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LIFE HACKS! 2018

Life Hacks! 2018 was the first outreach event held by NUSGEM. The event was held on 28th July at the National University of Singapore, Faculty of Engineering, from 10am to 3pm. Students and educators from over 15 different schools and institutions attended our event. Our event was conceived to help pre-university students learn more about what synthetic biology entailed, to help them make an informed decision on pursuing synthetic biology in the tertiary education and beyond.

Indeed, targeting this demographic proved to be high-impact as the concept of synthetic biology was not introduced to many of the participants at our event. Nevertheless, as synthetic biology is a growing and developing field, and as university students who felt that earlier exposure to synthetic biology would be beneficial, we highlighted the importance of equipping the students with sufficient knowledge before they entered the next stage of their education.

This event was conducted in collaboration with NUS Biomedical Engineering Club, in order to promote synthetic biology. We were also fortunate to have worked with Prof. Raye Yeow, the Chairperson of the Biomedical Engineering Society Student Chapter, who helped disseminate news of our event to all his affiliated student groups.

The Life Hacks! 2018 event consisted of two sections; firstly, engaging talks by speakers who were well-versed in the issues surrounding synthetic biology, and secondly, exciting hands-on activities to give the students a taster of the daily life of a synthetic biologist.

Our first speaker was Professor Poh Chueh Loo, an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Engineering, and our team’s Principal Investigator. He gave a primer to what synthetic biology is, before moving on to share about the career and academic prospects in synthetic biology. Our next speakers were Dr. Owen Schaefer, who introduced the group to relevant and critical issues in bioethics and synthetic biology, and Dr. Sonja Luz, who spoke about the applications of synthetic biology, especially in the environment and conservation aspects.

After lunch, four different activities were arranged for our participants: a brief lecture on gene circuit design, an activity on gene circuit design, a lab tour and short tour around our biomedical engineering department.

The lab tour introduced the participants to the BioMakerSpace in the Faculty of Engineering, more fondly referred to as “Home of NUS iGEM teams”. The BioMakerSpace is a newly-built and well-furnished laboratory for the iGEM students in our university to perform our wet-lab experiments for the competition.

Safety is a core value of our team, and indubitably, the safety of the our participants were our top priority during the event. To ensure a positive learning experience for our participants, all of them were provided with lab coats and safety goggles, and most notably, we started the tour with an informative safety briefing.

During the tour, we introduced to our participants the various equipment we used in our experiments, and explained how we used them. To complement our introductory session, we planned an exciting crossword challenge to test how much they understood. We were very heartened to find out from their post-survey feedback that they found the session extremely interesting and refreshing.

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As the gene circuit lies at the heart of synthetic biology, we wished to expose our participants to its basics by preparing a brief introductory session on gene circuit design. By drawing parallels to computer engineering, which inspired the abstraction hierarchy of synthetic biology, participants were made aware of the fundamental role that gene circuits play. They also learnt about the concept of simple logic gates, and how to construct them by assembling parts together.

Subsequently, the participants were given the opportunity to try their hand at designing gene circuits through a mini hands-on activity. Each group was tasked to piece paper cut-outs of parts together to build simple systems. An example of a task went: “Design a gene circuit such that the cell produces CFP when lactose is present, and SK2 when lactose is absent.” While initially hesitant and unsure, the participants gradually eased into the activity, guided along by the friendly facilitators, who ensured that all the participants were involved and addressed their many queries. One heartening observation by our facilitators - participants who were quicker at getting the hang of designing their gene circuits extended their help to their peers, even those from other groups. If this is any representation of the future of synthetic biologists, the field is indeed in good hands!

Our event would not have been possible without our sponsors’ generous support - many thanks goes out to Axil Scientific, Arbor Bioscience, and Singer Instruments. Our sponsors offer high quality products and services everyday to help researchers in the life science with their research, in terms of lab reagents, consumables, gene and DNA sequencing services, and high quality instruments.

Residential College Teas (RC Teas)

RC Teas were organized to introduce synthetic biology and our project idea to our fellow students at our university. We organized two different student teas one at the Tembusu Residential College and one at Ridge View Residential College. These student teas were close group with less than 15 people to help facilitate deeper and more intimate discussions.

At Tembusu we focused on “Women in Synthetic Biology”. We invited Dr. Lisa Ng, a renowned virologist who is the PI of SIgn and known for working with almost every tropical disease virus. She shared her experience with us about her journey from a mere undergraduate to a principal investigator. This inspiring tale facilitated a lot of questions and several of participants used to this opportunity to seek her for advice on how to climb the career ladder. We had around ten participants which was just cosy enough to have an in depth and personal discussion. As the participants were vocal about the opinions and openly asked several intriguing question, it was easy for Dr. Ng to open up about her experiences and even listen to our own. Although the topic was “Women in Synthetic Biology” and a part of discussion was focused on women and their struggles, the advice that Dr. Ng gave was helpful for all the participants regardless of gender and stream of study.

“I felt inspired and empowered by her stories and advice. There was a great deal of interesting debate as well.”

, said one of our attendee. This was just one of the many commendable remarks NUSGEM received for the Tembu Tea. Dr. Ng was also impressed with our event

“It was a different experience for me, I was able to mingle with everyone rather than just present myself”.

Overall Dr. Ng as well as the attendees found the event extremely fruitful and helped to understand better of the plight of women not only in synthetic biology but in STEM in general.

At RVRC we hoped to bring more awareness about our project and why fashion and textile waste is such a big problem. We started by introducing our problem and moved on to the solution. Similar to the Tembusu Tea, we had around ten participants which facilitated a smooth discussion. Participants were extremely keen to learn more about the motivation for project, our progress and what iGEM entitles.

“I really liked this initiative as it allowed people to understand how synthetic biology can truly be used to solve a problem. To intrigue the audience's’ interest in iGEM it really helped that everyone on the team was open in sharing their experiences and struggles. Most importantly, the Q&A and feedback session greatly helped to learn more about the project and share our opinion regarding it.”, said one of the participants who was from biomedical engineering. Although we had a mixture of students from different majors, our audience felt that everyone could understand what we were saying and what our project was all about.

The lab tour introduced the participants to the BioMakerSpace in the Faculty of Engineering, more fondly referred to as “Home of NUS iGEM teams”. The BioMakerSpace is a newly-built and well-furnished laboratory for the iGEM students in our university to perform our wet-lab experiments for the competition.

In conclusion, we believe to have helped students realise the power of synthetic biology while explain to them the harmful pollution by the textile industry and how we are able to make a difference with our project.

LSM3246 SYNTHETIC BIOLOGY PRESENTATION

On the 27th of August, NUSGEM had the opportunity to attend and participate in a lecture on synthetic biology, LSM3246 at NUS. We started with an introduction to what iGEM is and what it entitles as means of scouting members for next year’s team. We started off our project introduction by explaining in the need for a change in the textile industry and also how our system could change the bioproduction industry. As the crowd was well versed in synthetic biology, we were able to go in depth into gene circuit and explain the significance of each pathway as well as their mechanisms.

The session was extremely engaging as the students were keen and excited to learn more. Several questions and suggestion were posed by the students through which we could explain other important of iGEM such as modelling and human practices and how each component are woven together to bring our idea to life. The students were also accompanied by Dr. Matthew Chang, director of SynCti, who is the coordinator for this module. Not only did he arrange for this sharing session, allowing us to take charge of the whole session but also provided access to his lab at SynCti which greatly helped us with our wet lab experiments and research.

When talking to students at the end of the session, most were impressed with our project and were extremely keen on participating in iGEM next year. “The session was extremely insightful and grew my love for synthetic biology even more. This session has definitely swayed me towards considering next year’s iGEM team”, said one of the students.

Overall, it was a very interactive session where we could not only share about our project but also increase the awareness of the vices of the textile industry, the need for a bioreactor and the supportive platform iGEM provides to explore the ever changing and innovative world of synthetic biology.

SOCIAL MEDIA

In the beginning of our project, we established our Facebook and Instagram page. We hoped to use these social media platforms to establish our presence within the iGEM community to meet other teams, help extend the knowledge of synthetic while promote our project. At the end of our project we have had almost 300 followers on Instagram and around 150 likes on Facebook.

Although most of our support is from Singapore, we had followers from across the globe supporting our project and its ideas. We had a variety of participants ranging from highschool students, university students, professors, textile industries and even designers! This wide net helped us find relevant personals for human practices while providing our followers an insight on iGEM and our project.

The overwhelming support from our followers encouraged to give our best and achieve high!

Through outreach, NUSGEM aimed to raise more awareness about synthetic biology, iGEM and our project to the public focusing greatly on high school and university students. Although synthetic biology research and development is growing in Singapore, it is not being emphasized to students. We feel it is important that students are exposed to the basics of synthetic biology early on to help them open to newer career options.