Team:Hong Kong HKU/Public Engagement
Education and Engagement
- Walking Together toward a Brighter Future
The 51st Joint School Science Exhibition (JSSE), held from 22nd to 27th August 2018 in the Hong Kong Central Library, provided a valuable opportunity to share synbio knowledge and inspire people from all walks of life.
Our displays highlighted the use of DNA as a nano drug carrier for specific drug delivery in cancer treatment. With folding DNA origami craft as an introduction, we have successfully piqued the public’s interest and educated them with the basic knowledge about DNA structures and functions, as well as the diverse diagnostic, therapeutic and other interesting applications of nanotechnology. Our project in breast cancer nanotherapy has attracted not only the attention of many enthusiastic school students pursuing STEM education, but also attracted the curious minds of numerous working adults who expressed the actual need to optimize current cancer treatments.
It was a nice platform to teach youngsters about the surprising use of DNA nanotechnology in the biomedical field, and inspire them to be passionate scientists with critical thinking by encouraging them to ask questions. Under the theme of “Reflection” this year, it was expected that people could think about bioethics and the intimate relationship between science and our daily lives, especially in the clinical field. For more of our thoughts on bioethics and safety, please visit our 'Safety' page.
Having three years of experience in mentoring local high school iGEM teams, this year we started an online handbook on high school team mentorship. It is a distillation of mentoring tips and experiences from our advisors, teammates, high school instructors, high school students and previous HKU iGEM teammates. It will be a reference to future iGEM teams and have the potential to involve international collaboration. It was written to target high school students too. With this handbook, we hope to facilitate high schools' participation in iGEM and encourage their collaboration with universities on STEM education.