Difference between revisions of "Team:CIEI-BJ/Human Practices"

Apart from genetic engineering development, iGEM values each research program’s impact on the society. To expand our social influence, CIEI-BJ actively communicates with high schools, universities, food production companies and academic institutions. Our human practice is divided into four sections: collaboration, integrated human practices, public engagement and education. From various events, we have deepened our understanding of the goal and significance of our project.

These precious experiences not only broaden the team member’s understanding in biology, but also reveal the project’s positive impact on raising public awareness and contribution to synthetic biological study.

At the early stage of our project preparation, when we have just decided on our project’s goal, our team -- CIEI-BJ -- invited BIT-China, BFSUICC-China, USTBeijing and The Colorful Ladies together to exchange ideas and have a discussion at the University of Science and Technology Beijing. We also invited a journalist from China Science and Technology Daily to report on the event and interview some team members. As the host, we were honored to have team mentors and professional instructors point out our advantages and weaknesses.

During the meeting, we listened to the presentation by team BIT-China about “who can get an A” at first. Then, BFSUICC-China shared their topic “biological toolkit for lead detection”. The Colorful Ladies showed us their project which was about the treatment of diseases related to LPL. Finally, we as the organizer talked about our project which is detection and degradation of aflatoxin.

HP1. Five Chinese IGEM Teams Meet Up

We have received valuable advice about the adjustment of experiment scheme, the ways of human practice at the meet up. After the summer meet up organized by our team, we often communicated with the members of BFSUICC-China through Wechat or telephone. During our experiment, we needed to use chromatograph to measure the amount of aflatoxin. During BFSUICC-China’s experiment, they needed to use plate reader to measure fluorescent intensity and OD 600. We often discussed with each other on the Instrument usage and procedure. Mary Du often communicated with Xiaoxia Qu about part requirement, part submission, wiki editing and so on.

HP2. CIEI-BJ & BFSUICC-China Conducted Experiments in the Lab

From July 11th to July 27th 2018, CIEI-BJ and UST Beijing performed an Interlab experiment in the laboratory of University of Science and Technology Beijing. As it was the first time for us, UST Beijing team instructed us to transfer the plasmid provided by the iGEM committee into the competent cells. We also borrowed their plate reader. Prior to the start of the experiment, CIEI-BJ deployed fluorescent agents (at the required concentration in the protocol) for both sides to perform the pre-experimental operation. In the process of experimental operation, the two teams often discussed on experimental operation steps and analyzed the problems in the experimental data. Finally, we all completed the Interlab experiment perfectly.

HP3. CIEI-Beijing & UST Beijing Performed an Interlab Experiment in the Lab of USTB

At the early stage of our project, former iGEMers from Beijing Institute of Technology helped us have an understanding of the requirements and spirits of iGEM and gave us many useful ideas during our discussions.

HP4. Former iGEMers-Bowen Xiao

HP5. Former iGEMers-BIT1

HP6. Former iGEMers-BIT2

On September 7th, we visited Professor Shi Guoqing of the University of Science and Technology Beijing (USCB) for an interview about his research project. His team invented a sensor for detecting aflatoxin B1 (AFB1).

From our talk with Professor Shi, we felt the possibility and significance of a detection system that can detect and degrade AFBI at the same time.

The sensor system developed by Professor Shi’s team does not require any advanced equipment and is fast, convenient, and sensitive. This has inspired us to improve on our own detection system’s speed and efficiency.

HP7. Interviewing Professor Shi-1

HP8. Interviewing Professor Shi-2

We visited the Laboratory of Quality and Safety Risk Assessment for Cereal Products, Institute of Crop Science, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences on October 8th, 2018. The interview was very fruitful. Dr. Wu stressed on the importance of the prevention of aflatoxin contamination in food from the level of national policies, and mentioned some useful measures such as timely harvest and reasonable storage. She also introduced that research institutions normally use equipment or chemical methods to detect possible contamination in food. These methods are relatively fast and reliable, yet the residues may cause pollution.

Our project tries to build a biological system of detecting and degrading aflatoxin, which is hopefully more efficient and environment-friendly. We are committed to biological methods, looking forward to understanding the pathway of aflatoxin production, directly using biosynthetic methods to interfere with its production process in order to reduce or prevent its production.

HP9. Visit to Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences-1

HP10. Visit to Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences-2

Laboratory of Quality and Safety Risk Assessment for Cereal Products，Institute of Crop Science, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciencs

On 6th February, 2018, we visited School of Life Sciences of Peking University. In Professor Qu’s lab, the researchers explained to us how scanning electron microscope (SEM) functions and introduced their present study focus. Since our project is concerned with mycotoxin contamination in food, Prof. Qu’s research program, focusing on botany study, evoked inspiration and led us to ponder on our ultimate aim of ensuring food and crop safety.

HP9. Peking University

On July 20th, 2018, we went to Tsinghua University for a lecture by Professor Liu, who is an expert in botany. In the School of Life Sciences of the university, he brought us a lecture about the history and real examples of genetically modified plants.

In a word, Professor Liu’s lecture further strengthened our belief on our project, which is using synthesized protein to detect and render AFTB1 harmless. Furthermore, we also learned that the modern biotechnology is very powerful, and will become more powerful in the future.

HP11. Tsinghua University-1

HP12. Tsinghua University-2

Our team members are from several schools. We arranged about ( ) publicities in about ( ) schools. During these publicities we not only received many valuable suggestions, but also enhanced our social impact y since our lectures almost covered half the country. In every speech, we first introduced the history and the main characteristic of iGEM competion, especially about how it gathered groups of students together, chasing their dreams about synthetic biology and trying to work out a public issue through their own method. Then, we introduced our project, which is using our own biocircuits instead of preexisting biological and chemical methods to detect and degrade aflatoxin. Meanwhile, we let them know the importance of food safety and deepen their awareness of safety in food. We hope that these speeches can attract more people to join us and solve the potential human health threat in food.

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In order to apply our research results to real life, our team members completed a corporate plan, which included our project background and project objectives. We contacted some biotechnology companies such as BAYER, Syngenta, KWS and BASF, as well as several companies in purifying equipment section like Hansen in Changsha. We managed to liaise with the heads of these companies and presented them our corporate plan. In the end, we got positive response from three companies and received sponsorship fee of 6000 Yuan. The team members have learned how to introduce our scientific research projects to relevant enterprises, which improved our communication skills and gave us a deeper understanding of our own projects.

Aiming at meeting our budget for lab work and group activity as well as promoting our project, we initiated a crowd funding. We spread the link and received 7697 Yuan. Thanks to our sponsors, we were able to launch more integrated events to develop our project.

In order to investigate into people’s level of understanding of aflatoxin and its effect on people’s health, we conducted a public survey. Besides the questions on respondents’ age and general information, the questionnaire contains 5 questions concerning respondents’ consumption need for Pu’er tea and their knowledge about aflatoxin. The questionnaire was distributed both online and offline. 1,164 responses, from middle-school students to elders, provided us with representative information about the public’s knowledge on AFT and their acceptance for our bioengineered product. An analysis of the result of our survey is as below.

HP14. Questionnaire-1

HP15. Questionnaire-2

HP16. Questionnaire-3

HP17. Questionnaire-4

HP18. Questionnaire-5

About half of the respondents said that they didn’t know what aflatoxin is or had little knowledge of it. Nearly 75% respondents never knew that Pu’er tea might be infected by AFT. With a brief introduction passage of AFT attached to the questionnaire, we made our effort in raising public awareness on food safety.

Through the survey we can also see that the respondents are worried about the possible contamination of Pu’er tea and is willing to accept our product of detecting and degrading of AFT. This greatly strengthened our confidence in benefiting people’s health through our project.