Partnership | iGEM HUST2-China

Partnership

HUST-China

in 2021, Huazhong University of Science and Technology comes back to iGEM after the gap of 2020. But we didn't stop researching in the gap year. As a result, participating iGEM are two teams: HUST-China and HUST2-China, which work in different areas. The two teams are inextricably linked. All of our team members are schoolmates. We started our cooperation with HUST-China at the very beginning, and the close relationship continued throughout the whole process and all our achievements are partly the result of cooperation.

Team Building

During the team building phase, our sister team shared with us their experience in information acquisition, competing procedure, official requirements, project designing and so on, which made it more smooth for our brand-new team to participate in iGEM.

Modeling

HUST-China helped us with modeling of BLP-7 and showed how it dig holes on the cell membrane, which gave us a visualized understanding of how it works. Our dry group also gained their precious experience in modeling to support the subsequent works so that we can carry out modeling independently.

Figure 1: Molecular dynamics simulation

Experiment

At first, the elder members of HUST-China supported us at basic experimental training such as transformation of bacteria and pure cultivation of bacteria. We also shared part of our experimental supplies, which was significant especially during the initial phase when we were short of some indispensable things.

In the middle and later periods, we kept sharing experimental experience. For example, we shared protein purification method with them.

In the process of experimental communication, we also understood the significance of cooperation to scientific research. In the last stage, we encouraged each other not to give up the experiment, to push forward the experiment seriously and to stick to the last moment, which made us feel very warm as a new team.

Human Practice

We cooperated in a serial lecture facing undergraduates in HUST, during which we took turns to teach lessons once a week for one month. In the early stage of preparation, we discussed how to better carry out the courses and make it more closely related to synthetic biology and how to design experiments so that non-biology students can understand the practicality of our project.

During Central China Regional Exchange Conference .we attended together like twins and shared our ideas with other teams from central China. During this exchange conference, we were amazed by the ideas of other teams, which not only inspired us how to better improve the our project, but also revealed how important our cooperation is for the iGEM competition to improve the scheme.

We went to HZAU together for the Bioethics Week and had a friendly debate competition with HZAU-China and cooperated in Online lecture on Synthetic Biology.

This has prompted us to think about bioethics. How can bioethics better fit with the current development of science and technology? Where is the boundary of bioethics? At the same time, we also believe that iGEM's policy on safety and ethics is essential to promote the development of synthetic biology.

Figure 2: Group photo of HUST-China and HUST2-China

Figure 3: Logo of HUST-China(left) and HUST2-China(right)

We also cooperated in promotion and many other fields. The close and warm collaboration which continued in the whole process is precious experience for both of us. It is learning from each other and absorbing the good ideas that make what we are and help us achieve the results. We expect friendship of our two sister teams to be carried forward forever.

WHU-China

Figure 4: The first online meeting of the Skin League

The friendship between WHU and HUST has been a long-standing tradition for decades since both our campuses are located in Wuhan. This year we were surprised to learn that WHU-China also focused on acne. The similarity further expanded the basis for our cooperation. So, at the beginning of the process, we immediately established our partnership with WHU and formed Skin League, which expanded and absorbed two other teams later.

In the whole process, we also cooperated in many other fields listed below:

Modeling

Figure 5: screenshot of the modeling meeting

At first, we were not very familiar with the principles and requirements of modeling, so we had an online communication with WHU-China, from which we were inspired. In this exchange, we felt the similarities and differences between the two teams' modeling ideas to a large extent. The communication between the dry groups of our two teams helped us have a better understanding of each other projects so that we could join hands to improve our projects.

Our modeling group found that we can use the pathogenic bacteria growth model of WHU-China for reference to develop our AMP bacteria-inhibition model, and the modeling idea of flow balance is also worth learning. We also noticed that the functions and other equations need some rational theoretical support.

Experiment

We explored together the method of anaerobic cultivation of Propionibacterium.acnes (P.acnes) and they offered us helpful advises on P.acnes culture. We specially thank WHU-China for sharing with us the strain, P.acnes and some lab supplies which laid a solid foundation for subsequent antimicrobial experiments.

Figure 6: Experimental supplies received from WHU

Figure 7: bacteria culture transfer protocols

Figure 8: WHU logo

Figure 9: WHU-China logo

Human Practice

Since we have similar subject, we cooperated carried out various human practice.

We cooperated in Online lecture on Synthetic Biology which aims to introduce synthetic biology to undergraduates and built up Skin League which was consists of four teams that focus on skin, and cooperated in ICII. an organization devoted to disseminating synthetic biology in different cities based on iGEM teams distributed all around China.

To better grasp the status quo of cosmetics industry and relevant laws and regulations,

We helped each other to contact companies in relevant fields.

WHU-China contacted Ascentage Pharma and invited us to have an online communication together with the chairman, during which Mr.Yang gave a positive comment on our design and suggested that our two teams may visit their company in the future.

Figure 10: Dr.Yang, chairman of Ascentage Pharma

We contacted BestCare-Bio and had a meet-up with them. We also invited WHU to participate in the meet-up because their project is also related to acne, so that the meet-up could be doubled benifitial. HUST-China, BestCare-Bio and us were all inspired. We all believe that there will be a better therapy for acne in the future.

Figure 11: group photo of BestCare-Bio, HUST2-China and WHU-China

In conclusion, it a surprise for both of us that we were interested in the same topic. For the whole process, we carried out close cooperation in modeling, experiments and human practice. We shared our experience, and offered each other opportunities to communicate with company workers. We exchanged our ideas, and learned from each other, achieving a win-win relationship.

HZAU-China

HUST has been keeping a close relationship with HZAU as well. HZAU-China was one of our most tightly linked partners. Cooperation in various aspects were carried out.

On June 13th, We were invited to Huazhong Agricultural University together with HUST-CHINA to join the Bioethics Week and had a friendly debate competition by which we had a more comprehensive cognition of bioethics and biological safety. During the activity, we communicated on anaerobic cultivation and reached deeper cooperative intention.

Later, based on the friendly relationship we have formed, we shared with HZAU-CHINA Escherichia.coli Nissle 1917 wild-type strain as biological chasis. In subsequent phases, we kept our cooperation. For example, when they met difficulties in bacteria transformation, we shared with them our experience in electroporation transformation to help them carry out the subsequent experiments.

Figure 12: Bacteria culture tranferation to HZAU-China

ASTWS-China

In the end of July, our dry group cooperated with ASTWS-China. They designed a device to purify sewage with synthetic biology. We provided our suggestion with respect to the criteria for judging the endpoint of the reflection. As for the details, we suggested that the reaction pool should be below the reaction device to alleviate the precipitation. When it came to the way to fix the bacteria, we proposed the adsorption scheme and warned that the bacteria should be prevented from falling off.

This is the first time for us to cooperate with middle school students. We are glad that we have provided with them some useful suggestion to improve their hardware designing. Our experience was also a exploration for us to carry out cooperation between the high-school group and undergraduate group, which is a whole-new cooperation mode for us.