Still under the COVID-19 crisis, we were confronted with numerous challenges during this year.
However, we still made breakthroughs and innovations in our project and it was a real pleasure
to us when we finally saw a series of satisfying outcomes.
Here are some of our achievements listed according to the medal criteria, and
the hyperlinks attached will lead to the webpages that prove our efforts.
Bronze
1. Competition Deliverables
We have completed wiki, presentation video, promotion video and judging form that need to be submitted for the competition.
A team full of friendly and responsible person, many people who gave us great support…… Thank you to all of you!
Inflammatory bowel diseases have their universality among the crowds and they are problems to be solved
not only for China but also in other parts of the world. Prof. Guo, one of our advisors, was an expert of bowel diseases.
According to his previous studies, he discovered that polyphosphate is promising to cure inflammatory bowel diseases.
Producing polyphosphate by chemical methods is difficult and has many problems.
Therefore, a method of biosynthesis of long-chain polyphosphates is urgently needed.
In our project, we aim to insert a ppk gene into the plasmid, which codes the PPK protein,
then transform the plasmid into bacteria. With the genetically modified bacteria,
we hope to biosynthesize long-chain polyphosphate（polyP）, which is biocompatible and promising to cure IBD.
The aim of our project is to develop a new application of long-chain polyP,
including not only biosynthesizing it with high yield and under the concept of sustainable development,
but also exploring its potential to be developed as a new IBD therapy.
This year we have added new documentation to two existing parts: part1 BBa_K3022002 and part2 BBa_K1807009.
We also have a potential research effort for the future team, including the improvement of ppk1 gene in E.coli,
the construction of ppk-vgb-mazE fusion gene. Hoping that future teams will achieve bigger success!
Silver
Through literature review and interviews with professionals, we came up with an idea that polyP can treat IBD.
Then we use ppk1 in E.coli to biosynthesize polyP.
We tried to improve the productivity of polyP through brainstorming,
reading relevant materials and interviewing with professors.
After that, we redesigned our part by inserting vgb and mazE gene.
Finally, we greatly increased the yield of polyP with our improved part.
We and other six teams jointly hosted the Intestinal Congress.
Moreover, in order to give the future iGEM teams that want to do research about intestinal some help,
we prepared the 2021 Intestinal Program Reference Manual with other teams at the Intestinal Congress.
We also have cooperated with other teams in Nanjing to form the Nanjing iGEM association,
which aimed to make the iGEM teams in Nanjing unite and help each other,
discuss and solve the problems encountered in the experiment,
and make joint efforts to publicize synthetic biology or other biology related science popularization.
Furthermore, we also hosted an offline meetup with LZU-China and gained useful suggestions in the meetup.
With a strong sense of social responsibility,
we investigated the global background and current treatment of IBD
and interviewed our PI Wei Wei and Professor Wenjie Guo to get the idea of the project.
Moreover, we interviewed Doctor Rongping Li and Nanjing Lotus E.P. Technology CO., LTD.,
expanding the application of our project.
These social practices proved that our project can make a difference to the world and have great application potential.
We carefully envision what scenario would be seen and who would benefit if our project could be implemented.
Pharmaceuticals companies can apply our ideas to develop a new drug curing IBD.
Manufacturers focusing on probiotic food can apply our ideas to develop new probiotic food containing long-chain polyphosphate.
Scientists and medical workers interested in intestinal health can learn
from our ideas to discover the effect of long-chain polyphosphate on the overall balance of gut microbiome.
Environmental protection technology companies can apply our ideas to find a new solution for eutrophication.
In all, our project has a wide market, and we strive to make these a reality.
Gold
Human practices play a significant role in promoting the process of our project.
The interviews with our PI Wei Wei and Professor Zhi Ding provided us with useful information for our project.
With the help of their suggestions and guidance, we solved the problems in experiments and carried our project smoothly.
Several new changes have been added into previous parts, accompanied with brand new characteristics.
We improved Part: BBa_1807009 and submitted a new Part: BBa_K3731003, which is proved successful.
Adding vgb and mazE into the gene helps the growth of bacteria, thus improving the productivity of polyP.
Please visit our part page to know more.
Utilizing Autodock4, MATLAB and Python, we established a Four-in Model consisting of four models to help our team design,
carry out and expand our projects. The first model, polyP in Design,
simulated the binding of the enzyme and polyP and compared the binding energies.
The results showed that PPK1 is better for polyP synthesis, which guided lab members to insert ppk1 into the plasmid.
The second one, PolyP in Bacteria, focused on the growth curve,
in which a novel mathematical model called Serendipity Model was established for the bacteria culture in PA medium.
Such a model fitted our experimental data well and it made it convenient
for lab members to predict bacterial growth in PA medium.
More importantly, it further verified the success of our design.
The third one, polyP in Gut, was a stochastic model simulating the changes in gut microbiome
with the combined effect of polyP and DSS (which caused the animals to suffer from IBD).
Our simulation was successful according to experimental data.
Therefore, we provided a new insight into the influence of polyP.
Finally, polyP in Application, assumed that the bacterial factory could be installed in the intestine
and it was based on a coherent feedforward loop,
in which ions are essential for the production of both active PPKs and polyP and active PPKs
are also necessary for polyP synthesis.
With ODEs, we simulated the changes in the concentrations of ions, active enzymes and polyP.
According to our results, such a device could act as a smart filter
and a latent detector for healthy users and also function as a powerful producer and a crewd monitor for ill ones.
Thanks to NJMU-China iGEM team, we share a close relationship with each other throughout the year.
During our project we keep in contact with each other and help each other in many aspects. Both teams benefit a great lot!
To help more people gain a deeper understanding of synthetic biology,
we gave lessons to senior high school students, children and the elderly in the community.
For different groups, we had designed different courses to publicize and introduce in a more acceptable way
according to different key points. In addition, on the IBD day,
we displayed a board about IBD knowledge in school, which attracted many students.
We did some online education as well.
We produced a WeChat official account to introduce synthetic biology and made a related video for middle school students.
In addition, with the help of the ‘Little Blue Whale’ platform for undergraduate enrollment of Nanjing University,
we introduced some learning methods of biology and promoted synthetic biology and the iGEM competition
to prospective college entrance examination students.
We also pay deep attention to the issues of sustainable development and inclusivity
by bringing curriculum for students in schools in Guizhou, Yunnan and other minority areas.
Besides, we explored how to connect synthetic biology with the gut healthy together,
and create a standard about experimental ethics, transgenosis, application of engineering bacteria in vivo and so on,
anticipating that following iGEM teams can get support from this manual.
What’s more, we had multifarious communications with other teams who have the same goal as us to promote iGEM,
spread synthetic biology and create a better world.
We are trying to make synthetic biology and iGEM more accessible for everyone in the society.