Team:Shanghai Metro Utd/Human Practices
Integrated Human Practices
Overview:
The purpose of our goal is to find the correlation between Angiogenin and Heparan
sulfate. Therefore, we can use the reaction to promote the production of endothelial cells to protect nerve
cells from treating the disease. We also try to find the probable usage of the mechanism and potential drugs
in the future. We do relevant research through street surveys, practicing experiments, and interviewing
experts. With the help of our coach in both teams and the professional explanation by experts, we eventually
finished the first stage of the study: getting the expression vector and recombinant protein of ANG,
verifying the recombinant protein, then observed to promote endothelial cell proliferation and angiogenesis
for future applications.
As people pay more attention to the research of brain science and the mechanism of
the nervous system, an increasing number of incurable diseases have aroused people’s attention, such as PD
and other diseases. For example, Parkinson’s disease affects more than 4 million people worldwide. In the
United States, Parkinson’s disease occurs in approximately 13 per 100,000 people, and about 60,000 new cases
are identified each year. Like Muhammad Ali, who was the champion of countless competitions, many
celebrities suffered from this disease, cannot hold a torch stably because of PD. To solve this situation,
we decided to start the research, try to bring hopeful life to patients, and make progress in studying brain
science and the nervous system.
Street Survey:
To understand the public's understanding of cardiovascular disease, our team went
to Lujiazui, the most popular part of Shanghai, to conduct a social survey. We are divided into two groups.
The first group interviewed 13 members of the public, including 5 teenagers, 6
middle-aged people, and 2 older adults. Among the five young people, three learned about the cardiovascular
disease through biology classes and personal experiences, and the remaining two students didn't know much
about it.
Half of the six middle-aged people know about cardiovascular disease, and they know
it through television programs or personal experiences. However, when it came to medication, half wanted to
use the marketed drug as directed by their doctor, and a few would make decisions based on a combination of
factors.
Older adults are aware of cardiovascular diseases. However, as they are all very
healthy, they provided ways to live a healthy life and stay away from it, such as exercising more, not
smoking, staying in a good mood, etc.
The second group interviewed 10 members of the public, including 7 teenagers, 2
middle-aged people and 1 older adult.
All seven young people have a general understanding of the cardiovascular disease.
Two of them are medical students, so they have a deeper understanding and more specialized nursing
knowledge. As a result, they are more receptive to new drugs. However, when recommended to buy them for
friends, they prefer to use them until the end of the experiment.
Two middle-aged people are also probably aware of the disease but would not quickly
try new drugs.
The older adult knows some of the causes of the disease because she has
cardiovascular disease. However, she is reluctant to try new drugs and prefers to follow her doctor's advice
to buy medicines with health care.
So, based on this offline street survey, we conclude that most people have an
impoverished understanding of
symptoms and types of cardiovascular disease and expertise in how to prevent it. Also, young people are more
receptive to new drugs than middle-aged and older adults.
Questionnaire:
To understand the public's understanding of cardiovascular disease, we published an
online questionnaire. A
total of 223 people participated in the questionnaire, mainly middle-aged people, followed by adolescents.
Moreover, women make up a more significant proportion.
Nearly half of people who know about vascular diseases such as Parkinson's disease,
cancer, and frostbite have only heard of the name of the disease. In addition, 40 percent know symptoms
similar to those at the time of onset of the lesions. However, only nearly 10% of people see the cause of
disease specifically. Thus, the public's understanding of vascular diseases is still generally superficial.
Statistically, we found that the majority of people with cardiovascular disease are
over 60 years old. 40-60 years old is also the highest incidence of this disease age group. Therefore, more
middle-aged and elderly patients have vascular disease, and male patients account for a more significant
proportion compared with young people. At the same time, people who took part in the survey said it was
common for parents, relatives, and friends to suffer from the disease. Combined with this survey to
middle-aged people mainly, side-reflection of middle-aged and elderly is a high incidence of vascular
disease population.
Fifty percent of people with cancer, thawing disease, Parkinson's patients are
unclear about the name of the patients' drugs. About 28 percent use the drug recommended by the attending
physician, and about 22 percent target the drug. Suppose there are new drugs for vascular diseases on the
market, which "have clinical trials but the effect is obvious" or "have a national patent certificate and
are already on the market". In that case, most people are willing to try them.
When considering whether to buy new drugs or not, it is generally accepted that
price, efficacy, speed of entry into force, safety, and the length of time that a drug is used are even more
critical.
Interview:
Subject background understanding (Wet Team Coach Gaofeng Zhao):
Dr. Zhao is a doctor of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. According to an interview
with him about the prokaryotic expression of Angiopoietin and the interaction with heparan sulfate, we
understand that this topic can be promoted to the market in two ways in the future. First, directly use the
expressed protein as a possible drug. And second, study its biological mechanism to discover further and
develop new targets, and create more possible drugs against new targets.
The working principle of this topic is that Angiopoietin can promote the
proliferation and production of internal cells, which will play a protective role for nerve cells. Many
Parkinson's patients have detected protein mutations, that is, genetic mutations. This resulted in the
protein not performing its normal function. For students, they can learn more about carrier transformation.
It is not necessarily unusable if the sequence carrier to be tested is inconsistent with the original
prediction. The two enzymes in front of the label can be replaced. Cut off the title together so that there
is no effect after inserting my clip, as this label has been cut off. It can also be expressed together with
the tag but cut off with the enzyme at the end. But there are many other feasible options, depending on the
choices of the players. There is very little research on this subject now, and it will take many years to
reach the clinical stage. But as a possible treatment method, it can be tried clinically. As long as this
treatment approach's dosage, feasibility, and safety are proved, it can be tried soon.
Business Plan (Business Expert Andong Zhang):
As an expert in market research, especially in angiopoietin, Mr. Zhang is presently
a business adviser at a large consultant corporation. Apart from his profession, Mr. Zhang also has a deep
understanding of the medical industry. Through the online interview with him, we learned that the aim
clients of our product are older adults who suffer from sensible chronic diseases, cardiovascular and
cerebrovascular diseases in some application scenarios for the treatment of these patients. To better
promote our research and product, we can first do a preliminary understanding of the patients in the
hospital, asking them their current routine treatment of cardiovascular disease to see if they are
interested, and then decide whether to introduce our products or not. In the promotion stage, we could first
post our posters and logo in hospitals and other medical institutions or can be placed in some commercial
medical insurance in workdays. Apart from that, some elderly care institutions may also be a good choice.
Since this is a new product, the data can be used to dispel the doubters' doubts. We can also go to the
Internet to search whether there are any similar drugs in use at domestic or abroad.
In the initial stage, we must make a business plan first to determine our depth and
value. In addition, well-prepared software and hardware and making a backup plan is also essential. The way
of promotion is recommended to choose some platform with large traffic and low marketing cost such as Weibo,
Tik Tok, Blog, Sina Weibo, WeChat official account, and so on; Online questionnaire and street survey may
also be a good choice. During the promotion process, funds can be raised through official organizations and
universities' academic research support. To guarantee the effectiveness of the drug, we should prepare for a
continuous explanation, and a mechanism that can be reviewed and explained should be established to have as
large a sample as possible to ensure the exact effect of the product and recall the drug at first time if
there is any problem with it. After our product begins to take shape, we can cooperate with various shows in
the health and wellness category to further promote our drug.
Biological interview (Biology Expert Wei Li):
Specializing in neurosurgery, Dr. Li is the deputy chief physician of the Nanjing
Gulou Hospital. He is also the associate professor of Nanjing University. Exceeding in his field of study,
the primary treatment to cerebrovascular and nerve tumors and other similar diseases such as Stroke, Tia,
and Moyamoya disease is divided into two aspects: the treatment of the cause and the symptomatic treatment.
The treatment of the reason aims to find the cause of the disease and remove it, usually done in the form of
surgery. For example, can the tumors in the brain, thrombus, and aneurysm in the artery and then replant
artificial stents in the vessels. The symptomatic treatment aims to eliminate symptoms, including surgical
removal, tube drainage, and medical treatment, which is mostly used. When it comes to the neuro tumor, the
first step is to consider it is benign or malignant. Benign tumors are usually negligible if they do not
compress key brain areas. Still, some young patients whose bodies are in good condition will also decide to
remove or minimize them if possible for the sake of safety. However, malignant tumors are urgent to be
removed because these tumors will transfer to cancer cells and flow through the circulatory system, causing
more severe consequences.
The treatment of tumors and cancer has developed rapidly in recent decades, from
surgical resection to chemotherapy and radiotherapy to targeting drugs and power plant treatment of glioma
in recent years. Chemotherapy and radiotherapy are the most widely used treatment nowadays, through taking
in radio molecules or chemical medicine to restrain the growth or division of cancer cells. However, since
these materials can kill cancer cells, they will also cause severe damage to the normal cells. Therefore,
patients who take radiotherapy and chemotherapy will experience hair loss, loss of appetite, physical
weakness, and other side effects. For these reasons, in today’s treatment, we prefer to cut most of the
tumors through surgery than use new techniques like targeting drugs to clear the rest of the tumors to
reduce the damage to the human body. However, the mechanism and design are still required to be studied
nowadays to improve the effect and the accuracy.
One of the famous cerebrovascular diseases is Moyamoya disease, which is because
the vessels in the brain are too narrow and abnormal, demonstrating smoke-like effects on the instruments.
Besides, some cerebrovascular diseases can be inherited in the family. Therefore, in curing cerebrovascular
diseases, the best current method is called health management, dividing the prevention into three levels and
improving the public’s awareness of this kind of disease. Patients will have a relevant check-in physical
examination.
Impact:
After we finished most of the street activities, we found through the street survey
that most of the citizens in China do not know much about cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases such
as PD, ALS and other nerous diseases, especially among young people who are not suffered from such diseases.
Because of that, our main purpose of the preach is to let as many people to know the risk and cause of such
diseases, improving public's attention to these diseases, so that more and more people are likely to try and
learn our project. With the communication with our wet team coach and the Biological expert, the wet team
realized that the length of the training is so short that it is almost impossible for them to complete the
initial goal they set before the training. Therfore, after discussing with the coach and the tutor, they
decided to change their aim and arrangement of the experiments. Reading the conclusion we provide from the
questionnaire and papers on ANG treatment of PD, they discovered that there are huge amounts of elderly
people who are high-risk group of nervous diseases in China, while related treatments are still very few and
traditional. Considering these factors, the wet team eventually decided to put most of their efforts into
rebuilding the plasmid e-coil and transfer it into the ANG protein to transfer abnormal protein into average
to produce ANG instead of mainly focusing on the reaction between them Angiogenin and Heparan sulfate. After
we conclude all the activities and make changes, we choose a corporation and an institution where many
people work and study to give our presentation.