Team:AHUT China/Human Practices
1 . HP--Creative Art Course for primary school students
AHUT_China（This year's project is about carbon dioxide.）With the increasing impact of the greenhouse effect on the global environment, it’s very important to know how to efficiently deal with greenhouse gas CO2. Traditional CO2 collection technology is not mature, restricted by high energy consumption and low efficiency. Our project simulates the protein molecule expressed by the mutation of carbonic anhydrase gene Loci, obtains the high thermal stability of carbonic anhydrase (CA-2) and imports it into Escherichia coli cells to achieve efficient CO2 collection
AHUT_China（This year's project is about carbon dioxide.）With the increasing impact of the greenhouse effect on the global environment, it’s very important to know how to efficiently deal with greenhouse gas CO2. Traditional CO2 collection technology is not mature, restricted by high energy consumption and low efficiency. Our project simulates the protein molecule expressed by the mutation of carbonic anhydrase gene Loci, obtains the high thermal stability of carbonic anhydrase (CA-2) and imports it into Escherichia coli cells to achieve efficient CO2 collection
On July 5, 2018, we arrived at the XiangXiangle Art and Culture House, and we had a creative art class with the children. In class, we studied biology with them and learned creative art courses. By letting children learn the signs of iGEM competition and explaining biological knowledge for them, especially the concepts of genes and synthetic biology, etc., we encouraged children to add their own ideas to the iGEM logo and use painting to depict genes, synthetic biology, and iGEM competitions in their heart. As shown in Picture 3.
After learning the course we designed, every child completed their own works with the guidance of the teacher Long Lijuan and the iGEM team members.
Our Human Practice-- Creative Art Courses in Primary School Students is very meaningful. It not only introduces the iGEM competition, but also introduces the iGEM team of the Anhui University of Technology. And at the same time, this activity guides the children to have a preliminary understanding of life and the corresponding disciplines.
2 . We discussed with the AHUT's model airplane team
Currently, our project is still at the laboratory stage, has not yet reached large-scale application. To better seek the scene of large-scale applications, Anhui University of Technology's model airplane team and we held a seminar and developed a program of social practice with the help of the instructor group.
We got in touch with a factory in Maanshan(Maanshan Steel Plant), and a six-rotor drone was provided by the model team, as shown in Picture 1
Zhao Lei, who has studied embedded programming development in the team, has developed a carbon dioxide detection device that can be mounted on the unmanned aerial vehicle with different gas sensors (The gas sensor can detect the mass of carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide and other gases in each liter.) and STM32 ARM microcontroller. As shown in Picture 3:
We used this drone to carry the detection device into the air and tested it near the end of the factory's exhaust system. It was found that the concentration of carbon dioxide near the smoke extraction device was extremely high, 5-20 times greater than the normal value. According to the document "National Greenhouse Gas Emissions Accounting and Reporting and Other 11 Greenhouse Gas Management National Standards Released", the proportion of various costs in the exhaust gas from such a plant's production process is: oxygen: carbon dioxide: sulfur dioxide: vulcanization Hydrogen: Carbon monoxide: Hydrogen chloride: Fluoride: Nitrogen oxides: Other = 14:10:3:3:3:2:3:8:54,
We have measured the composition, content and mass percentage of each gas in the factory exhaust gas after averaging as follows:
3 . Cooperation with the Indian Institute of Technology
As the project continues to advance, HP's exchanges and cooperations between teams are more frequent and in-depth. After seeing the cooperation application issued by the iGEM team of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT-Madras) at the iGEM official website, we contacted IIT-Madras to discuss cooperation actively.
We are pleased to collaborate with the iGEM team of the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (IIT-Madras) to make a video on the science of synthetic biology in the mother tongue. The Indian Institute of Technology is also working with other teams in English, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Bengali, Gujarati and Hindi.
IIT-Madras sends an English script to our team. We need to match the provided slideshow video with the provided text and add the translated text to the subtitles, and finally make it into Chinese video.
We thought it was a simple matter, but there were some problems at the beginning. The problem is summarized as follows:
1. The English script does not exactly match the sound in the video, and some paragraphs are missing.
2. English and Chinese belong to different language families. They are slightly different in grammar, and the word order is reversed in translation.
3. Some video pictures and sounds are out of sync and need to be adjusted.
4. Our team members are not familiar enough with the Indian accent in English, and some words cannot be completely accurate.
After consultation and repeated revisions by the iGEM team members of the Anhui University of Technology, four days later, the results were satisfactory and the video was sent to the iGEM team of the Indian Institute of Technology. We have established a good relationship with the iGEM team (IIT-Madras) of the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras.
With the successful completion of the HP cooperation, the Anhui University of Technology iGEM team (AHUT-CHINA) looks forward to more cooperation opportunities with the Indian Institute of Technology iGEM team (IIT-Madras).
4 . Visit Hua Qi environmental companies (Zhou Yu)
On the afternoon of September 12, 2018, our team AHUT_China visited Maanshan Hua Qi Environmental Protection Technology Co., Ltd. (Hereinafter referred to as HuaQi Environmental Protection Company).
We know that environmental pollution is mainly air pollution, water pollution and soil pollution. Our project is to deal with greenhouse gas CO2 in air pollution. How to deal with greenhouse gas CO2 efficiently is particularly critical as the increasing greenhouse effect has a serious impact on the global environment. In order to gain a deeper understanding of the current environmental pollution in China, we visited HuaQi Environmental Protection Company. HuaQi Environmental Protection Company, is a company specializing in sewage treatment. After Ms. Zhang Qi introduced the company, we visited the intelligent water transportation management system and laboratory.
Liu Shanshan, the company's technical staff, led us to visit the laboratory. During the visit, we learned that water pollution currently is harmful to the environment and people's health. So, water pollution treatment is very important. We introduced our project to computerize the protein molecules expressed by carbonic anhydrase gene mutations to obtain carbonic anhydrase (CA-2) with high thermal stability and import it into E. coli cells in order to achieve efficient collection of CO2. The project is currently in the theoretical stage. She is interested in our project. If the CO2 emission can be effectively controlled at the source, the problems such as the continued destruction of ozone layer, the melting of two-stage glaciers and the rapid extinction of a large number of species can be effectively solved. And she is more concerned about how this project can be applied in practice, and puts forward some suggestions for our project. At present, the CO2 gas capture technology mainly includes chemical absorption, pressure swing adsorption and membrane separation. She suggested first that transgenic E. coli be cultured in solution environment with chemical absorption to achieve CO2 collection, and secondly that CO2 be treated with biological rotating disc.
5 . iGEM(Linkoping_Sweden)
We saw the cooperation request issued by Linking University's iGEM team (Linkoping_Sweden). Linkoping_Sweden has a new idea of cooperation. They want other teams to use letters or emails to show interesting things happening inside and outside the team. So we participated in this cooperation. This is an interesting collaboration, as it may be boring during the experiment, but the stories that happen in the experiment make the experiment fun. And by organizing these stories, we learn more about our experiments.
6. Biofilm Process Water Purification Laboratory
On September 8, 2018, our AHUT-China team visited the Biofilm Process Water Purification Laboratory of the College of Architecture and Engineering of Anhui University of Technology. The graduate student Xu Fan led us to visit the laboratory. The seniors introduced us to the principle of purifying sewage in the laboratory, which made us understand that relying on the microbial membrane fixed on the surface of the carrier to degrade organic matter has the characteristics of good effect and low technology and low cost.
Then we introduced our project to the seniors. The seniors said that many problems caused by CO2 also brought us many problems. Therefore, he has great hope for our project. At the same time, we have learned that the biomembrance process can not only treat sewage, but also can be applied to the treatment of organic gases. The pollutants in the organic waste gas are first contacted with water and dissolved in water, that is, diffused from the gas film into the liquid film; The organic pollutant components in the liquid film are diffused to the biofilm by the difference in concentration, and they are captured and absorbed by the microorganisms therein; the organic pollutants entering the microorganisms are decomposed as energy and nutrients in the metabolism of the microorganisms themselves. This provides us with some ideas on the combination of theory and practice.
Through a visit to the Biofilm Process Water Purification Laboratory in the afternoon, we learned about the biofilm treatment of sewage. At the same time, we also learned the necessity of our project. The impact of greenhouse gas CO2 cannot be underestimated. We also hope that our project can be applied to practice. The knowledge of biofilm processes in the treatment of organic waste gases has also given us some inspiration, and we may be able to use this knowledge when dealing with CO2.
7. Our Meeting
Background: Each team's project in IGEM is not perfect at the start.In order to make project more and more perfect and make the team members cooperate with each other more and more smoothly,each team holds the team meeting to discuss again and again. So it is important for us to hold meetings to make some discussions.The members of the IGEM in our college held a conference every week to discuss how to solve our current problems and how to do next.
The text: Our members of iGEM keep the habit of discussing at meetings once a week since March 10.
On March 10, the conference included that:
①Division of labor at that time. ②Members of the experimental group introduced the carbonic anhydride enzymatic carbon fixation project.
③We made a plan for the next step.
Through the discussion in this meeting, our division of labor has become more rational and the efficiency of work among members has been fully improved,and at the same time, our team members got a preliminary understanding of the project that we are going to carry out.
On March 17, the conference included that:
①The most common type of CO2 fixation technology in the current stage.②The expression and the Catalytic reaction mechanism of carbonic anhydrase in human, animal and plant;
③The living environment of carbonic anhydrase and how to maintain catalytic activity of carbon anhydrase.
Through the discussion at this meeting, we learned that traditional CO2 fixation technologies include chemical/physical solvent absorption, membrane absorption, deep-sea fixation, etc.
However, these methods has been proved that they are extremely expensive in practice, and it further proves that the use of carbonic anhydrase as a potential biocatalyst is a promising fixation method.
On March 24, the conference included that :
①the basic knowledge of biological brick. ②The main function of carbonic anhydrase in our project; ③We arranged the mission about HP and Collaboration. Through holding this meeting, we knew that it was helpful for the experimental group to design and transform the biobricks in the later stage. And some other works were arranged, so that we can be prepared for the following assignments.On March 31, the conference included that ：
①The experimental group summarized the basic professional knowledge related to the competition②We initially summarized the schemes of HP and collaboration.
③Our instructors tell the students who go to the United States how to get the visa .
Through this meeting, we made our parts of HP and Collaboration more complete and detailed.
On April 14, the conference included that ：
①The experimental group needs to understand the basic knowledge of genetic engineering.②The activities of hp-related are determined by the group of HP and collaboration.
③Interpretation of the standards of the Medal.
Through the discussion in this meeting, we have listed the ways of expert discussion and external communication for the activities of HP and collaboration. Meanwhile, the members of the experimental group are planned to start the research of Interlab, and some members decided to participate in CCIC held in Shanghai during the summer vacation. On April 21, the conference included that :
①We should complete the preliminary research of Interlab:We need to test the device which is in the DNA KIT needs to be sent to the United States, and GFP fluorescent protein expression may be required.
②The members of the group of HP and collabarbitration gives us some feedback on opinions of relevant government officials of the municipal environmental protection bureau.
③Our instructors tell the students who decide to go to the United States to fill out forms of DS160. Through the discussion in this meeting, we planed to complete the test report of Biobrick and submit the Excel data form before the registration time of Interlab on July 9 (as of September 29). Meanwhile,the members of the group of webpage should began to design wiki pages and other related contents.
On April 29, the conference included that :
①the experimental group should complete the ot-2 application before May 1.②The group of the HP and Collaboration should continue to work on related activities.
Through the discussion in this meeting, we asked the experimental group to conduct a detailed research on Interlab in the next stage. Meanwhile, the members of the group of HP and collabarbitration need to investigate the previous Collaboration projects and make a summary.
On May 13th,the conference included that :
①The Interlab research of the experimental group was completed, and the instructor should plan for the following projects.The members of the group of HP and collabarbitration had completed the research of the collaboration.Through the discussion in this meeting, we planed to continue to improve the website design of the wiki in the next stage,and the website design needs to conform to the theme of this year. Meanwhile, the experimental group should pay attention to collecte some relevant experimental pictures used on the wiki when conducting experiments.On May 19th，the conference included that :
Each group tasks are still in the completion stage, and we should discuss the existing problems in the nextconference.Through the discussion in this meeting, we planed to complete the exhibition of posters of CCIC in Shanghai in the next stage and complete the presentation of related projects.
On June 8, the conference included that :
①The experimental group needed to complete the Data Form, online 4 forms, and Project Description, and the Safety Form (referring to the completion of 17 years) before June 29;②The group of HP needed to hold a lecture in our college.
Through this meeting, our team members had a high degree of tacit understanding, and the atmosphere of the discussion became more and more active.
On July 27, the conference included that :
①The experimental group completed the uploading of Interlab experiments and records.②The Logo production is completed by the group of art layout.
③One of the HP activity is completed by the members of the group of the HP and collaboration.
Through this meeting, we planed to meet the IGEM gold award requirements for the next phase of the experimental group,two different wiki designs should be prepared for the web page team,and the modeling group needs to dock with the experimental group to find a solution that can implement mathematical modeling.
On August 23, the conference included that :
①The experimental group completed a certain of Biobrick designs, and the experimental group estimated that two improved biological bricks and two new biological bricks will be submitted.②We voted on the wiki design.
Through the discussion in this meeting, we asked the modeling group to model the reaction of carbon dioxide airflow with saturated carbonic anhydrase solution after the investigation is made clear. The work of each group will set the Deadline mechanism and strictly stipulate the completion time.
Conclusion: our IGEM team of Anhui University of Technology discussed and solved various problems in the progress of our project through conferences.And our final project has been improved;the members have more and more trust in each other.The conference is still going on, AND our story is still going on.I believe that our team of IGEM team will be able to achieve success in this year's competition!