Team:SCAU-China/Partnership
Overview
Our partnership with BUCT-China started from an accidental exchange, and then we conducted a comprehensive and in-depth cooperation.
In May 2021, we put forward a request for cooperation in molecular dynamics simulation in the iGEM community in China, and discussed the issue of "molecular dynamics simulation" with other teams. Fortunately, The BUCT-China from Beijing University of Chemical Technology has powerful technique to deal with these problems. They contacted with us and provided very valuable suggestions on the problem of molecular dynamics simulation. After that, the two teams shared ideas with each other through online conferences, and which allowed us in-depth cooperation in many aspects. For example, BUCT-China provided suggestions about how to improve our device to fix Chlamydomonas, such as installing propellers, remote control, solar charging modules, and using 3D printing technology. We shared our technology of suicide switch with BUCT-China to meet the requirements of biosafety. In addition, we jointly completed a large-scale online popular science seminar to share our ideas with the public.
Figure 1: Meeting with BUCT-China
Partnership
Partnership in Hardware
In the wet experiment, BUCT-China provided new technical support for the cell embedding of our device.
In September 2021, we sent Chlamydomonas reinhardtii samples to BUCT-China. They used 3D printing and a new cell embedding method to fix our Chlamydomonas reinhardtii in a mixture of gelatin and sodium alginate. They treated samples under the UV light conditions and then observed its distribution in the mixture of materials.
Figure 2: Distribution of mixed Chlamydomonas reinhardtii in immobilized materials (Photo was taken by SCAU-China)
Figure 3: Chlamydomonas reinhardtii samples sent by SCAU-China and the 3D printing results by BUCT-China
In addition, because the device is difficult to recover since it floats in water, BUCT-China suggested that our device need to add thrusters and control modules, so that it could be controlled to swim slowly back and be recovered. In addition, they suggested adding a remote wake-up function to the device. When the device is working, most parts are in the state of power off except for the necessary electronic module, so that the whole devise is in a state of low energy consumption and reduce the energy loss. In addition, they suggested that solar power supply is preferred, while battery power supply system is used only when solar power supply is insufficient. Please go to hardware for details.
In addition, we propose that the device design can be optimized to realize automatic return. However, the measurement range of traditional ultrasonic and laser technology is too small to apply for larger waters. To solve this problem, BUCT-China proposed that we can adopt the GPS positioning method. They shared with us the information related to GPS positioning and the design process. Combining the scheme provided by BUCT-China with our device, we proposed the positioning scheme of "GPS+Beidou", which greatly improved the positioning accuracy.
Partnership in Human Practice
In October 2021, we together with CHINA-FAFU and BUCT-China held a lecture online to promote popular science education. The topic is "Under the micro, above the life". We introduced the concept of synthetic biology to public. By describing the real application scenarios and technical means of synthetic biology, we dispel the public's misunderstanding and prejudice about synthetic biology and let them have a correct understanding.
Figure 4: CHINA-FAFU, BUCT-China，SCAU-China Popular Science Lectures
Partnership in Safety
We shared our kill switch system concept with BUCT-China. Please go to safety to get the details. You can also visit the wiki of BUCT-China for details.
With SJTang
By an occasional opportunity, SJTang knew our work and contacted our team about their problem in biological modeling. After repeated discussions, we suggested that the SJTang team can consider the first principles, they could regard the total hydrogen production process as a black box, just focus on the interaction relationship between the substrate as input and hydrogen production as output. Moreover, based on their later experimental results and situation, we have also put forward to their wet lab jobs, proposed the advice that they can culture with different growth conditions and utilize these growth data to train a model which could guide for the rapid culturing, and we successfully assisted SJTang with modeling the aerobic growth process of R. palustris.
On the other side, SJTang also actively assisted our team, in the aspect of concepts, they presented an idea of creativity—the DNAzyme, which could be used for detecting pollution promptly. With multiple limiting factors, we did not put it into reality, however, their creative idea helped us improve the logical integrity of our project, and we are looking forward to realizing it in our project in the future.
Figure 5: Modeling Workshop
