Overview of Excellence in Entrepreneurship and Inclusive Education
As a team, our drive to provide inclusive and accessible opportunities to learn and gain experiences within the Synthetic Biology and STEM field has united us and inspired our work in this area. In addition, our passion for entrepreneurship and the keen recognition that entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial skills empowers the translation of therapies and innovations in the Synthetic Biology field has driven us to strive for excellence in our extensive entrepreneurial work.
Entrepreneurship
Our Entrepreneurship research can be classified as ‘Excellence In Another Area’ as we have completed substantial research (including on patents and intellectual property) within the field. As evidenced by our in-depth business plan, this information is not relating directly to our project within the scientific context but has strong connections to synthetic biology, nevertheless. Entrepreneurship is what enables the launching of one’s product into global markets. Research across a plethora of different facets from market problem, segmentation, and analysis to life cycle assessment is vital to corroborate the feasibility of our therapeutic strategy. This year, we have gone above and beyond towards implementing this research and identifying different avenues for funding e.g. through contacting the Praxis Institute and partnership e.g. through reaching out to NeuroStimSpinal and NurExone Biologic. Intertwining real-world applications with our theory is what distinguishes Entrepreneurship as our ‘Excellence In Another Area’. We have documented our work on our Entrepreneurship Page
Biologix: increasing accessibility of introductory experiences in Synthetic Biology
The work completed by Renervate Therapeutics within the realm of education indicates another parameter fulfilling ‘Excellence in Another Area’. Prior to launching Biologix - a competition aimed at students on the cusp of tertiary education towards peaking their interest in synthetic biology - we reached out to high school teachers both nationally and internationally. This was to ensure adequate feasibility and uptake of our programme which was corroborated by faculty members around the world as can be seen from our Education Page.
Moreover, to ensure a holistic overview of the programme, we engaged with various stakeholders across King’s College London and external parties such as Promega and New England Biolands who aided the refinement of our programme across academic, inclusivity, ethical, and legal facets. Hence, we decided to create a competition spanning 2 weeks with live, recorded lectures that were done in collaboration with the University of Manchester and the University of St. Andrews. Interspersed throughout was a drop-in session and personal statement workshop so that students could glean a broader perspective on the university application process and general university life.
The main deliverable was a scientific poster which imparted skills essential for many STEM disciplines at higher education institutes and the winner was rewarded with materials from the aforementioned companies. The success of Biologix is depicted by the plethora of graphs on our Education Page synthesised from raw data pertaining to various competencies and capabilities; we hope to see Biologix expand its scope and impact in future renditions.
