XJTLU-CHINA x Suzhou Science and Technology Museum

With the cooperation of Suzhou Science and Technology Museum for Youth, We organized an activity “Discover the Mysterious of Life”. Approximately 400 teenagers and their parents attended the activity. We invited our Head of the Department, Prof. Mu Wang to be the guest speaker. Then we introduce the basic concept and application of synthetic biology, followed interacting with audiences.

Summer camp

This year, for the first time, we cooperated with Zibo City Teachers College to hold a “high school student science experiment summer camp” spanning six days. About 50 young people aged 15-17 participated. This summer camp contains different disciplines, provides opportunities for students from different backgrounds to experiment with experiments and initially develops an interest in science.

Affiliated school

In collaboration with the affiliated school of Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, We launched a series of course called “Synthetic Biology and Life” into the STEM class and tried different teaching devices, such as using the $1 microscope Foldscope (by Manu Prakash) to observe cells in the classroom.

A high school in Zibo

In addition to the summer camp, we also held a science lecture for high school students. In the lecture, we introduced the basic concept and frontier research in synthetic biology to high school students and discussed with them the ethical and philosophical issues behind the biology, such as editing the biological genes in the Chinese cultural environment.

Suzhou Ulink international High School

In China, there are some high schools that study international courses such as IB, and Ulink is one of them. Many of them are interested in learning biology or related fields, interested in participating in iGEM in the future. We gave them a presentation of the concept of synthetic biology, the projects we have done before and the rules of iGEM. Made a brief introduction.

On-campus lecture

We have developed a series of four lectures for students who are interested in synthetic biology and participating in the iGEM competition. Content included what are we doing, what we have done, what are the basic concepts of synthetic biology, and the harvest we participate in and answer the questions to the students.

TEDx event

In order to enable more people to hear our voices, this year we successfully established a partnership with TEDxSUZHOU and participated in a series of online and offline activities.

Campus Open Day

At the invitation of the school, three members assist the department in campus open day activities. The campus open day event is very large. We not only introduced our work on synthetic biology to interested parties but also expanded our visibility and influence.

Visit Genequantum pharma tech Co., Ltd.

We maintain a long-term cooperative relationship of Genequantum pharma tech Co., Ltd. This year, we talked with Dr. Chong Liu and Yunpeng Zhong, requested their advice from proposals of the project establishment to a policy of clinical trial.

Social Media

We attach great importance to an emerging platform such as social media as an effective tool for more people to understand synthetic biology and expand the influence of the team. This year we registered a WeChat subscribed account and released some press on popular science and team activities. There are about 400 readings and visits.

In addition to our own publicity channels, we also attached importance to the interaction with University’s marketing and communication division this year. Our news of successfully organizing lectures with the Suzhou Youth Science and Technology Museum was posted on the University’s official Weibo (equivalent to China's Facebook or Twitter) pages.

Laboratory Tour

In order to implement our value of“open science”, we invite some students interested in synthetic biology to come to our laboratory and visit our research process. One of our instructors, Dr. David Sun-Kai Chiu, led them to visit and explain what we are doing.

Freshman introduction session

At the beginning of each academic year, all freshman will gather to participate in the faculty’s introduction briefing to learn about the majors they have studied. This year we are invited to join our Department of biological science to hang our posters and Roll stander next to their booth, distribute iGEM brochures, souvenirs and communicate with interested students.

Patent

In order to explore how to our protect intellectual property rights, we contacted the University research management office, Patent law firm and Invest company. We also participated in the “Enterprise Patent Infringement and Coping Strategy Seminar” organized by Suzhou Intellectual Property Office and Beyond patent agency.

Prof. Guangyin Xu

In order to answer our doubts about nervous system diseases, we were fortunate to go to Suzhou University and interviewed Professor Xu, the director of the Institute of Neuroscience. He enthusiastically introduced us to the classification, mechanism and common treatments of current neurological diseases, and also gave us some very useful suggestions.

Dr. Minyan Wang

We valued the interaction with researchers in foundational science. We interviewed Dr. Wang, who is an expert in neuroscience, and we jointly discussed the kinetics, models and mathematical simulations of exosomes’ biogenesis and related how exosomes cross the blood-brain barrier.

Prof. Wei Peng

We interviewed Professor Peng Wei, about the neurodegenerative diseases. She is the authority on the treatment of neurological diseases. We explored the views on neurological diseases from traditional Chinese medicine theory and modern medical theory and the diagnosis and treatment ideas.

Dr. Guangyu Tian

Dr. Tian works in Hospital in Zhangdian Hospital of Chinese Medicine. He shared with us some cases, especially in the diagnosis and treatment of diseases related to central nervous system damage, and gave their opinions on the overall thinking and specific design of our project.

Dr. Xianglei Meng

We interviewed Dr. Meng, who is the deputy director of the Pharmacy Department of a hospital. She gave us a detailed introduction to the operation process and management system of the hospital pharmacy department in China and discussed the issues that need to be paid attention to after the drug enters the clinic.

Mr. Yaodong Pan

In order to seek the support of the government, We paid a visit to Mr. Yaodong Pan. He is a disease prevention expert at the Suzhou Center for Diseases Control and Prevention, and responsible for the whole city’s health education.

Jiangnan University

During this iGEM year, Jiangnan University, for the first time, participates in iGEM competition and established two separate teams each having an independent project. As they are new teams, there was much information and requirements that they had little understanding. On this condition, this year we set up both a cooperation relationship and mentorship.

On April 1st, our team and the teams in Jiangnan University held a meetup for a more detailed assistance provided by our team leader on how to succeed in meeting cardinal dues in iGEM competition and which aspects should be given high attention. We also imparted several tips on team management. In turn, Jiangnan iGEM team promised whatsoever help they are capable of to us.

During Conference of China iGEMer Community, our team with them also gained a chance to have a deeper glance of our mutual projects. By this chance, both of our projects had undergone the test from questions come up by each other.

HKU

During the Asia-Europe Meeting in Shen Zhen, our team had a brief discussion about us projects with Hong Kong University (HKU). On 27th July, we went to Hong Kong to have a thorough and impressive meeting with the iGEM team in HKU. Both of us had a great interest in each other’s project and would like to seek further collaboration.

Eur-Asian meetup

On July 25, 7 members of our team went to Shenzhen to attend the iGEM2018 Asia-Europe Meeting held by BGI-CHINA and TU Delft. After three days, we are gratified that our design ideas have been recognized by friends from all over the world. During the presentation and poster session, we received a lot of support from other university’s iGEM teams.

Survey SUZHOU CDC

We distribute a questionnaire to dozens of clinicians in the hospital to study the application prospect of biotherapy in neurological diseases, the degree of acceptance of biopharmaceuticals by themselves and the patients they treated, We also investigated possible problems with biotherapeutics in clinical practice they considered.