Throughout our iGEM journey, we have interviewed professors, companies and non-governmental organizations to gain advice and insights on how we can improve our project.
From our past research, our research team has had difficulties predicting successful mutation sites for PETase. Prof. Ngo has suggested that we refer to the structure of the enzyme, more specifically, the active site of the enzyme. We could possibly refer to the binding energies and the positions of hydrogen bonds in the protein structure, as well as the catalytic site of the enzyme. We can look specifically into each amino acid, nucleotide, and see which is the key nucleotide that is responsible for the catalytic activity of the entire enzyme...
In the interview with Prof. Ngo, we told the professor how students opposed the idea of participating in seminars about plastic pollution according to our survey results. He mentioned that showing videos about plastic pollution may be vague and unpersuasive. He suggested that we make our survey and educational materials more convincing to students...
From the interview with Prof. Ngo, we realised that the main cause of plastic pollution is that plastic is too convenient for the general public, and this leads to an excessive usage of plastics. He pointed out that in order to tackle this problem, we must organize more promotion events for citizens to arouse the awareness of the new generation...