CONSTRUCTION IN PROGRESS

Overiew

In our project development, human practice is closely related to the need of our project and makes profound influence on each stage of our project development.

Content

Inspiration and background investigation

Overview: In the preparation stage of the project, we carried out a wide range of background investigations to confirm the feasibility of using tryptophan to release the pain of insomnia. We interviewed with Prof.Zhang Yali, in order to find out the possible ways of using tryptophan to cure insomnia. After the deep interaction with Prof.Zhang, we decided to explore the possibility of using milk as medium to help people absorb extra tryptophan. And to make the step further, considering the background of epidemic, the idea of constructing a domestic milk machine to fulfill our goal attracted our attention successfully. Meanwhile, we were honored to have a deep communication with Dr. Chen Xiaopeng, who had much experience in curing patients with mental health problems like sleep disorder. The talk covered a lot of useful contents: from the current situation and therapies of insomnia, to the feasibility of using tryptophan to cure insomnia. Dr. Chen even inspired us to do some popularization of science to introduce the insomnia and its solutions towards public.

I. Interview with Prof.Zhang Yali

In order to understand the anxiety problems and sleep conditions in the context of the epidemic and to learn to choose the suitable medium to carry our tryptophan, we interviewed Prof. Zhang Yali from the School of Life Science of Xi'an Jiaotong University.

Prof. Zhang introduced us the interdisciplinary intersection of microbiology and food nutrition with the fermentation industry as the core, affirming the broad prospects of microbiology and synthetic biology.She mentioned that under the social background of epidemic, making difference to people’s diet is more safer and convenient. Pro. Zhang alos discussed with us the selection of engineering bacteria and explore the value of tryptophan in various applications.

At the same time, we were also glad to know that tryptophan has much more wider application in diverse area than we used to think, which can be used to help people release their feeling of anxiety and depression. And further investigations proved this idea.

With the guidance and suggestions, we chose to use food medium to carry our tryptophan, and would focus on the issues of product acceptance and safety came up with idea to use milk reserved in a domestic.

II. Interview with Dr.Chen Xiaopeng

In order to gain insight into the causes and treatment of insomnia today and explore new ideas for sleeping aid, our team contacted and interviewed Dr. Chen Xiaopeng, Deputy Chief Physician of the Department of Neurology at the People's Hospital of Jiangnan University.

We consulted Dr. Chen about the main factors that trigger insomnia, the characteristics of patients in clinical work and the treatment methods used at present. He provided us with the related information with his own clinical experience, which helped us have a comprehensive overview of the current situation of insomnia.

At the same time, Dr. Chen affirmed our team’s idea of using tryptophan as a sleep-aid molecule produced by the a household device. And he also gave suggestions for solving the insomnia problem among young people, which inspires us to do more popularization of science related to mental health to the public.

Through this interview and investigation, we gain a new comprehension of insomnia and determined that the home-based production of tryptophan will be realized through synthetic biology and home-based hardware design.

Implementation

Overview: In the application stage, we tried our best to broaden the prospect of our project. After the talk with Dr. Liu Ziqiang, we decided to try to pay a visit to fermentation factory. And finally, we contacted with a alcohol fermentation factory to get some experience of bacteria fermentation. With the original design of our hardware, we made connection with Dr. Zong Yeqi. Dr. Zong evaluated our designs and pointed out the potential challenges. On top of that, he eagerly gave us much advice to help us make our design more reliable and user-friendly. He also mentioned that it would be better for us to polish our hardware if we can carry out public survey to collect first-hand data. As a result, we did a public survey to evaluated the current situation of insomnia, as well as the acceptability of our hardware design. The outcome of the survey showed that public awareness of insomnia needs to be strengthen. And surprisingly, nearly 95% of investigated population held an open mind to our hardware and were willing to try it if the technology is mature enough.

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More about the interview with Prof.Zhang

Under the circumstance of recurring epidemic, mental health problems caused by reduced socialization, like increased anxiety and widespread sleep problems receive much attention from the public. And due to our goal of helping people solve these problems by making difference to their diet, we actually need the interaction with expert in the area of nutrition and food health. Luckily , our team had a chance to interview Pro. Zhang Yali from the School of Life Sciences at Xi'an Jiaotong University, who has profound knowledge of nutriology. We realized that we can meet human health needs with the help of food nutrition and microbiology, while gaining a deeper understanding of our tryptophan project.

Prof. Zhang has long been engaged in microbiology and food nutrition research, so she began by introducing us the most central part of the intersection of the two fields: the fermentation industry supported by the microbiology discipline. For the purpose of producing natural products using genetic engineering techniques, there are both advantages and disadvantages compared to the direct use of chemical synthesis. At present, there are more than 80 polypeptide drugs available worldwide, which are obtained by three methods: chemical synthesis, genetic recombination and plant or animal extraction. There are still extreme challenges in the process of developing new polypeptide drugs. Meanwhile, the strict regulations to their application are supposed to be considered.

In the post-epidemic era, individuals are paying more attention to their own health conditions. Prof. Zhang believed that this trend provides a broad prospect for the development of microbiology and synthetic biology, in order to meet the needs of the public. And microorganisms have pivotal impact on human health. First of all , microorganisms have coexisted with humans for a long time in our intestinal, oral and skin flora, which have a long-lasting and stable impact on human homeostasis and immunity. On top of that, microorganisms can also affect human indirectly by influencing our living environment. Therefore, the research in the direction of the human microbiome is also crucial to be further explored.

Finally, we and Prof.Zhang focus on the design and idea of our project. In terms of hardware design, Prof. Zhang suggested us to grasp the selection of engineered bacteria to ensure the sensory properties of the product and its curative effect are accepted. At the same time, tryptophan, as a precursor substance ,may not be as effective as melatonin in the short term. But as a component of food and more importantly, the essential amino acids for human life, its longevity and organism stability are much better. Moreover, tryptophan is involved in numerous metabolic processes, and the injection of it is of great clinical value in treating diseases like hypertension and depression. Combined with iron and vitamins, tryptophan can intervene in locomotor anemia; the combination with histidine can treat peptic ulcers. Therefore, the prospect for the application and development of tryptophan is really wide.

With the guidance and advice of Prof. Zhang, we learned that tryptophan has a broad application prospect, at the same time,we needed to focus on product acceptance and safety issues in hardware development.

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More about the interview with Prof.Chen

By distributing and collecting the questionnaires about the degree of insomnia of the public, we come to a conclusion that insomnia is a general and common situation in the present society. Therefore, in order to gain a deeper understanding of the causes and solutions to improve the current insomnia situation, we interviewed Dr. Chen Xiaopeng, Deputy Chief Physician of the Department of Neurology at the People's Hospital of Jiangnan University, and discussed the feasibility of our project using tryptophan as a nutritional supplement. Through this interview and research, we learned a lot about the causes of insomnia symptoms and the ways to treat them.

First, he introduced us the factors that cause insomnia in nowadays society. In terms of the objective reasons, individuals’ age, gender, family history and personality may contribute to insomnia. From the point of subjective side, some individuals get into insomnia due to the disruption of their life rhythms, while some others are forced by competitive pressure from their work or life. Meanwhile, Dr. Chen told us that the proportion of adults suffering from insomnia in mainland China is as high as 57%, with the majority of chronic insomnia patients seeking medical attention concentrated in middle-aged and elderly people, while young people are not as willing to seek medical treatment when they develop insomnia symptoms.

Dr. Chen has also provided valuable suggestions for our project. He mentioned that the standardized therapies for chronic insomnia at present include psychotherapy, pharmacotherapy, physiotherapy, Chinese medicine, and integrative treatment. And our team's choice of using tryptophan as a nutritional supplement belongs to over-the-counter medication in pharmacotherapy. Although the clinical application of tryptophan is controversial, a recent Meta-analysis by the National University of Singapore on the effect of tryptophan on sleep disorders indicated that adequate supplementation of tryptophan can significantly reduce the time to fall asleep. As a consequence, the direction of our project is worthy of trying and exploring.

Finally, Dr.Chen offered some suggestions to prevent insomnia for today’s youth. To start with subjective causes, many surveys have shown that common triggers of insomnia among students include excessive use of electronic products such as cell phones, smoking, drinking alcohol or milk tea, learning pressure and emotional instability. Therefore, Dr. Chen suggested students to pay attention to overcoming these factors in their lives. In addition, scientific research also indicates that melatonin secretion in the human body starts at about 9:00 pm and gradually decreases to stop after about 12:00 pm. The gastrointestinal motility of the digestive system stops at about 10:30 pm, which reminds us that we should arrange the pace of life reasonably.

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