We have interacted with nearly 20 teams this year. We helped each other in the CRISPR technology and protein engineering design. We also presented our project at the national conference, and ran our own iGEM public account on the WeChat and Bilibili platforms in the summer!
CRISPR CONFERENCE
On September 12, 2021, we were glad to be invited by the iGEM Tianjing 2021 to participate in the CRISPR conference with other 11 teams. Before the start of the meeting, the leaders of all teams drew lots to determine the partners of cooperation. Our NEFU team worked with the LZU team to solve their problems, while the ZJUT team helped us get through our current bottlenecks.
ICII Joint preaching
ICII (Into China Into IGEM), which is sponsored by NAU-CHINA and CPU_CHINA. We held joint summer lectures with other 16 teams from all over China. Affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, our 17 teams took the form of offline decentralization and joint organization. The organizer collected the information of each team, produced all the posters of their own content, and then each team printed it out. Before the presentation, each team posted group posters on both sides of the blackboard for interested students to learn on their own.
Introduction
First of all, the iGEM team of the College of Life Science, Northeast Forestry University, discussed with our biology teacher Pengchao Wang, and decided to launch the Visible Diagnosis Platform based on G-quadruplex at 10:45 A.M. on Wednesday, September 22, 2021, Beijing time in Room 201, Aulin College. The purpose of this presentation is to promote the knowledge of synthetic biology, popular scientific and social biological issues, and to share and discuss our 2021 project.
Preaching purpose
1) Based on the knowledge of biology, we provided students with the relevant content of the nucleic acid test for SARS-CoV-2 to broaden students' horizons, cultivate their interest, stimulate their curiosity and stimulate them to explore and think more deeply.
2) Through the popularization of general biological issues in the society, we wanted to improve students' sense of mission in defending life and awareness to maintain social justice, and cultivate social responsibility of youths who love life and science.
Preaching object
Sophomore students majoring in biotechnology, Northeast Forestry University
Preaching preparation
Preparing delicate gifts for students who participate in the presentation let the students experience the color developing experiment in person, and grant symbolic certificates to the students who actively ask questions and participate in other activities during the presentation.
Background introduction
Multiple new COVID-19 cases were confirmed in our city, Harbin, just before our scheduled presentation. To ensure the safety of the faculty and students, we canceled the plan of holding on-site presentations, and provided a lecture in our school. We also had in-depth discussions with many students who were interested in biology.
Presenter
Hongda Fu
First of all, Hongda Fu, our team leader, briefly explained the new type of coronary pneumonia and its transmission routes, introduced general protection measures, and advised the students to wear their masks and pay attention to sanitation safety. Starting from the limitations of the current new coronavirus detection methods, he introduced to the students the advantages of our detection approach compared with the current coronavirus detection method: convenient and sensitive. In addition, our detection method has obvious color changes and visualized results; it can also guarantee high specificity and effectively avoid false positive results.
Secondly, Hongda Fu described the visual detection platform based on the G-quadruplex chain for the students to popularize science from the aspect of the experimental design. Through the design overview, the students had a taste of the beauty of the biological world, focusing on the experimental principles of the RPA selective amplification, nCas9-Phi29 strand cleavage and single strand DNA replacement, and RCA amplification of G-quadruplex. The NEFU_China 2021 team members and the students participating in this presentation discussed the visual detection platform based on G-quadruplex.
In addition, Hongda Fu demonstrated the G-quadruplex color developing experiment and the use of experimental equipment to the students in the audience. We also let them personally test the color reaction.
Finally, the NEFU_China 2021 team members granted certificates to the students who were actively engaged in this event, and distributed souvenirs to all students coming to the presentation.
