product, as well as the long-term development of the product in the future. The product's influence in various aspects ensures its commercial value.

With Dr. Jiang

We also interviewed a doctor, Dr. Jiang. We aimedto find out whether flavonoids have been used in the treatment of AD, the mechanism of flavonoid drugs and other issues. Dr. Jiang stated that with the increasing prevalence of AD at younger ages, there is a great demand for effective preventive health product. If our findings are valid, the product we made will be very popular. Flavonoids have been shown to be effective in the prevention and treatment of many diseases, so the exploration of their functions is very promising. The industry is paying extensive attention to the application and future development potential of the molecular compounds like the flavonoids. In conclusion, we can know that there is a huge market demand for the product, and the flavonoids we use are worth exploring further for their effects in AD.

We conducted extensive research to explore the value of Rose Flavone, a unique compound with significant health benefits, particularly in preventing neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's and addressing circadian rhythm disruption. Our approach to Human Practices (HP) combines scientific validation with real-world engagement, involving interviews with doctors, sleep disorder specialists, and individuals experiencing sleep deprivation. This comprehensive strategy provides a deeper understanding of the issue from both medical and consumer perspectives, ensuring our solutions are rooted in real needs. Additionally, by utilizing platforms like RED, WeChat Official Account and Instagram, we aim too broaden our outreach and effectively promote healthier lifestyle choices. The interviews reveal that most participants recognize that staying up past midnight constitutes late-night behavior and that many do so for entertainment or work-related tasks, experiencing common effects like dizziness and reduced cognitive function. However, few are aware of the chronic health risks associated with sleep deprivation, highlighting a significant opportunity for our project to raise awareness and disseminate health information. Our ultimate goal is to better understand the relationship between sleep deprivation and the potential health benefits of Rose Flavone, which we intend to translate into a consumer-friendly product. Looking ahead, we plan to develop "Squirrel," our proprietary IP, to enhance brand engagement through storytelling and interactive content. Collaborating with major corporations in the health and wellness sectors will help us scale production and ensure our products are widely accessible. Furthermore, we are committed to eco-friendly packaging, utilizing biodegradable materials and recycled components to minimize our environmental impact. By leveraging social media for community building and education, we aim to create engaging content that raises awareness about the health benefits of Rose Flavone and our commitment to sustainability.

[1] Bidirectional relationship between sleep and Alzheimer's disease: role of amyloid, tau, and other factors, DOI: 10.1038/s41386-019-0478-5

[2]Flavonols and Carotenoids in Yellow Petals of Rose Cultivar (Rosa ‘Sun City’): A Possible Rich Source of Bioactive Compounds, Huihua Wan, Chao Yu, Yu Han, Xuelian Guo, Sagheer Ahmad, Aoying Tang, Jia Wang, Tangren Cheng, Huitang Pan, and Qixiang Zhang, Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry 2018 66 (16), 4171-4181, DOI: 10.1021/acs.jafc.8b01509