Team:USP-EEL-Brazil/Human Practices
All our team's Human Practices iniciatives are possible thanks to the help of the Synthetic Biology Club (CBSin). So, before you read more about our HPs, we recomend you to meet CBSin.
We hope you enjoy seing all the work we developed before and during iGEM competition. We did it all with a lot of passion!
Synthetic Biology Week
So members from CBSin organized to create an entire week dedicated to disseminate several subjects related with Synthetic Biology. During the Synthetic Biology week, our entity brought several professors, researchers and young entrepreneurs from others Brazilian universities to speak about Synthetic Biology, entrepreneurship, the maker movement (which is a DIY growing movement from Brazil) and its importance for a society in constant changes. We aimed to show the University community (students and teachers) our work and mission!
Just build it
One of CBSIN's core missions is to develop technology and bring the academic community closer to society. To be able to count on public participation, we held the Just Build It (JBI) event. The JBI was one of the biggest events idealized by CBSIN together with Hack.Atomic, Synbiobrasil and the Free Hardware group:
Hack.Atomic:is a student entity from EEL-USP, established in 2016. Its mission is to bring the "Making" culture to the college environment through workshops held in partnership with other entities, as well as offering free introductory classes to the Arduino. This way, Hack.Atomic manages to bring to the engineering students problems related to the logic of programming and basic circuits that helps in the formation of an engineer.
Hardware Livre:is one of the largest group in Brazil formed by students of the University of São Paulo that promotes studies related to the areas of Free Hardware. They teach to use the technology involved in some devices and their applications in research are explored by undergraduate, masters and doctoral students.
Synbiobrasil:is one of the most relevant group of synthetic biology development in Brazil. Every week the platform offers meetings between undergraduate and graduate students from various science areas to discuss open science. The objective is to generate interdisciplinarity on problems that can be solved with bioengineering, emphasizing the approach of Synthetic Biology.
Therefore, during the event, students had access to Arduino programming with Hack.Atomic, and then they were instructed by Free Hardware representatives to build lab equipment with cheap and affordable parts. Among the equipment, we can mention: greenhouse, shaker, a sensor of luminosity and water bath.
The Children’s Yogurt Day
According to World Health Organization, osteoporosis affects approximately Ten millions of Brazilians, mainly related with calcium deficiency and ageing, and so the CBSIN made The Children’s Yogurt Day. Yogurt is originated from the milk fermentation and is known by its properties: Yogurt is rich in vitamins, minerals (main calcium), proteins, helps to lose weight, natural probiotic and can be easily used in a large range of culinary.
Everybody know that children have a big persuasive power, that is why CBSIN went to UNIFATEA (Centro Universitário Teresa D'Ávila) in order to teach children from different ages how to make a delicious homemade yogurt in a simple way, broadening some concepts of biology and talking about the importance of bacterias and microorganisms in our lives.
Through this project we were aiming to propose a food education, instigate that children convince their parents to have healthier habits, we tried to instigate their curiosity and introduced them the concept of Synthetic Biology.
Partnership with AIESEC
"AIESEC is a global platform for young people to explore and develop their leadership potential. They are a non-political, independent, not-for-profit organization run by students and recent graduates of institutions of higher education. Its members are interested in world issues, leadership, and management. AIESEC does not discriminate on the basis of ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religion or national/social origin.''AIESEC Official Website.
Aknowledging that AIESEC has similar values, mission and purpose, we decided to make a partnership with them. CBSIN requested AIESEC to give us the opportunity to participate in a class of children they teach, in order to introduce them some scientific experiments. AIESEC has a recognized work with low-income family, so most parts of those kids are poor, thus they have to overcome a lot obstacles in order to get access to school, education and others basic social rights.
During the winter holidays, we dedicated some days to teach and demonstrate some concepts of chemistry and biology. The kids had experienced how to make a sodium bicarbonate and vinegar volcano, how to measure ph with red cabbage, they learned what is DNA and how to extract it from fruits; and they learned how to fill a balloon with vinegar and sodium bicarbonate.
Our partnership with AIESEC aim to approach science to children and instigate their curiosity for sciences!
Contraceptive Awareness
The feminist movement Enedina Alves Marques from EEL-USP, is a student entity that aims to discuss and fight for women's rights inside and out of the university. The movement fights against social oppression and brutal crimes against women, trying to bring equality between genders.
During project development, we learned the dangers of using contraceptive pills without the knowledge of its sides-effects. So we Researched datas, statistics and we found a relation between taking contraceptive pills and acquiring some diseases such as venous thrombosis, cancer, cardiovascular diseases, varicose vein and others.
Then, CBSIN made an event with Enedina Alves Marques entity in order to discuss and aware women and men about some topics releated with contraceptive pills. We focused in talking about health, importance of consulting doctors before using medications and we invited specialists to talk about others anticonceptive ways.
Industrial Biotechnology Week
Our team made a lecture about enzyme production at the industrial biotechnology week. But what is it? Our university and the academics centers do every year a week with lectures and scientific presentation about a specific theme, and this year it was enzymes. We show them all the process to produce a protein, since the design and molecular biology to the purification (we used our iGEM project as a basis). We were able to show the public a little bit about iGEM and our entity CBSin too, and it was great to present synthetic biology and show them how beautiful and promising it is.
The Research Incentive Week
The research incentive week was an event organized by the Union of Chemical Engineering with the special participation of CBSIN. During this week, several lectures were made with researchers and professors talking about the importance of scientific research for the development of the political, social and educational scenario of Brazil.
At the event, teachers and students of scientific initiation were invited to open stands explaining the themes of their work, giving opportunities for recruiting interested students. In this sense, CBSIN had the opportunity to talk a bit about synthetic biology and present our project for IGEM 2018.
Integrated Human Practices
Our project wants to improve the quality of water and to do so, we focused on one of the biggest the sources of water pollution: domestic sewage. The effluent treatment is different in every place, so we wanted to know how the Waste Water Treatment Plant (WWTP) works in our city, Lorena.
Our team went to the WWTP, operated by the Basic Sanitation Company of the State of São Paulo (SABESP), to learn more about it. Coincidentally, this plant is not far from our University campus. You can see how this visit went on the video bellow:
The city’s WWTP covers an area of 52,000m², with installed capacity of 568 l / s, currently operating at 290 L / s. The sewage treatment is done with four lagoons: two with anaerobic bacteria and two with facultative bacteria. Lorena’s WWTP is inspired in an Australian wastewater plant and this plant can handle quiet good Lorena sewage.
All the treated effluent is released into the “Paraíba do Sul” river, that it is a very important river in this region of São Paulo. A good information we received is that the water released has a better quality than the water of Paraíba river, so the treated effluent is helping on the cleaning of the river.
More than just visit, we obtained some data on the operation of the WWTP, information we used on our Scale-up modeling. Also, we gained a concern involving the legislation of WWT in Brazil and used that to improve the Application of our project.
To gain different perspectives of the sewage treatment in other locations, we also did a great collaboration with the Stockholm iGEM Team, receiving information of WWTPs in Sweden.
Waste Water Treatment Plant in Lorena - SP (BR)
Our next step was the public awareness. We wanted to see if the local population was aware of how the sewage in their city was treated. So, we went to Lorena’s main square “Arnolfo de Azevedo” to interview people on what they know about the WWT and see if that is a public concern. This is the overall profile of the people we interviewed:
From the questions we made, we got some interesting data. As it can be seen in the statistics bellow, most people find very important the wastewater treatment (both for consumption and for environmental release). However, most people don’t know how is the WWT in the city and they don’t trust it completely.
In the last part of our interview asked people about thei concepts of pollution and microcontaminats. When our team asked them if they knew what were micropolluants, a minority know what to answer. Yet, when we explained about the Brazilian situation and consequences those microcontaminants have on animals and human health, people saw it as a real concern. At last, we asked their opinion on the of GMOs on wastewater treatment and most of them found it a good idea.
Some of the information we gathered was something we already expected, based on the previous events we did on the city’s square. So, as a way to help on people’s knowledge about the topics questioned, we passed on flyers containing information on the WWTP of Lorena and explaining what are micropolluants, bringing to them a bit more about what our project wants to solve.
Also, we this event we were able to gain a new vision on some topics of or project, more specifically, related to biosafety. Most people saw the use of GMO on wastewater treatment as something good, once it is effective and safe. The first topic was already a concern for us, but the second made us re-think and change our project’s application.
Check out how was our event:
