Five members of our team attended the science day at Twente University, to enthuse high school students for a study in beta or life sciences. During the event we gave a workshop on synthetic biology, explaining the basics of synthetic biology to 25 motivated higher secondary education students.

The workshop started with a presentation on the usefulness of bacteria and the advantages that synthetic biology offer us. Thereafter, the students received a taste of biological research by performing three small experiments, including DNA visualization, ‘agar art’ with colored bacteria and a test to discover where the most bacteria live; e.g. on your phone, the toilet or your hands, and before or after washing? During the experiments, the students were stimulated to think about the biology behind the experiments. For instance, discussing the source of the bacteria’s pink color. It was gratifying to see the students enthusiastically discuss and perform the experiments, being eager to learn about synthetic biology.

We want to give a big shout out to Twente University for inviting us to this great educational event.

At the Netherlands Biotechnology Conference promising developments in biotechnology were discussed. During the day we attended pitches and lectures given by researchers and students from universities, companies - such as DSM - and the Rathenau Institute. We also presented our project via a posterpitch and held interesting discussions with the many participants at the conference. Particularly the critical questions on our project helped us challenge our plans and decisions. For example, making us think of why we choose to use plasmids over incorporating our system directly into the bacterial genome. Furthermore, the conference was another opportunity to make contact with Dutch iGEM teams, including members of the winning Delft iGEM team of 2017. This allowed us to gather many tips and tricks. Finally, we made contact with several speakers who offered us support and guidance during our project to combat antibiotic resistance. Altogether, the Netherlands Biotechnology Conference provided us with inspiring day where we made many new contacts and promoted our iGEM project!

On the 8th of July we organised a “Drawing with bacteria” workshop at Werfpop, a free music and art festival in Leiden. We were invited by Science meets Business to organise a workshop involving some crazy science. We decided to do bacterial painting with coloured bacteria. Nothing was visible while painting, but after three days the bacteria grew and the drawings magically appeared. We were really impressed by all the amazing works of art people made! The workshop was a great success with both young and old participating. Besides the drawing we also explained our project to anyone who was interested.

Lastly, we asked participants to vote in favor or against genetic modification to see what the general public thought. Votes were cast by adding coloured liquid to large eppendorfs. The final tally showed 110 votes in favor and 45 votes against. The voting allowed us to have many great discussion with the Werfpop visitors on our project and genetic engineering as a whole.

The next trial of our education workshop came during the introduction days of prospective Biomedical Sciences students. Here, we got the opportunity to engage students with our newly expanded workshop, which now also features an introductory interactive quiz and a presentation to provide additional insights into synthetic biology and antibiotic resistance. It was very pleasing to see the enthusiasm of these fresh students. They were eager to learn and were able to to complete our “Escape the Resistance” workshop within the allotted time.

The Leiden Science Family Day was a fun opportunity to let faculty members and other local families to teach their children about science. We gladly took this chance to teach children about the fun things you can do using bacteria. This was shown to them by allowing them to draw with colourful bacteria. Additionally, we took this opportunity to talk to parents about antibiotic resistance, and the threat it poses to our future. Particularly these parents were eager to learn about the issue of resistance as their children would grow up in this world. Therefore, they were also glad to learn all the ways they can help prevent the spread of resistance, by using antibiotics responsibly.