Environmental Protection Bureau

    This year, we aim to tackle real-life environmental problems, hoping to apply our PLA and 2-PE to address urgent human needs. Therefore, we went on a visit to Environmental Protection Bureau for getting more information about infectious bacteria and unpleasant smell in daily life. In the external environment, where is the most enriched area of bacteria, and often accompanied by unpleasant odors? What firstly comes to our mind is the trash can surrounding us. We exchanged our idea with the environmental specialist, which we planned to apply our rose-scented bacteriostat to the trash can. The expert thought tackling real-life environmental problems with our PLA and 2-PE is an innovative and interesting method, but pointed out that the environment of the trash may be more complicated than we think. Through the conservation to the specialist, and inspired by laboratory routine, we finally narrowed our scope to the beakers in the lab, which are always full of bacteria and give off unpleasant smell. (More details on our design page)

    After determining our main focus, we interviewed the environmental specialist again to seek advice for our applied design. The specialist suggested that we could design a lid for beaker that can be used to achieve the goal of persistent bacteriostasis. (More details on our Applied Design page)

JCI Accredited Academic Medical Center Hospital

    Except for focusing on external environment trash can, we also threw great attention to internal environment the armpit, where are abundant varieties of microbes and is the culprit of unpleasant smell. Such unpleasant smell brings great trouble to the public. To speak to stakeholders and evaluate our project, we went to JCI Accredited Academic Medical Center Hospital and further understood that, the current solution for bromhidrosis is generally divided two parts. The one is sterilized with alcohol, aluminum salt antiperspirant, which way may clog pores, and have some influence on the environment. Also, some people may be more sensitive to alcohol. The other is surgical therapy, which could cause some adverse reactions to the skin and leave unsightly scars. In comparison, our 2-PE and PLA are food grade substance, which are absolutely safe and more friendly to people and the environment.
    Besides, we communicated with dermatologist Dr. Zhang, deputy chief physician about our project. The doctor said our project sounds interesting and antibacterial substance PLA can be applied in other clinical aspects. About the impact of broad-spectrum antibacterial, the doctor pointed that our armpit area is small, and sterilization is only local sterilization, which will not cause too much impact on the flora on the skin.

Fu Shimei Co., Ltd.

    Also, we went on a visit to Fu Shimei Co., Ltd.. We learned about that current antibacterial products are usually chemically synthesized, the process of which is complex, costly and cause certain environmental pollution. Rose spice is traditionally extracted from rose with low yield, now is mostly produced by chemical synthesis, which produces unwanted by-products and environmentally unfriendly. Comparatively speaking, our PLA and 2-PE are considered as nature and safe by European and U.S. food agencies, and what we produced antibacterial and rose-scent substance with synthetic biology is more environmentally-friendly, nature and safer.
    In addition, here we got closer to emulsion production process, and have got some guidance for our applied design. They fully affirmed our vision of making deodorant lotions and provided us with the formula for making this lotion. (More details on our Applied Design page)

Questionnaire

    It is very important to societal considerations throughout the design and execution in our project, towards our vision of a healthier, greener and sustainable world. In the early times of our project, we designed a questionnaire and distribute it online and throughout our activities. The participants reached over 200 at the age of 18 to 55 years. The feedback showed that, the majority of people are eager to have a better product to deal with harmful bacteria and unpleasant smells in life, for that they think there are many shortcomings of the products on the market. 63% of people have a more positive and non-objective attitude toward applying safe bacteria to the skin. (Click here to see our questionnaire)

Alternatives of PLA

    To evaluate how our project affects the society, we try to make a functional comparison about PLA and some of the antibacterial products on the market. After market research, we chose a kind of hand soap with jasmine fragrance and one kind of soap which is typical on the market as comparison. We designed two kinds of experiments. Firstly, we used 100ul mixed liquid solution of the same concentration for coating and then absorbed 10ul of the three products for coating. Then they were placed in a constant temperature incubator at 37°C for 12h. After that, we observed it. Compared with the natural growth of the bacteria, as the picture shows, it obviously shows that PLA has a more effective effect on sterilization.The second, we exposed the medium in air for 24 hours. After that, we added 100 ul of tap water, placed in a 37 ° C incubator for 12 hours, and then added 100 ul of three products in the medium and placed in 37°C incubator for 12 hours, we took out them and observed. (More details on our Demonstrate page)

    To tackle real-life environmental problems, except for killing harmful bacteria with PLA (phenyllaclic acid), we also want to cover up the unpleasant smell with rose-like fragrance from 2-PE (2-phenylethanol). However, we encountered a problem that because of people’s different perceptions of odor, we don’t know which concentration of 2-PE we produce is the most pleasant for the public. And then we wanted to seek answer from human practice.
    We designed a “smell game” to get the public involved throughout the whole summer. We prepared different concentrations of 2-PE (1mmol/L, 3mmol/L, 5mmol/L, 10mmol/L, 15mmol/L, 20mmol/L) in unknown tubes to let people smell and recorded their feelings. The game was launched during our school’s 110th anniversary, public activities and some other special times. More than 200 people have participated in our “smell game”, they are of different ages and the ratio of women and men is quite. (More details on our engagement page). After analyzing the feedback, we found 2-PE above 15mmol/L is not very pleasant, while which of 5mmol/L and 10mmol/L is more popular. The majority of people expressed the most pleasant concentration of 2-PE is 5mmol/L.

Based on the result of our “smell game”, we adjusted our experiment, replacing a stronger RBS to achieve 5mmol/L yield of 2-PE. (More details on our result page)

    Biosafety is of great significance, and we must put into consideration. Thought teams under the environment track focus on different issues, we are all faced with the limited application scenarios and public concerns, which pose barriers for the practical use of projects. We collaborated with ECUST to propose “Three Plus Net”, which include three parts, “Application+”, “Biosafety+”, “Society+” and can be an example for other environment projects. We hope to better translate the results into practical applications and bring greater social value. And then is to make a general guide to universal issues, so that people can use it to supplement topics and improve the subject. The third is to get the public's view on using engineering bacteria for environmental restoration.

    In the “3+ Net”, we are mainly responsible for “Biosafety+”. In scientific methods, we always cite some simple means to guarantee safety of our project, such as designing suicide switches, knocking out resistance genes, genome integration, visualization of genetically engineered bacteria, hardware design, network monitoring, and so on. We summarize the current common suicide switches for different types of environmental conditions, which can give reference and convenience to other teams tracking in environment.[Get our PDF file]

“2-Pleasant” handbook

    From the feedback of questionnaires in the early period, we realized that the majority of people know less about harmful bacteria, which inspired the idea of producing a handbook about prevention of harmful bacteria. We hoped to reach the goal of getting people to pay more attention to harmful bacteria and know more about synthetic biology in a more interesting and acceptable form. (More details on our Public Engagement & Education page)

    In addition, we held a summer camp with the subject of “approaching to synthetic biology”, aiming to hopefully pass on our motivation and train talents for synthetic biology. And we took part in the first iGEM Eurasian meetup 2018 and the 5th CCiC, to have a collision of ideas with other teams and get some advice.     More human practice on our Public Engagement & Education page.