Team:NAU-CHINA/Collaborations
Collaborations
Nanjing iGEM Association
CCiC Conference
"Health and Sustainable Development"
Other Teams
Nanjing iGEM Association 2021.5.05-2021.8.15
To promote the exchange between iGEM teams, Nanjing iGEM Association(NIA), a regional iGEM cooperation and exchange organization, was officially established with the unanimous consent of eight Nanjing iGEM team leaders.
The teams discussed big issues and possible development directions of their projects respectively and held relevant exchange meetings to develop each team's project and promote iGEM.
Fig. 1 The logo of the NIA Organization(Design concept: The appearance of Nanjing, China, made with DNA double helix outside symbolizes the iGEMer of Nanjing area)
Step1：Attended the NIA conference held by Nanjing University 2021.5.05
On May 5, 2021, we attended the conference hosted by NJU-China, and jointly participated by Nanjing-China, Nanjing_NFLS, NJMU-China, NJTech_China and NNU-China. The event was presided over by Li Yujie, former NJU-China captain and current CCiC member. Dr. Nannan Jiang of after iGEM, and Xu Huandi, chairman of CCiC's Executive Committee, were invited as guests to report to all members.
We introduced our project and future ideas briefly, displayed our project poster, and got inspirations through communication with all teams.
Fig. 2 We presented the project at the NIA conference
Fig. 3 Photos of all the teams participating in the NIA conference
Fig. 4 CCiC broadcasts the conference online
Step2：NIA’s Wechat account 2021.8.13
Our team, NAU-CHINA, was responsible for setting up NIA's Wechat account to promote synthetic biology knowledge and activities. We participated actively in routine meetings, provided constructive suggestions for each team, and got much feedback for our own project.
Fig. 5 An promotional article screenshot of the NIA‘s Wechat account
Fig.6 Our WeChat official account(It is mainly responed by NAU-CHINA and NJU-China)
Step3： NIA-NAU meetup 2021.8.15
NAU-China hosted an NIA-NAU meetup in Nanjing on 15th August to urge all teams to push forward their projects in time and promote the cooperation between the teams.
Six teams, namely, NJU-China,Nanjing-China, NJMU-China, NJTech_China and NNU-China, reported the progress of their projects respectively, and shared the problems they encountered, so as to push on the following research. In the meanwhile, we invited the PIs of each team and the guests of CCiC (Conference of China iGEMer Community) to make comments. They called for our attention to biosafety, ethical issues, the logic in presentations, etc. They also made some specific suggestions about the experimental progress, which contributed to the improvement of the projects.
As for the feasibility of our Human Practices design, we got constructive suggestions and then rearranged the working ideas. In terms of experiment, we reconsidered whether to use Escherichia coli MG1655 for expression.
Fig.7 We reported our project at the meetup
Fig.8 Screenshot of the NIA-NAU meetup team photo
CCiC 2021.8.27-8.28
CCiC provides opportunities for dozens of teams around China to communicate and get feedback from experts every year. CCiC this year was held from August 27 to August 28 in Shanghai. Due to the COVID-19 outbreak in Nanjing, we attended the real-time meeting online. We introduced our project and research progress to all teams and guests, and presented our project poster. Guests from various research areas gave suggestions on our experimental design, model and Human Practices work.
Fig.9 Screenshots of our live participation in the CCiC report online
"Health and Sustainable Development" 2021.10.02
One Health is global health, which integrates multidisciplinary knowledge to solve regional, national and global health problems and improve the health of people, animals and the environment.
We assisted NJU-China and NAU-CHINA One Health society to hold a seminar on synthetic biology under the concept of “health of all things”. We gathered five iGEM teams in 2021, as well as members and supporters of One Health community.
We explored the benefits of synthetic biology from the perspective of “unseparated earth-human-environment”, which may connect our project closely with One Health community. For example, we produced SeNPs using raw materials from selenium-containing waste water, which turned the waste into something useful.
Fig.10 A logo designed by NJU-China and NAU-China, combining the logo of NAU One Health and iGEM official logo
The conference focused on promoting the One Health concept among iGEM teams and synthetic biology enthusiasts, and further integrating the concept of “health of all things” into synthetic biology projects. In this way, the iGEM teams this year and more projects in the future can focus more on global issues, and overall health of human-animal-environment.
In the meanwhile, the One Health concept may bring solutions to the problems met by each team and inspire them to seek more possible development directions in the existing projects.
To further accomplish the joint goal of synthetic biology and One Health, the conference cast light not only on solving existing problems but also on future development. This corresponded with WHO's concern about the development of sustainable food, fuel and economic systems which might become global challenges facing modern societies.
Fig.11 "Health and Sustainable Development" Screenshot of photos of online conference participants
Fig.12 Conference instructors introduction
Fig.13 Screenshots of the meeting broadcast in our university
Fig.14 We uploaded the video of the meeting to bilibili(A media platform in China)
1) The One Health concept we’ve learnt from the conference enlightened us to understand the significance of our project from the perspective of food chain. The plants, the animals and even the health of environment are all closely connected to human.
2) The WHO’s concept helped us figure out wider application of our project, not only solve the selenium pollution problem but also deal with the uneven distribution of selenium around the world.
Other Teams
WET LAB
Our experimental group communicated with many teams in order to continuously improve the experimental scheme and solve the problems encountered during the experiment. For example, during the meeting with NIA teams, Professor Zhang Wenming, the instructor of NJTech_China, pointed out that the expression effect of E. coli strain BL21 might be better. NJMU-China said we could try the plant validation in order to determine the practical application of SeNPs.
Model
Our model team menbers had communicated with CPU_CHINA's model team menbers on the modeling of molecular simulation, which helped them to understand each other's data sources and processing methods. It was of great help to their team in building molecular simulation models and we also learn something useful through it.
Since NNU-CHINA encountered some problems in data simulation, we helped them fit and get the parameters of probability distribution calculation. Meanwhile, we benefited a bit on our model establishment.We also learned a lot from communicating with NJTech_China.
Fig.15：Screenshots of our experimental group being discussed online with the experimental group of NJTech_China
Artist
When making and uploading Project Promotion video, we communicated with CPU_CHINA about video production ideas and provided some suggestions for each other. During ICII's summer tour of China, we cooperated with CPU_CHINA to make ICII posters, and finally presented the promotion map and video.
During the whole season, we also carried out in-depth artistic cooperation with NJTech_China. We created the mascots of two teams together, and designed souvenirs, including bookmarks, fans, etc.
Fig.16 Mascots of NAU-CHINA and NJTech_China(made by NAU-CHINA)
Fig.17 ICII poster produced with CPU_CHINA
Wiki
Owing to our web experience, we provided some suggestions to help other teams build their wiki. For example, we communicated with NJTech_China about the skills of web framework construction, which was very helpful to them. In the meanwhile, we helped the iDEC (international Directional Evolution Competition) team set up their website.
Human Practices
Besides NIA activities and CCiC, we participated in ICII with more than ten teams, including CPU_CHINA, NUDT_CHINA and BIT-China during the summer vacation. These activities enhanced the interaction between teams in China and also helped in the dissemination of iGEM in China.
It is worth mentioning that we communicated with UCAS-China and the iDEC team of our university about the project: we recommended the kit and provided some suggestions on directed evolution to them. They introduced their work on bioinformatics and recommended software that minimizes protein energy. This exchange helped the iGEM and iDEC teams determine the general direction of next year's project.
Fig.18 We take a screenshot of our online meeting with UCAS-China