Team:NCHU Taichung/Criteria

Criteria

Bronze

  1. Registration and Giant Jamboree attendance.
    1. All of our team members have registered as a team in iGEM 2021.
  2. Competition deliverables.
    1. According to the Competition Deliverables page on iGEM’s website:
      1. We have created a wiki website, which includes an Attributions page.
      2. A wiki website includes the Safety part of our project.
      3. We have prepared for the team presentation for the Jamboree.
      4. We have submitted the Judging form and safety forms before the deadline.
  3. Attributions
    1. We have an Attributions page on our wiki website for those who helped us along our iGEM journey.
  4. Project Description
    1. Our project aims to develop a synthetic biology method to complete circular agriculture.To get more information about the background and our inspiration about the project, please check it on our Description page.
  5. Contribution
    1. PQQ gene can perform on E. coli by our shuttle vector and significantly promote E. coli growth. If the future iGEM teams need to use E. coli as a competent cell, our shuttle vector may be able to provide some help.For more information, please refer to our Contribution and Improvement page.

Silver

  1. Engineering Success
    1. We have Successfully inserted PQQ genes and cellulase genes into the plasmids, and then transfer into the bacteria.
      For more details, please check it on the Engineering success page.
  2. Collaboration
    1. Although we were in the pandemic, it couldn’t stop our ambition of keeping in touch with each other. We collaborated with many teams so that we were able to share our thoughts, achievements and the experiments we had done. For more details, please check it on the Collaboration page.
  3. Human Practices
    1. We had a communication with farmers to know the problem they had been facing. Furthermore, we had a meeting with Ming-Dao High School to discuss our experiments and experience. Moreover, we participated in a podcast to share the concept about circular agriculture. For more information, please check it on the Human Practices page.
  4. Proposed Implementation
    1. One of our goals is to popularize circular agriculture. Therefore, we commit to simplify the process to make it more probable to be accepted by the public. For more details, please check it on the Implementation page.

Gold

  1. Integrated Human Practice
    1. The problems of agricultural waste management is a worldwide issue. That is to say, publicization of our concept is necessary, especially to the farmers. First of all, in order to realize the local farmers’ viewpoint and difficulty about agricultural waste management, we had an interview with them. Next, we featured a podcast with PanSci and we shared not only iGEM but the issue that the farmers cared the most was the cost. And last but not least, we would have an interview with the relevant authority, Nantou Environmental Protection Bureau, to understand what the opinion of the authority was.

      For more details, please check it on the Human practice page.
  2. Improvement of an Existing Part
    1. For more possibilities to insert more genes , we put fi ori into the plasmid, BBa_K2141000 from the 2016 iGEM Istanbul_Tech. So that we can transfer this plasmid into E.coli and Bacillus subtilis. Moreover, Bacillus subtilis able to Endophyte with plants.
  3. Human Practices
    1. We had a communication with farmers to know the problem they had been facing. Furthermore, we had a meeting with Ming-Dao High School to discuss our experiments and experience. Moreover, we participated in a podcast to share the concept about circular agriculture. For more information, please check it on the Human Practices page.
  4. Proposed Implementation
    1. For more possibilities to insert more genes , we put fi ori into the plasmid, BBa_K2141000 from the 2016 iGEM Istanbul_Tech. So that we can transfer this plasmid into E.coli and Bacillus subtilis. Moreover, Bacillus subtilis able to Endophyte with plants.

      For more information, please check it on the Contribution and Improvement page.
  5. Project Modeling
    1. To accomplish the purpose of estimate PQQ's benefits of plants growth and promotion of harvest, our modeling utilize two equations to calculate the predicted M_2 (unit:g) and exact M_2 (unit:g), dry plant mass, which are employed to evaluate the relative deviation between different inoculated concentration supernatants from the Bacillus subtilis RM125/PQQ culture and water, and use population mean and perspective plant data-1 to draw the linear regression pattern as the result, we have extremely excellent decision coefficient R^2=0.8756 which really can explain the exact data and predicted data.

      For more details, please check it on the Model page.
  6. Proof of Concept
    1. Cellulolytic enzymes first decompose the rice straw to produce saccharification straw liquid, which can incubate the Bacillus subtilis RM125/PQQ. It could produce valuable biostimulants that can significantly foster rice growth. Through all the steps in this system, nothing would be wasted , which can successfully verify that circular agriculture is accomplishable.

      For more details, please check it on the Proof of Concept page
  7. Communication
    1. In addressing the problem of agricultural waste disposal, it is also necessary to understand the perspectives of farmers and the approaches authorities adopt and increase public awareness of agricultural waste. Thus, we have come up with several ways to have a communication with the authorities and the public about circular agriculture .

      For more details, please check it on the Education and Communication page.