Team:LINKS China/Attributions
Overview
LINKS_China Team Logo
LINKS_China consists of a group of junior and high school students full of enthusiasm for synthetic biology. This year, we aim to produce cellulose membranes from a co-culture of brewer’s yeast and Kombucha instead of traditional leather. We use spider silk proteins to soften the membrane while also using E. coli to dye the synthetic hides, and yeast to produce mild fragrance. LINKS_China visited several related individuals and companies for inspiration and innovation of a machine box that is able to provide a suitable developing condition for cellulose membranes in order to achieve mass production. After months of research, experimentation and collaboration, LINKS_China successfully developed an environmentally friendly bacterial cellulose with a variety of colors, substantial flexibility, and a mild fruity fragrance. This cellulose membrane has the properties and potential to replace traditional leather for so far clothing and bags. This surely demonstrates a novel revolution in the fashion industry. We would like to express our greatest gratitude to all the team members who participated in creating this end-product and those who aided us greatly in the process.
The formation of LINKS_China…
LINKS_China Team Members
LINKS_China is a united and unique team consisting of high school students, with great enthusiasm for biology, from SCIE, VMA, BASIS, stretching across the globe to Hotchkiss School, and Cheltenham Ladies' College. Most of the team members gathered in LINKS Academy attended winter camp sessions on genetic editing and spider silk synthesis in February 2021. The fun and unforgettable experience aroused the participants' curiosity irreversibly and developed their passion for synthetic biology. LINKS_China offered the members a wonderful chance to participate in iGEM this year and by providing an environment from them with various lab equipment to further their interest in synthetic biology.
We appreciate the support from every team member…
Since the epidemic has not yet ended, it has been challenging for LINKS_China to conduct its project this year. Team members far away from the US, the UK, Canada and also several other cities in China gathered in the laboratory, overcoming a lengthy quarantine period and several difficulties. Here, we would like to thank all the members of LINKS_China for their contribution.
Yiyun (Fion) Wu: She is our administrative leader who is always active and ready to reach out for communications and collaborations. Thanks to her excellent organizational skills in directing online educational activities and broadcasts, our team actively participates in various online forums, such as CCiC and the Southern China Regional Meeting, regardless of difficulties created by the Covid-19 pandemic. Besides her outstanding communication works, she also takes on one of the main roles in the BC membrane co-culture experiments, successfully producing a massive amount of BC membrane.
Zhexuan (Aaron) Zhang: As our experiment leader, he takes the leading role in designing experiments and communicating with the instructors. He is kind and understanding when guiding fellow teammates in experiments, and his passion and optimistic attitude greatly influenced the entire team. He has contributed a lot to the experiment, including SCOBY co-culture and pigment, fragrance, and spider silk production. Never forget that he is also an extremely hardworking member who can stay up all night to analyze documents and write essays.
Ziteng (Patrick) Feng: Being the engineering leader, he is for sure the most intelligent mathematician and programmer in the team. He takes an active role in programming the team’s wiki pages and creating mathematic models of our experiments that help predict our results. He frequently makes progress in experiments, mainly fragrance production and also spider silk and pigment production, and contributes to the construction of hardware-- as well.
Peng (Chloe) Chen: As the team’s graphics leader, she works to her best abilities on the artistic representations of the team. Her outstanding works include constructing the team poster, producing the promotion video, designing the team wiki, and working on the BC membrane co-culture experiments. She also actively helps in several promotion activities, such as the educational broadcast. Despite being a deadline fighter who can always finish the project just before the deadline, she is a reliable team member who always replies when someone needs her.
Siqin (Aurora) Zhang: Taking her role as the human practice leader, she used her excellent organizational skills to arrange several successful interviews with companies and business people that significantly contributed to our team’s development. Her extroverted personality brings the team endless laughter and opportunities to communicate with other teams in the laboratory. She also works hard in the laboratory and plays an essential role in the spider silk experiments.
Meilun (Madeleine) Wu: She is by far the hardest working member in the laboratory regarding her continuous participation in the experiments. She is a lovely member who is charismatic enough to make everyone her friend. Without her contributions in both the experiments-- spider silk production, yeast spider silk production, and pigment production--and human practices, the team will certainly not be progressing this far.
Jianxi (Katharine) Zhu: Katherine is a brave thinker who often offers valuable critics regarding the team’s artistic designs. Her self-deprecating humor is symbolic, and her contributions to the wiki design are outstanding. Although she is not based in Shenzhen, she tried her best to participant in the spider silk, yeast spider silk, and pigment production experiment.
Peijia (Peggie) Lai: She is a quiet but firm and reliable member of the team. We can always count on her to produce successful results in pigment production experiments. She also supports the team by participating actively in several activities, for example, the production of promotion video, the roadshow for entrepreneurship, and writing reports for human practice.
Ruoxi (Sia) Wu: She is a logical speaker and a hardworking member of the team. Her most outstanding contribution in the spider silk experiment is that she once stayed for 24 hours in the laboratory doing colony PCR and a series of experiments following it. In addition, she helps in pigment production. She is also a critical contributor to the human practice team, as she is extremely good at writing reports and doing research.
Lede (Morris) Zhang: Based in Shenzhen, Morris is one of the major contributors to the dye production experiment. He is also a quiet listener.
Xiaochong (William) Ma: Though he is the youngest member of the team, introverted and quiet, he takes on one of the main roles in the dye production experiment and works hard in it. He also offers valuable suggestions for the construction of the team wiki and the hardware.
Yuze (Hugo) Jiang: He demonstrate capability and outstanding working skills during the designing and constructing process of the hardware and the construction of the team wiki. He also actively participates in human practice activities, offers help in spider silk and pigment production, and assists the production of promotion video.
Zixiang (Sofia) Zhou: Her capability and strength are shown in her continuous contribution to the production of spider silk experiments. She is also a creative thinker who offers inspiration to the promotion video. Her outgoing personalities make her an active speaker who demonstrates our business plan to the investors.
Yawen (Helen) Liao: Demonstrating outstanding leadership, she takes an active role in leading group discussions during the production of the promotion video. She also demonstrates remarkable artistic talent when she contributes to the artistic design of team wiki. Her contribution to pigment production experiments is considerable as well.
Shuhan (Josie) Liu: Her extroverted and lively personality makes her a friendly member of the team. Her appealing laughter and jokes delight the team. Besides her contribution to the production of pigment and fragrance experiments, she is also the impressive voice behind the promotion video. As a member of the HP team, she does research for the online education broadcast.
Suiran (Dora) Cai: She plays an important role in human practice activities by reaching out to contact administrators of leather companies and suggesting ideas for the business plan. She also contributes to artistic designs and experiments, including spider silk and pigment production.
Leqi (Kaitlin) Liu: As an outstanding designer, she creates impressive WeChat shirt essays with decorative images. She is also active in human practice activities, including the interview with the leather company and making the business plan, as well as spider silk and pigment experiments.
Dai (Susie) Song: As a gifted artist, she demonstrates her capability and contributes greatly to the animation parts of the promotion video and the construction of gif representational figures in the team wiki. She also devotes her time to work on spider silk and pigment experiments.
Yihan (Stacey) Zhao: Stacey is a fashion designer who inspires the design of team uniforms. She also works hard in the laboratory and contributes to the progression of experiments, including spider silk, yeast spider silk, and pigment production. In addition, she participates in some of the research in the HP team.
Jiayi (Judy) Wu: She is a hardworking member who primarily contributes to yeast spider silk experiments and prepares for the online educational broadcast. She also does several pieces of research for the HP team.
Jingyun (Tracy) Xue: She contributes to the progression of yeast spider silk experiments and human practice activities, such as searching for information for the online broadcast and translating HP reports.
We appreciate the support from instructors, administrators and advisors…
The members of LINKS_China express their most sincere gratitude towards our teachers and mentors, who were instrumental in putting together this amazing team and guiding us in design, wet lab, and the whole project. We also express our deepest appreciation towards our administrators, who were crucial in keeping the lab running and allowing us to focus on the project. These are the PIs, administrators and mentors who helped with LINKS_China in laboratory experiments, hardware work and wiki constructions:
Boxiang (Diol) Wang: As our primary instructor, he started training us for synthetic biology projects since last Christmas. His winter camp activities, including lectures on the basics of synthetic biology and training sessions on basic labs (e.g. colony PCR and gel electrophoresis), act as strong incentives that propel us into joining the iGEM project.
During the iGEM project, he teaches how to search and narrow down research papers while inspiring us brainstorming project ideas. Being the most reliable and experienced figure in the laboratory, he is the one who helps with the design of the experiments and guides us specifically when using laboratory equipment and machines. He is also in charge of purchasing primers and the constructions of new plasmids.
Qing (Suzan) Liang: She is an extremely passionate and caring figure in the team. With her love and care, she regulates the daily activities of the team, provides funding and laboratory materials for usage, and edits grammar issues in our essays.
Sha Zhou: As one of the instructors in the team, her optimistic demeanor delights the entire team. She is always helpful and ready to solve our problems in experiments, and she also regulates the daily experimental activities of the team. She is one of the major contributors to the construction of DH5a δtnaA (with the assistance of Judy and Tracy). She also completes the HPLC test for the team.
Tianxiang Wang: He guides us through yeast toolkit assembly for golden gate, provides vital constructed plasmids, and facilitates collaboration with AISSU_Union.
Jun Yu: She helps us with protein-related experiments such as his-tag purification and SDS-Page gel analysis. She also offers guidance when we need help in experiments.
Qidang (Stephen) Ye: His sense of humour brings laughter to the team. As one of the instructors, he designed and led the construction of our hardware. He also helped with all sorts of experiments, and created the safety test that we all had to take before performing experiments.
Xiangjun Deng: He organizes hotel stays for required team members. He is also in charge of purchasing equipment, reagents, and team uniforms online.
Xingyu Zhou: She is a dedicated mechanical engineer who troubleshoots hardware problems for the team.
Zhengfeng Liu: He is an experienced troubleshooter who helps solve problems in experiments and review any files written.
Shangyi Zhu: She guides the team with passion regarding the construction of team wiki by conducting weekly lectures.
Honghao Su: He guides the modeling work of the team and involves in discussions that help solve issues.
We appreciate the support from other people that helped us…
Morris and Dell from AISSU_Union: They provide assistance in our experiments and communicate their experiences and difficulties to us, specifically regarding the yeast plasmid assembly, led by Tianxiang Wang.
Hayden He: She helps us produce the team’s promotion video by taking the role of a director, screenwriter, and editor.
Michael Gao, Zixuan Gong and Haoyan Zhong: They assist the production of promotion video.
Ms. Chen and Mr. Yan from Classy-Kiss: They introduce fermentation operation in the factory and give suggestions for the co-culture process.
Ms. Liu and Ms. Wangvani from Boton: They introduce different approaches in synthesizing fragrances, from chemical synthesis to enzyme catalyst, and the future of biology-synthetic fragrances.
Mr. Qian, Mr. Chen, and Mr. Zhao from EEKA Fashion: They inform the team about the public preference for leather clothing and the general concerns about synthetic biology products.
Mr. Song from Aowang: He introduces the pros and cons of the traditional leather market and suggesting the ways for cellulose leather to replace the traditional leather.
Junxi (Jennifer) Zhang: As an investor, she attends our roadshow and provides several extremely helpful suggestions to our business plan.
Yide Liu and Donghao Zhao: As experts in the field of aqua-gel, they suggest that our bacterial cellulose membrane, combining with spider silk protein, is a type of double-network aqua-gel. They also help the team figure out some problems of bio aqua-gel.
Chart of contributions
Wet lab contributions chart
Dry lab contributions chart
Human practices contributions chart
Arts contributions chart
We appreciate the training from instructors and mentors…
In the winter camp, Boxiang Wang taught a lot of theoretical and laboratory practical knowledge about synthetic biology. Boxiang Wang used the PPT developed by himself as teaching materials and also referred to Chun Li's textbook "Synthetic Biology." This experience aroused students' curiosity and passion for synthetic biology, so many voluntarily signed up for a member of LINKS_China. As the primary instructor, Boxiang Wang continued giving the team weekly lectures about theories and practical laboratory skills from March to May, including the laboratory safety education. The preliminary experiment started in May, preparing for the formal experiment in June. Until October, everyone in the team came to the laboratory and went all out to participate in the experiment. While doing experiments, teachers in LINKS Academy, including Boxiang Wang, Sha Zhou, Tianxiang Wang, and Jun Yu, all offer professional guidance to the team members.
We appreciate our inspiration providers…
During the winter camp in February, students all came up with different ideas while doing research, and they did presentations on their topics. Chloe thought of using kombucha to produce cellulose membrane; Hugo suggested that fungi can be used to make clothing; When researching his project about biology ink, Patrick got inspiration on how to produce Tyrian purple by E.coli; Aaron also had the idea of creating biology perfume from yeast.
In April, when it is time to decide on the topic, there are tons of proposals. For example, Sia, Aurora and Maddie introduced a way to make fluorescent condoms by E.coli and Cyanobacteria. After a heated discussion, the team decided to combine Chloe’s suggestion with the idea of Patrick, Aaron and Hugo, that is, using kombucha to produce bacterial cellulose leather while creating fragrance and pigments using yeast and E.coli. This is how the topic - The Neoleathic Age- is got.
Difficulties we have overcome…
As we are having a grand and complex topic this year, we have encountered tons of difficulties and failures. We have repeatedly experienced the time when having some idea in the experiment while unable to get any result. For example, to produce pigment, we once constructed a sensor to express GFP. However, we failed to get successful data. The second version of the sensor was not successfully constructed, so we then gave up on this idea. Also, there were some errors in the process of storing, mainly in the experiments of tnaA-fmo. We found that 044 was not properly stored, so we had to construct it for a second time. In addition, in spider silk production experiments, we originally plan to do two types of spider silk: 12 AQ and 12 rep. However, for 12 AQ, we did not successfully conduct the construction. And for 12 rep, though it is constructed, its expression was weak. So we moved on to CBM-NT2repCT and CBM3.
Our achievements
After our unremitting efforts, we finally shared great achievements. Some of our proudest and most successful results are the production of spider silk, pigment, and bacterial cellulose membrane. Sofia, in charge of the long-lasting spider silk experiments, finally achieves a good result; Peggie and William, as the main contributors of pigment production, work very hard in the experiments regardless of the failures and successfully get over three types of dyes; Fion and Chloe produce a considerable amount of cellulose membrane with their insistence on co-culturing. Besides, many other team members get perfect results for their experiments, together making the project as a whole. We are proud that everyone on the team has made significant contributions. LINKS_China would not be this successful without any of its members.
We, again, with the most sincere gratitude, express our gratefulness towards all the team members, instructors, advisors, and people that kindly offer support!
