Team:NCKU Tainan/Human Practices
Overview
Communicating science to the public isn’t an easy task; sometimes, we need to adjust how we deliver our research depending on the audience we face. Before the approach, we also need to understand what benefit the audience will receive from the systems and technology we bring. Therefore, Human practice became an indispensable part of our project, which acts as a bridge between researchers and general audience or even experts in different fields. We believe that only if we closely collaborate with professionals and deeply investigate the potential consumers demands can we ensure our product development is beneficial to our community. We explore and seek for innovated ideas though every interaction with different groups and optimize our product designs.We construct a framework of our human practice project that can be categorized as two main parts: business promotion and education. Throughout the business promotion part, we reached out to several experts for an optimization of functionalities of our product and constructed our business model with considerations regarding aspects of intellectual property, laws, and regulations. To mature our designs, we determine to turn to various respects of the community: doctors, researchers and experts involved in the business side of product development.
The educational section, on the other hand, was a collective set targeting at several audiences to transfer biosynthetic science. We attempted to discover multiple approaches and viable options to promote our products and collect feedbacks from our audiences
We realize that the deeper research we dive in, the more uncertainty and unknown emerge as accompany. However, the desire to develop mature product that meets the market demands urges us to keep investigating our core issue: what is the solution to depression? and we keep asking: how do we position ourselves and our research product? Our iGEM project is to intrigue more people’s interests and come together to solve this complicated and challenging issue.
Expert visits
Before we are able to get started on developing our idea into a product, we need to make sure that our idea is as close to perfect as possible, and that means tons of research and experiments. But, the real problem with many ideas, and perhaps the reason why many fail to become a success, is a lack of expertise. No matter how much time and effort we put into research, there will always be an expert who knows the topic or even industry much better than we do. So, to help further verify and improve our ideas, we visited several experts in different fields.
Dr. CHEN,BO-SI 5/28
Attending Physician, Division of Nephrology, National Cheng Kung University Hospital
We met with Dr. Te-Hui Kuo to gain knowledge about Chronic Kidney Disease. He provided us with invaluable insight into the connection between p-Cresol and Chronic Kidney Disease. We met with him during the early stages of the project, and he advised us to keep expanding on the idea of using blood measurement for uremic toxins. He also warned us that the public and even doctors don’t pay much attention to uremic toxins, which encouraged us to design activities to spread awareness, which you can find in our public engagement.
Professor Yu-Cheng Lin
Professor, Department of Engineering Science, National Cheng Kung University
Our first hardware idea was to detect human stress levels through saliva, we planned to extract cortisol which is the biomarker of stress, by detecting cortisol levels throughout a couple of days, we will be able to determine someone’s depression level. We made several discussions with professor Yu-Cheng Lin due to the fact that he has the real experience of extracting the different substances from saliva and detect the concentration of several substances through the paper-based electrochemical device. We wanted to continue and make this concept a reality, but suddenly covid-19 strikes Taiwan, so we were not able to go into any lab and we finally suspend the idea then search for another alternative.
Professor Chia-Yuan Chen
Associate Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, National Cheng Kung University
We proposed our idea about creating a device using microfluidic chips in mind, however we were not exactly sure how to apply the chip into our device. Professor Chen was very helpful as he discussed with us about the type of microfluidic chip that can be used in our device, how the chip will integrate with other parts of the device, and whether our chip is reusable or not. He told us to try using PDMS chip because it’s affordable and it has the same performance as acrylic chip. From this discussion, we then decided to use PDMS-based microfluidic chip. Professor Chen then provided us with resources in his lab and taught us the required PDMS chip fabrication skills. By his help, we successfully made a few version of PDMS microfluidic chips.
Professor Ruey-Jen Yang
Chair Professor, Department of Engineering Science, National Cheng Kung University
We consulted Professor Yang when we kept failing on creating the PDMS microfluidic chip as the runner joint made of PDMS will rupture during centrifugation process. Although the third version of the wafer is reinforced at the joint, we still hope to find an alternative before the third version of the wafer comes out. Since Professor Yang has done low-cost paper-based chip development and micro-flow channel design, we hoped to get help and his advice in this regard.
After asking and briefly describing what we wanted to do, he suggested us to find his student who was doing a PDMS-related study. He told us that the bond between PDMS and PDMS is weaker than the bond between PDMS and glass and acrylic. It is recommended that we try to use PDMS and acrylic binding to test whether the strength could have a higher performance. Other problems also include the parameters of the oxygen plasma during binding that will also affect the binding effect (the pressure and time of the binding). Professor Yang then suggested that we make the whole acrylic disc into a microfluidic disc, which will save some space and fixed processes and introduced Ph.D. Weng to us. By his suggestion, we went to Ph.D. Weng and tested acrylic materials for bonding in our third version of the device.
Ph.D. Chen-Hsun Weng
Chief of Industry-Academic Collaboration in Medical Device Innovation Center, Tainan
We went to Ph.D. Weng to learn about paper-based microfluidic chip and how to use acrylic engraving machine and we also consulted about what type of microfluidic chip suit us the best. We had tested our device parts and found some troubles regarding the chip we used. Our first version uses PDMS microfluidic chip but apparently when we tested it in our centrifuge, it burst. Therefore we went to Ph.D. Chen-Hsun Weng who suggested us to use paper-based chip because it can do blood separation. He also said PDMS is harder to customize and is quite inefficient. He then taught us to use the engraving machine for the acrylic disk.
Enterprise visit
Just because an idea is good does not always mean it will sell well in the market. Our product may be designed and modified in the laboratory and adjusted to maximize its performance. However, we needed advice from potential stakeholders to ensure our product will meet real-world demands. We need to interact with industries to understand more about the industrial environment and current market situation. So, in order to refine our idea into a product suitable for the market, we visited several enterprises.
GeneFerm Biotechnology Co., LTD.
Geneferm is a leading fermentation company, that focuses on fermented fungi, microbes and also probiotics. We visited Geneferm to learn more about the criteria we need to meet before our product can enter the market. At this stage, we were still considering whether to market our product as a drug or probiotic.
From our meeting with Miss Erin Wu and Mr Eugene Wu, we learned:
- Quality control of a living cell on a medication
- Food Industry Research and Development (FIRDI) help in inspection of the supplement
- Comparison between food and medication process and regulation
- The risks if we do not apply patent for our drug or medical device
Moreover, they suggested us three things:
- Determine the usage of product like the age group and delivering product
- Take into account the law and regulations since Taiwan does not have proper gene-editing regulations especially toward the biotherapeutic drug
- Education toward GMO usage
By their suggestions, we conducted survey for our drug method delivery and classified approximate age of ESRD patients who will consume our biotherapeutic drug (Data can be seen in our entrepreneurship. Also, because of them, we also planned to pay a visit to IPO (Intellectual Property Office) to learn more about patents.
2019 NCKU iGEM OMG Survey
Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) are becoming more and more prevalent in our society due to its potential in many different fields, including pharmaceutical field. There is a large amount of misconceptions and controversies surrounding GMOs. Despite the majority of scientists and researchers pushing for GMOs, it seems like the public are getting more and more wary about it.
In order to have a better idea of how the public perceives GMOs in the context of our Oh My Gut project, we developed an opinion survey about GMOs and their use in the treatment of CKD. We were fortunate enough to be able to spread this survey to international citizens. We received responses from Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Japan, the Netherlands, Germany, Ukraine, Spain, Mexico, China, Canada, India and Greece.
Population Sample
From the responses we got, we know that nearly 80% of responses were comprised of those aged 18 - 25 and 41 - 65 (see Fig. 1). It was relieving to know that a large majority has received high school-level education at the very least (see Fig. 2), although only 19% were of scientific backgrounds (see Fig. 3).
Fig. 1. Age distribution
Fig. 2. Highest education level
Fig. 3. Background
Knowledge on CKD
First, we wanted to assess the sample population’s general knowledge of Chronic Kidney Disease. Thus, we established several questions to learn more about their level of information. It was quite a surprise to us that only 47% of them had heard of CKD (see Fig. 4) and only 10% admits to being quite knowledgeable about CKD (see Fig. 5). When asked about current treatments for CKD (see Fig. 6), 58% admitted to knowing nothing. The most well-known method was dialysis and kidney transplant, with 22% and 11% responses respectively. Other responses include medicine, diet control, controlling blood pressure/sugar and active charcoal.
From these responses, we could deduce that there is still a lack of education and knowledge when it comes to Chronic Kidney Disease. The responses inspired us to launch a workshop aimed at elementary students, to educate them about kidneys with a hands-on approach. (See public engagement)
Fig. 4. Have you heard of CKD?
Fig. 5. What is your understanding of CKD? (5 being an expert on CKD)
Fig. 6. What are the current treatments for CKD?
Living Therapeutic Acceptance
Second, we wanted to assess the sample population’s acceptance when it comes to living therapeutic. Thus, we established a few questions to understand more about their stance on living therapeutic (engineered bacteria used as medical treatments). Only 37% were supportive of genetic engineering, while 31% were considerably neutral (see Fig. 7). 39% approved the development of ‘gene-edited’ bacterial drugs, while only 34% agreed to use said bacterial drugs.
From these responses, we could deduce that there is still a large percentage of people who do not fully support or are neutral about gene editing, especially when it comes to gene-edited bacterial drugs. As such, we can conclude that there is still a long way to go before gene-edited pharmaceutical products like CreSolve (our live therapeutic drug) is able to hit the market. However, we are still optimistic that given enough time and education, live therapeutics can become a staple in medical treatments.
Fig. 7. What is your level of support for ‘Genetic Engineering’ or ‘Genetic Modification’?
Fig. 8. What is your level of support for the development of "gene-edited" bacterial drugs?
Fig. 9. Will you agree to use "gene edited" bacterial drugs?
p-Cresol Detector Acceptance
Last, we wanted to assess the sample population’s acceptance when it comes to utilizing a p-Cresol Detector. Thus, we established a few questions first to understand the current situation and whether or not there is a need for this detector. 38% have ever done a kidney function test (see Fig.10), but only a mere 9% has ever done a self-paid uremic toxin test (see Fig. 11). However, we cannot know for sure if the reason there is only a small percentage of people doing uremic toxin tests is because of lack of knowledge or lack of need.
We performed this survey to understand more about what the public wants and needs when it comes to a uremic toxin detector, to further understand CreSense, our blood p-Cresol quantification device’s value in the market. Most are concerned about the accuracy and cost of the device, with 67% only accepting the device if the price-tag is below 50 USD. That being said, we are happy to say that each CreSense test will cost less than $2, which is much lower than the public’s estimation.
Fig. 10. Have you ever did a "Kidney Function Test" (Ex: Creatinine test)?
Fig. 11. Have you ever did a "self-paid uremic toxin test"?
Entrepreneurship
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur adipisicing elit. Quas cum cumque minus iste veritatis provident at.
Read More
Collaboration
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur adipisicing elit. Quas cum cumque minus iste veritatis provident at.
Read More
Communication
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur adipisicing elit. Quas cum cumque minus iste veritatis provident at.
Read More