Team:UI Indonesia/SDG

HELICOSTRIKE AND SDGS



According to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is a universal call to action to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure all people enjoy peace and prosperity by 2030.1 The UI Indonesia team realizes that our project has to achieve these international goals. Among the 17 goals contained in the SDGs, we are directing our project to meet several goals as follows:


Health is an essential aspect in human life defined as a healthy state both physically, mentally, spiritually, and socially that allows everyone to live socially and economically productive (Law of Indonesia No. 36 of 2009 on Health).2 What is to be achieved from the goals of good health and well-being in the SDGs is to ensure a healthy life and promote prosperity for all ages. The global concern is reducing child mortality, improving the quality of maternal health and combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases. Thus, eradicating a disease, especially infection-related, is also a significant part of these goals. It is not solely about absence of disease, medicine and health is far beyond: improving the quality of life.3 Our project aims to eradicate H.pylori infection by providing alternative treatments that are more effective and friendly to consumers and preventing antibiotic resistance due to long-term H.pylori treatment. Antibiotic resistance is a condition when bacteria no longer respond to antibiotics and make the treatment more expensive and less likely to succeed, we also considered antibiotic resistance as a new upcoming pandemic. In addition to being related to the main objectives in these goals, this project also targets new attention within this goal, namely attention to health problems caused by contamination of water, air and soil pollution. We recognize that H.pylori infection is closely related to contamination of the environment and food, especially water and sanitation. Our team also created and presented educational materials to raise public awareness about digestive health and sanitation to food hygiene. Although knowledge about sanitation and food hygiene is fundamental, knowledge about this is still not massive in the community. Education about sanitation and food hygiene is our concern to be conveyed to the public through various educational media, including social media and booklets.


Education is a goal to be achieved in the SDGs; specifically, the goal is to ensure the quality of inclusive education and increase lifelong learning opportunities for everyone by 2030.4 The iGEM UI Indonesia team, through the HELICOSTRIKE project, seeks to provide educational media and reliable also accountable information related to gastrointestinal infections, H. pylori infection, sanitation to food hygiene that can be accessed by people from various circles, from school students to practitioners. We provide educational materials and information for free and easily through social media and our wiki. We hope that our educational efforts, primarily through booklets translated into various local Indonesian and foreign languages, can be an effort to support one of the targets in these goals, namely that everyone acquires the knowledge and skills needed through education for sustainable development, human rights, gender equality, promotion of a culture of peace and non-violence, global citizenship and respect for cultural diversity and cultural contributions to sustainable development.4 We believe that the local Indonesian language is also part of the culture that can be used to convey knowledge about preventive measures against disease and food management which is also an effort to realize sustainable development goals.


The iGEM UI team does not only open up opportunities for students from various specializations or majors to participate in the team. However, it opens the most ample opportunity for both men and women to join and take a role in the team with their competencies. Our team consists of 14 people with 5 women who have important roles in the team, as team manager, head and members of the policy and practice division, and head of the web division. We are also proud to introduce and showcase their performance on our social media pages and team wikis. Our team strives to provide freedom and assurance for women to participate fully, effectively and provide opportunities for them to lead and make critical decisions within the team and utilize technology to enhance their empowerment. In addition to empowering women internally within the team, we also conducted interviews and discussions with women experts. We invited women experts in our webinars and Instagram live session as the speaker too. We believe women play such important rules.5


Based on the interviews and discussions we had with Prof.Dr. dr. H. Ari Fahrial Syam, Sp.PD-KGEH, MMB, FINASIM, FACP, it is known that one of the risk factors that play a role in the occurrence of H.pylori infection is poor sanitation quality. This made us focus on the importance of good sanitation in food processing and its role in preventing H.pylori infection and its complications. So that we bring this as educational material that is delivered through social media and booklets. We believe that the legitimate change in community behavior supports access to safe sanitation services. Empowering the community with knowledge about safe sanitation is also one of the efforts to support and strengthen local community participation in improving water and sanitation management, which is one of the targets of these clean water and sanitation goals.6


HELICOSTRIKE through many collaborations to be realized. The various collaborations and collaborations carried out by the iGEM UI team are as follows.
  • The iGEM UI team consists of 14 Universitas Indonesia students from various levels and specializations or majors, ranging from medicine and dentistry, engineering to natural sciences. We work in teams to perform tasks in three different divisions, namely the laboratory, the website and the policy and practice in the integration works
  • Team IGEM UI work with various parties, in this case the sponsor, PT ACR Investment and Erlangga publisher to get support in the project implementation
  • Team IGEM UI cooperating regional level with a team of IGEM others from Indonesia :IGEM UGM and IGEM Brawijaya
  • Tim IGEM UI makes international level cooperation with a team IGEM from other countries

Partnership has also made the team IGEM with various parties, among others:
  • Partners with the government through interviews with state institutions such as BPOM and LPPOM MUI
  • Collaborates with philanthropists and business people in the realm of synthetic biology to become speaker in webinars and discussion activities
  • Conducts interviews and discussions with experts and academics to obtain guidance and opinions about the HELICOSTRIKE project. The feedback provided is used to develop the project and make it better
  • Collaborates with community organizations in this case Synbio Indonesia to hold a webinar with the theme “Challenges and Development of Synthetic Biology in Indonesia”
  • Collaborates with several high schools to hold HELICOSTRIKE Goes to School online roadshow. We deliver presentations on synthetic biology and the introduction of iGEM competition in a more friendly way to the school students
  • Involves the participation of the general public in the project development process
  • Utilizing various media for HELICOSTRIKE publications and branding activities


  1. UNDP. Sustainable development goals | united nations development programme [Internet]. United Nations Development Programme. 2021 [cited 25 August 2021]. Available from: https://www.undp.org/sustainable-development-goals
  2. Direktorat P2PTM. Apa yang dimaksud sehat dan bugar? [Internet]. Direktorat P2PTM. 2021 [cited 25 August 2021]. Available from: http://p2ptm.kemkes.go.id/infographic-p2ptm/hipertensi-penyakit-jantung-dan-pembuluh-darah/apa-yang-dimaksud-sehat-dan-bugar
  3. UNDP. Goal 3 good health and well-being [Internet]. United Nations Development Programme. 2021 [cited 25 August 2021]. Available from: https://www.undp.org/sustainable-development-goals#good-health
  4. UNDP. Goal 4 quality education [Internet]. United Nations Development Programme. 2021 [cited 25 August 2021]. Available from: https://www.undp.org/sustainable-development-goals#quality-education
  5. UNDP. Goal 5 gender equality [Internet]. United Nations Development Programme. 2021 [cited 25 August 2021]. Available from: https://www.undp.org/sustainable-development-goals#gender-equality
  6. UNDP. Goal 6 clear water and sanitation [Internet]. United Nations Development Programme. 2021 [cited 25 August 2021]. Available from: https://www.undp.org/sustainable-development-goals#clean-water-and-sanitation
  7. UNDP. Goal 17 partnership for the goals [Internet]. United Nations Development Programme. 2021 [cited 25 August 2021]. Available from: https://www.undp.org/sustainable-development-goals#partnerships-for-the-goals