Team:AISSU Union/Human Practices
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Overview
n this year, AISSU-Union establish the project Memory Bread, to attempt to find a new way that can solve the decline in recognitive ability in senior group. We planned a set of activities and attempts to discuss with different experts, in different fields, also, we attempt to discuss more about commercial development of project.
In the first week of starting of our integrated human practice, we wanted to know the details about people’s attitude towards this project, transgenic product. With numerous feedbacks, we preliminarily found out that people get many concerns about our new-designed microorganism and how well the effects of extracted naringenin and catechin may have on human body. In order to explore more factual information about the actual commercial activities of bread selling, experiment designing and food safety, we set up a series of comprehensive conversations with experts, individuals, bread factory manager, bakery manger and bakery staffs. These activities were intended to expand our horizon. Due to their enthusiastic responses. We successfully got much more suggestions beyond our expectations. and then improve our experiment’s efficiency. Meanwhile, during the continuous discussion with a variety of public groups, which acquired a more comprehensive understanding to synthetic biology, as an emerging science. In return, we garnered sufficient information about social attitudes and future perspectives of synthetic biology. Despite the divergence in points of view, through sincere communication and unremitting efforts. We reached mutual understanding.
Initial Questionnaire:
Firstly, in order to establish an initial understanding of the public opinion on our project, we designed an online questionnaire in Wenjuanxing (powered by www.wjx.cn) after a short meeting. Surprisingly, we received 952 valid questionnaires within only 1 day after we distributed the questionnaire to our family members, friends, and also via sharing in WeChat moment. All data were collected in anonymous ways to ensure its validity.
The majority of questionnaires are given an important hint that most have relatively higher educated level. (The majorities of respondents were relatively highly educated) Overall, more than 94% of people get high school certificates or even higher. That situation made further investigation become feasible as they probably get enough knowledge to understand what we are talking about. Male respondents voted 2 percentages more than female respondents on finishing the questionaries. Moreover, the feedback from different ages group is relatively even. In this initial questionnaire, we paid more attention on the age groups of young adults, whose ages are between 18 to 40 years old. We underestimate the enthusiasm young people have to synthetic biology and health products.
Another more astonishing fact is that people in China, get a general recognition of the transgenic product. More than 90 percent of people will think of transgenic food, when they mention the first impression about transgenic product. Unexpectedly, the agricultural and forestry genetic also received considerable attention from people. That situation shows a great potential that many people care about the tremendous effects arising from the transgenic product manufactured by synthetic biology that would bring to our lives.
Next, when we firstly mentioned our two core compounds, which are naringenin and catechin, in our projects. Over 80 percentage of people hadn’t heard anything about the flavanols
Also, following by the last question, we attempted to find more about people’s viewpoint to transgenic food.
However, people’s attitudes towards transgenic goods were not really optimistic. People only gave 34.04 out of 100 points for letting family members to eat transgenic food. The marks of the behavior of buying transgenic food, was only 41.42 of 100 points in average. Following that, when we asked people “if they would feel anxious and confused to eat transgenic food”, they gave 51.5 of 100 on average. For trying those new food, people are really prudent.
Generally, after a detailed analysis of the first questionnaire set to people，we underestimated the enthusiasm young people showed on synthetic biology and health products. Meanwhile, more people emphasized the process of production should be transparent, and with some effective certification from government. To ensure the product could be persistent but not ineffective to improve their health level. These feedbacks inspired us. After that, we set up a series of corresponding Human Practices activities to dig into these questions.
COLLECTING ADVICES FROM EXPERTS.
1. FACE TO FACE – INTERVIEW WITH PHARMACEUTICAL EXPERTS IN TIANFU LIFE SCIENCE PARK, CHENGDU, CHINA.
AFTER we received the latest feedback of the first questionnaire, we decided to start up our first Human Practice activity of HOW A YEAST FERMENTATION TECHNOLOGY IS DESIGNED. We successfully contacted with Mr. Jing Xiong and Mr. Fengchun Chen. Mr. Jing Xiong is the main manager and designer of yeast fermentation process in Sichuan Xieli pharmaceutical Co. LTD.
As we were still in experimental process, at first the representative ask him about how to set up experiments in a more scientific way. He suggested elements of production: The factor which can under us control lies in of the small and medium experiment. The first is accumulation, and the second is the analysis and summary, which are the process of accumulating over time
Firstly, we mentioned that our yeast cell used 9 genes from different plants to build up 2 different plasmids inserted into yeast to produce flavanols such as naringenin and catechin. He deeply appreciated our ideas and enquired more details, and give out some suggestion. In his view, to get purer flavanol, the better purification is crucial. “To be specific, it is a kind of polyhydroxyphenol which means that it is difficult to purified theoretically. Not only is it easy to oxidize, but also easily dissolved into an aqueous solution.” he said. In view of this situation, he gave us two constructive suggestions on our experiment procedures.
1. We can add a protective measure to avoid excessive oxidize the flavanols. 2. Trying continuous fermentation in the future. Firstly, let cell grow to an appropriate concentration in petri dish. Then we could produce an intermediate product, then take the second stage to get our final product catechin. For example, the naringenin is the intermediate product. Then should exactly control the system’s temperatures to let reaction goes in positive direction.
For the idea of using genetic modified yeast to produce compound. Mr. Xiong emphasized the benefits of using yeast as the original microorganism used in fermentation.
According to the food safety policies of European Commission. High pathogenicity is the source of tertiary pathogenic bacteria and Bacillus are listed in the first class, so that’s the difference of using yeast rather than using E. coli.
He suggested that yeasts were hard to form inclusion body, getting better enzyme expression, also having a more stable growth rate of yeast cells, to reach OD 600. So that the concentration of yeast could be higher.
“If you’re making catechin that you can eat straight away, people will ask you where it comes from. Hence, relatively, yeast has more advantages” Mr. Xiong explained to us.
When we talk about the prospects for genetically modified organism products and synthetic biology, he felt optimistic to the future of synthetic biology, due to the fact that the general social trend is that people, whether it’s a foreigner or a national, are willing to pay for their lives and health nowadays. Meanwhile, they are willing to pay for biotechnology, biological knowledge, and biological products.
The genetic modified yeast is definitely a product of synthetic biology. He also pointed out a problem. Our products can be extracted from plants, such as tea and cocoa. But flavanols and polyphenols can be extracted from tea which some are synthetic and some are natural extraction. Then, the cost of doing supercritical extraction is much higher than that of organic extraction. Hence, it is really meaningful on the natural synthesis of flavanol, although it costs far more than chemical synthesis, it’s the same price in market. Because we cannot determine its source via the existing detection methods, that give us a boarder vision that how to ensure the commercial development become more possible for us. So that, the promotion of product in the future could be possible. The traceability techniques of sources of flavanols are crucial. Making the future development of the promotion of Memory Bread become more challenging.
Also, Mr. Fengchun Chen, another expert who is working in pharmaceutical chemosynthesis, shared his opinion. In a bid to make food that could have similar functions with medicines, he suggested that clinical data could be considered, in order to make sure it can get predicted effects on specific group. And also, the target groups should be investigated thoroughly. Regarding the issue of making and exporting the product, his suggestion would be to contrast the medicine’s effects on different races
After the face-to-face discussion. We kept in touch with the two experts in Chengdu, China. Before we took up the fermentation process. We tried to contact with Mr. Jing Xiong to find our more details of how to do yeast fermentation. Surprisingly, we received enthusiastic response. Mr. Xiong gave a detailed process of how to control and adjust different variables in the experiments. His prompt responses gave us more encouragement and actually helped us save more time to search more information.
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How to control the different variables in fermentation
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How to control the different variables in fermentation
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How to control the different variables in fermentation
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How to control the different variables in fermentation
COLLECTING ADVICES FROM EXPERTS.
ONLINE DISCUSSION---AN INTERVIEW WITH EXPERTS WORK IN FOOD SCIENCE AND FOOD ENGINEERING.
As we found out from questionaries feedback and the first face-to-face interview in Chengdu pharmaceutical Co. LTD., we had noticed that the public cared more about the safety of food and transgenic product. So, we contacted Mr. Tiehua Zhang, the dean and the professor of the College of Food Science and Engineering, Jilin University. He had been working in the field of biotech food.
As we were explored more about several process of food processing. He was quite interested in our idea of using Golden Gate assembly to assemble 9 different genes respectively into 2 plasmids, then inserting them into the yeast to create a new type of yeast to produce flavanol.
He mentioned that, as for catechin, a main chemical compound in tea, that drinking tea has become a really important role in people’s lives. As a prevalent
habit for Chinese people, especially for people living in Guangdong province, that is actually largely improving their health level. Also, he repeatedly emphasized the target group should be cautiously chosen. For example, catechin as a kind of polyphenols could have some effects on absorption of proteins and minerals, as polyphenol could be prone to flocculation. He did not agree to the idea that teenagers should eat too much catechin. However, for seniors’ groups things could be different. As the catechin, a type of flavanol and also get good ability in improvement cardiovascular functions, and could also work as a potential chemical compound to bring a better state for senior groups a cognitive ability. Although a concentrated doses of catechin can cause irritation, especially to the skin and mucous membranes, Mr. Zhang said: “we know that the high purity of catechin get a relatively fierce effects, so that the lower purity could minimize the effect of the side-effects.
We discuss more about the food processing, as we produced food additives or just directly use those yeast as ingredient of bread, to ferment then get some bread, we have to eliminate all live microorganism (yeast cells) in our product and do not affect the raw materials used to manufacture food could have any problem. Raw materials cannot be contaminated by other deleterious substance like animal veterinary drug residues, and some pesticide residues, basic ingredients have to be the freshest to convince people. Due to different products, we require different storage time and conditions for its aseptic treatment. Pasteurization, for example, is pasteurization because we want to preserve the essential nutrients in the food. Even if the storage period is short, it can guarantee the color and flavor of the food. Yogurt, for example, can usually be kept for half a month and is basically pasteurized under certain conditions. After a long period of disinfection, yogurt has been on the market for a long time and is now available solving in rural and remote areas. As we used bread as the physical vector of catechins and naringenin. Depending on the shelf life of different foods, sterilization is a really important process （衍生到国王吐司回答）for us. However, we didn’t collect adequate information about how bread should be stored.
As for the of taste of the health product is included in our consideration, as seniors were possibly stubborn and rejected to taste those bad taste health products. Functions, were obviously more important than tastes. However, good taste, which is it's best to add flavor to the quality. This health product could be adjusted through some functional sweeteners, aspartame, for example, was about 150 to 200 times sweeter than sucrose and provides very little energy. and I think it can also be improved in taste. In this way, on the basis of better understanding or recognition of its function, it is best to add taste, also, it's true that bitter tastes tend to annoy people for a while, and they were less likely to drink them, which can also affect this effect on body function regulation.
Mr. Zhang usually added more sweeteners or acidulants. Then mix with the bitter functional factors in microencapsulation and so on. In this way, when you eat the best taste has some improvement, into the gastrointestinal, he will be slowly released, but also to achieve the regulatory effect. Kills two birds in one stone.
When talking about the perspective of bioengineering in food, pharmaceutical and health care products. Based on his experience, he said: “In fact, bioengineering is a very common technique that involves modifying genes. In addition, biological engineering is developing the main technology in the 21st century, in especial, in the field of food and pharmaceutical is very good”.
These drugs and foods also go through some safety tests, as long as they meet the requirements and safety of health food and other indicators, he thought they could be sold. The public was more interested in what your product did. Overpublicizing those genetically modified food is inadvisable, but people always focused more on the effect of functional factor, like the improvement in ability to eliminate the free radicals in human body.
FOOD INDUSTRY EXPORATION： A DISCUSSION WITH FORGAIN---PROFESSIONAL FLOUR PRODUCTION ENTERPRISES
In order to contacted more about the food industry. We have successfully contacted a local company, FORGAIN in Shenzhen. As a leading enterprise set up in 1997 in flour products’ manufacturing of China. We found out more mystery of opening the potential consumers’ markets and then how to solve those problems, for example, food safety and how to publicize products in an appropriate way, to avoid revulsion from people.
We started our communication online. Initially, we did get a clear understanding about how safety of manufacturing food. After a short online discussion to the experts worked in sub-factory in Dongguan, who was responsible to bread fermentation and food safety. They carefully explained to use about how to combine the “special effects” to the normal bread to create an impressive food product to consumers. And the first factor was the ingredients, for a commercial purpose the experts suggested that we could emphatically point out the flavanol bread could have significant effects on health level, especially cardiovascular and cognitive functions. Moreover, the marketing experts suggest a degree of fashion could successfully catch people’s attention. That idea actually gave us new way of how to overcome the prejudice the seniors’ group to genetically modified product, by emphasizing its functions, like highlighting the most significant substance contained in the product is crucial. In a critical viewpoint, experts from FORGAIN also said in the present, extraction of catechin to make food additives as nutrients could be theoretically available, To the surprise, we are extremely lucky that they provided us with detailed steps they used in commercial production of bread, called the sponge-dough method, which is a commercial method of making initial doughs, then add the other products into the product in the fermentation process, as strong evidences to demonstrate the possibility of combining our new product with industrial production. Moreover, another problem also confused us, which was we should minded the other disease with high incidence in seniors’ groups, like diabetes, hyperlipidemia and constipation. As a solution, FORGAIN designed three different types of breads, which are Low-glycemic index bread, low fat bread and high-fiber bread, corresponding to those diseases.
At the same time, they repeatedly mentioned about the safety standard should be carefully recorded. Finding out whether the yeasts have especially effects on taste, fermentation, and expiration date. Even though they may wouldn’t like to use the genetically modified yeast in their future’s food production, experts still praised our project be very prospective, that let us notice the huge potential of this project and more determined to develop this kind of food product. But they pointed out another condition. As the rapid development of synthetic biology techniques, some official certificates like ISO9001, Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point, and SC Food production license could be the hardest evidence to prove the safety of our project. And made business promotion became feasible, we still decided to dig more about relevant information, that had better from government.
NEOGOTATING WITH RETAILOR---K. TOAST: GETTING ATTITUDE OF INDIVIDUAL HOUSEHOLD TOWARDS NEW YEAST
Addition to professional industry, we also visited self-employed entrepreneurs, as the retailors of bread---K. TOAST. That was a small bakery that get wide, lasting cooperation relationship with the local school and widely popular in ambient area. We were invited by managers to the headquarter in Futian district, Shenzhen and the shop assistance introduced that they were particular good to make bread with different taste, like salted egg yolk. The manager said she always cautious chose the kind of bread they made and strictly control the quality of product, for example, they only used high quality Angel Yeast in fermentation process of the bread-making. That was important for the store’s reputation, or the store could face the complaints from customers and penalty from the National Medical and food Products Administration. When we were asking them, which groups were their key customers, he replied to us that the majority of them were families with seniors and children, and they may worry about the more about the tasted and safety information about bread. He did feel really too new genetically designed yeast as it could have negatively effects on the shop’s popularity. However, after a detailed explanation of the inspiration and methods we used. He felt astonished and we reached a consensus that if the yeast could be successfully designed. He would use it and give feedbacks to us, in order to prove the safety and more possibility. about this type of new yeast.
Also, after the face-to-face interview, we continuously discussed online to know about how to eliminated the living microorganism in bread and how inspection department could ensure the safety policies. We garnered those information and prepared to ask for help to the government.
Q: Do you know how to make sure all yeasts in breads are killed?
A: I assume that the temperature should be high, approximately more than 200 °C is enough.
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How to control the different variables in fermentation
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How to control the different variables in fermentation
OFFICAL INSTITUTION: HOW TO GET KNOW MORE ABOUT RELEVANT POLICIES AND ACQUIRING OFFICAL CERTIFICATE.
After having sufficient survey and understanding to the public attitude. We were extremely fortunate to contact with Shenzhen Customs District, in the Qianhai Office which is near the Shenzhen Qianhai Free Trade Zone. And we were able to set up a face-to-face interview under the pressure of short-period pandemic. They had got really profound experiences on exporting and importing different products. Also, they are dedicated to promote the high-tech development in Shenzhen. We met and had a brief discussion of the project with those officers. They felt astonished about the how perspective the project, but the working experience urge them to address a deeper conversation with us to discussion more details of this project.
Firstly we straightly discussion about the regulation on transgenic product in the present. They pointed out that depending on the national policies, the customs were really cautious to judge any of those genetic modified food in the trade phase. Due to the restricted regulation, many transgenic products couldn’t be approved to be imported or exported, except for being used in researches, and some franchised products can acquire chances to import, like maize meal and soya.
After the strict approval, the product will be directly supervised by State Administration for Market Regulation.
Different attitudes were shown by Qianhai Customs Office when we asked them about the development of Synthetic biology and genetic modified product. The customs officer who was responsible to this field said they always consanguineously care about the change the development of these techniques. In their viewpoints, several priorities are the safety, effectiveness and benefits to the people. Simultaneously, the business scale of this industry was considered too, when a vast of economic benefits were produced, the following policies would be supplemented and improved.