Integrated
HP Gold Criteria
Focus on our project's application prospect by a scientific method
Suggestions from Interview changed our project
HP Silver Criteria
Good for the world: Try to make our project fit for the world in Integrated
Well documented & reasons - in Integrated and Engagement
Introduction
Human Practice is the jewel in the iGEM’s crown, it makes an iGEM project different from scientific researches. Integrated human practice connect modified creature with the world, education and public engagement spread the seed of synthetic biology around the world.
In our integrated human practice, we focus on finding the application prospect of our project. We divided this research into 4 parts: background, interview, attachment and impact. We collected reports and results about background of colorectal cancer and early diagnosis. In interview part, we interviewed people from all walks of society ranging from companies and researchers to potential users like patients, doctors and common people in the aim of receive suggestions from them. These feedbacks get our device more applicable and user friendly. For attachment part, we have written instructions and make bacterial loaders to make our device more applicable and user-friendly. Moreover, to introduce our project, we’ve listed comparison with other methods, and used price model to analyse our potential effect, finally listed out application scenes for populations of different wealth.
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Background
After this idea came out, we did a research of the background in colorectal cancer and early diagnosis.
Interview
To get suggestions from our potential user, we go to the Shanghai 6th hospital in China and Ottawa general hospital to interview doctors and patients. They gave us lots of suggestions and background knowledge.
Then we went for help from academia. We interview professors from School of Biomedical Engineering, Life Science, and Pharmacy. They gave us support and advice about our experiment methods, making bacteria loaders, constructing plasmids, and clinical application.
Besides, we visited the Roche enterprise and met with Quality Assurance manager. We got inspire from their industry process, and we integrated this kind of thought into our project, to have deeper thoughts about our product design. This finally became our design of bacteria loader like capsule or hydrogel.
Attachment
To make our project complete for users, we made bacteria loaders and instructions. These attachment designs are to make our project more acceptable and make it faster to get to industry.
Bacteria loaders contains two designs, capsule and hydrogel. Different kind of loader can be used in different situations.
To help our users get to know our project easily, we wrote two kinds of instructions for patients and doctors.
Impact
How can our project change our world? This may always be an ultimate question for us, also other iGEM projects, and it’s also our main purpose of our integrated human practice. We used 2 method to find our application scene, which are building models and comparison. Comparing our projects with other cancer early diagnosis methods can reveal our advantages and disadvantages. We all know that people will buy more when price goes down, but how does it work? Our price model can show the impact of lowering down the price to bring up consuming.
Table 1. Rough comparison of different screening methods,
adapted from
[1][2]
[1][2]
[1] Lieberman, D., Ladabaum, U., Cruzcorrea, M., Ginsburg, C., Inadomi, J. M., & Kim, L. S., et al. (2016). Screening for colorectal cancer and evolving issues for physicians and patients: a review. JAMA, 316(20), 2135-2145.
[2] Inadomi J. M. (2017). Screening for colorectal neoplasia. The New England Journal of Medicine, 376, 149–156.
| Method | Sensitivity | Initial Cost | Requirement and convenience | Sensitivity of precancerous neoplasia | Potential harm |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fecal Occult Blood Test | 20%-50% | Low | Special diet required;performed at home, mailed to lab | No | No |
| Fecal Immunochemical Test | 79% | Low | Performed at home, mailed to lab | No | No |
| Flexible Sigmoidoscopy | ≤92% | $500-$600 | Performed at home, mailed to lab | No | No |
| Flexible Sigmoidoscopy | 95% portion examined; 75% overall | Low | Limited bowel preparation as compared with colonoscopy | 90% in portion examined | 90% in portion examined |
| Colonoscopy | 95% | $500-$3000 | Full bowel preparation; usually requires sedation and an escort | 90% | Bleeding risk (3/1000); perforation risk (1/1000); cardiovascular events risk (1/1000) |
| CT colonography | likely >90% | $500-$600 | Bowel preparation required | 90% | Very small radiation exposure; minor discomfort |
Reference
[1] Lieberman, D., Ladabaum, U., Cruzcorrea, M., Ginsburg, C., Inadomi, J. M., & Kim, L. S., et al. (2016). Screening for colorectal cancer and evolving issues for physicians and patients: a review. JAMA, 316(20), 2135-2145.
[2] Inadomi J. M. (2017). Screening for colorectal neoplasia. The New England Journal of Medicine, 376, 149–156.
