Education & Communication

Through background research in human practices, we discovered that the society still holds great confusion in synthetic biology and soil salinization. Therefore, we prioritized the social value of “arouse public awareness in synthetic biology as a solution” in our project and strived to achieve this value by education. In the meantime, we stuck to frequent communication with the public to exchange ideas in synthetic biology in an open way. From these efforts, the team hopes that we can reach out to the society, both within and beyond our project.

Highlights in Education

We developed various materials for society groups with different ages and academic backgrounds.

Click buttons below for detailed description of how we implemented our materials!

We introduced the concept of genes to kids in kindergarten by letting them observe differences in fingerprints and colour the base pairs. We also play a train-assembly game together to let them know promoter, genes and terminator.
We upload our materials both in English and in Chinese for you to refer to.

By comparison of characteristics between kids and their parents, we let them know what heredity is. Then they are asked to draw down some combination of different creatures and design their own new life. They also tried out pH testing strips themselves.
We upload our materials both in English and in Chinese for you to refer to.

(Collaborated with SDSZ_China) We gave a lecture to students from senior high on basic molecular cloning strategies used in labs, such as PCR, restriction digest and Gibson Assembly. Then we have a discussion on skills in wet lab and iGEM competition.

After giving the lecture in high school, we continued to compile a handbook on the basis of synthetic biology for adolescents, with the introduction of cell structure, transcription, translation and iGEM.
We upload our handbook both in English and in Chinese for you to refer to.

(Collaborated with BUCT, SDSZ_China) We together gave a lecture to undergraduates major in biological science in China Agricultural University on the history of synthetic biology, some well-known applications, its future and dangers. We also invite them to think about how they can combine synthetic biology with their own scientific research projects.

Invited by the Ministry of Education, we hosted an open online sharing for undergraduates with different majors. Considering their academic background, we turned to focus on the core values of our project and qualities we had learned in scientific research. In the end we discussed how to deal with failures and adjust ourselves while working in STEM.

(Collaborated with HUST-China, HUST2-China, WHU-China) We together hosted an online discussion on how to achieve a better world with synthetic biology with volunteers from the society. Four iGEM teams shared their projects and volunteers gave positive response on how our projects shape the world.

Communication

During the iGEM season, we had several chances to promote our project to the public and discuss issues on synthetic biology in an open way. Though not often related to our project design, we still treasure these opportunities.

Publicity by WeChat Public Account

In order to introduce synthetic biology and iGEM to the public, and to further increase the influence of our team, we have took over the WeChat public account, CAU_iGEM, from last CAU iGEM team to make further development.

On the WeChat public account, we introduced the background of our project, shared our gains from prize winners in past competitions, released recent education events we would hold, and documented our efforts in human practices. We have 417 followers now and have published 16 articles this year. The cumulative reading volume reached 2903 times, and one of the articles which get the most reading volume has been read for 712 times.

With the help of our WeChat public account, not only can we share our project, but also we can attract the public to pay attention to new trends in synthetic biology and participate in our educational events. They can also communicate with us and ask questions through the Q&A message board or WeChat chatting function. In fact, many students contacted us through our public account to seek advice in biology research and ask questions in project design.

Fig.1 Articles on Our WeChat Public Account

Publicity on Bilibili

Bilibili is a popular video application among young people in China and CAU_China also owns a Bilibili account to share videos of our project. This year, we’ve uploaded our promotion video with both English and Chinese subtitles particularly for Chinese online users. Meanwhile, we have gained 30 more followers and 31 thumbs-up in this year.

We consider this video account as a vivid documentation of what CAU_China has achieved in all previous iGEM years. We are also planning to organize a quick Q&A video to answer questions in synthetic biology and more animations in popular science to encourage an open dialogue with online users.

Fig.2 Our Bilibili Account (Subscribe Us!)

Communication in CCiC

Conference of China iGEMer Community(CCiC) is an important platform for iGEMers in China to share, communicate and collaborate during the iGEM season. Due to the pandemic, CCiC takes the form of partially live streaming this year, ensuring that everyone interested in synthetic biology can join the discussion and raise questions.

From August 27th to August 29th , CAU_China actively took part in the conference and gave an eight-minute presentation on our project. After our presentation, we wait in the chat room for questions and further discussions. Besides, we also raise our questions and suggestions to other teams such as DUT-China, JNU-China, Jilin_China and so on. Thanks to CCiC, we have more opportunities to exchange ideas about our project with other iGEMers, get advice from sponsors and judges, and seek future partnership.

Fig.3 Communication in CCiC

Dialogue with Mr.Bao Yuhan

We had a dialogue on safety and security in iGEM competition with Mr. Bao Yuhan, who is studying for a doctor degree in Tsinghua University and majors in the management in synthetic biology.

We exchanged ideas on dual-use possibilities, gene drift, and how we would react if we found others against the safety rules. Mr. Bao also offered valuable suggestions on how to manage underlying lab escape and how to cut down the cost of our final product. This dialogue provides us with new point of view to judge our project and its proposed implementation.

Fig.4 Dialogue with Mr. Bao (alt=”This picture shows our online dialogue with Mr.Bao.”)

As Integrated Human Practices in a Broader Sense

Though often not considered as human practices, we still reckon some of our Education&Communication work a very crucial part related to our project, since we were not simply outputting our attitudes, but receiving response from our audience and polishing our project design and execution accordingly.

pH testing game in primary school → Inclusivity
While we were doing the pH testing game in primary school, we found that it was hard for some kids to recognize the color on pH test strips. This inspired us to further discuss the problem of color blindness when using indicators and corrected our idea of using pH indicators in hardware design.
Online discussion with the public → Implementation & Experiments
In our online discussion with the public, some audience questioned about the survival rate of our engineered bacteria in harsh natural environment, suggesting that we can do related tests and provide bacteria with more nutrition. That inspired us to implement our project in the form of microbial agent and test the survival rate of Corynebacterium glutamicum in medium with high salt stress or high pH in advance.
Dialogue with Mr. Bao Yuhan → Safety
The dialogue with Mr.Bao Yuhan is a useful complement to our safety and security. Mr. Bao pointed out that besides induced lethality in soil environment, we should also consider escape of engineered bacteria in labs. He suggested that we should test the environment in our labs to make sure our salt-alkali induced kill switch can solve the problem of common lab escape as well.

Team:CAU China/Communication