Education &
Communication

Overview

In our country Japan, the field of synthetic biology is not well known among the public who do not have scientific background. Thus, only a minority of people have correct knowledge and understanding of the technology of synthetic biology. For this science communication, we targeted the population who does not have opportunity to study or know about synthetic biology and decided to disseminate information through the media and interact with the public by the theme of Taking into the world of Synthetic Biology.

Science communication with public

Giving a lecture in The Open University of Japan

The Open University of Japan is a university that offers broadcast classes using television and radio as one of its lecture formats, providing open information resources that are open to everyone. iGEM Gifu was interviewed by the university and appeared in a video which will be used as lecture material for "Bioscience for everyday life", a course offered by the Open University of Japan. Through this lecture, we introduce what iGEM is and also about our experience in the Giant Jamboree with experiments of synthetic biology. Students who took this lecture will feel that syn-bio is a very attractive and promising subject. The book used as the textbook for this lecture also contains a description of iGEM based on interviews of iGEM Gifu. Since the content of the Open University of Japan is an open resource, it is easily accessible to the general public, and it is expected that the lecture and textbook will lead a large number of the general public to know more about iGEM.

Performance in a radio

On July 8, 2020, we appeared on a local radio channel, Aichi-Kita FM Broadcasting, at the Inuyama Castle Town Open Studio in Aichi Prefecture, Japan. We talked with the radio personality about the project of iGEM Gifu, information about the crowd-funding that we conducted, what iGEM is, and also about the potential and future of synthetic biology. In addition to people who are interested in biology and chemistry, the broadcast also introduced iGEM to people of all ages who came to Inuyama Castle Town for sightseeing and also to who listened to the radio, who are not familiar with biology. We also received comments from people who had never heard of synthetic biology before, saying, "I didn't know such interesting research can change the world". We believe that we were able to convey the appeal of synthetic biology and iGEM to many people through this event and contribute to the development of synthetic biology.

Won a prize in a essey contest

The research report on iGEM won a prize in a essey contest held at Gifu University. Due to this, a member of iGEM Gifu gave a presentation about iGEM and synthetic biology in a lecture on campus. Most of the audience of this lecture was not familiar with iGEM or synthetic biology, and through this presentation, we made them aware of the experimental methods used in iGEM and synthetic biology research and the potential of this field. Many of the students and professors who listened to the presentation gave us feedback that they found synthetic biology and iGEM attractive. From these results, we can say that this activity contributed to the improvement of iGEM's activities and visibility. The content of the winning report will be published in the annual report of the Gifu University Educational Promotion Organization in the near future, and will also be published on the website of Gifu University, thus we are confident that it will continue to have an impact on high school students and companies who read the articles.

Website of Gifu Univ