Team:WHU-China/Human Practices
Human Practices
1.candlelight navigation—communicate with professor
The motivation of our project came from a conversation between a professor and some of our team members. In Wuhan University, “Candlelight navigation” is an opportunity for students to directly communicate with professors and get instruction ranging from life to academy. By this chance, we had an unforgettable conversation with Professor Xin Lu who majored in bird ecology in May, 2017. He stressed the importance of environmental protection for many times:” The water of the East Lake used to be so clear that there were always many teachers and students swimming in it… However, because of the deterioration of the ecological environment and excessive sewage discharge, the East Lake was once covered with a layer of horrible green film.
From then on, we have no longer seen anyone swimming in the lake…” Since then, these words has been lingering in our minds. After a year, five people from that conversation joined iGEM. The purpose of the competition was to make the world a better place. At that time, we set the initial blueprint for our project.
2.Bio-builder
In Wuhan University, iGEM group is builded in March every year. In order to learn more about synthetic biology, some of us visit Boston in winter vacation and take part in a course from Bio-builder in February, 2018. Dr. Natalie Kudull teaches us the basic knowledge of synthetic biology in a heuristic and guiding teaching way.
3.Visit iGEM headquarter
In that vocation, we also visited iGEM headquarters. We were full of enthusiasm for iGEM and decided to join the iGEM team, and contribute to make a better world…
4.East Lake HP set
(we put these 3 HP activity in this HP set, they are in a series and have strong connection with each other)
4.1 East Lake Water Quality Test
Later, in order to take a deep understanding of the environmental problem of the East Lake, especially the eutrophication, which is attributed to phosphorus content, we sampled from three different position of the East Lake, and measured the OD value after using the total phosphorus content measurement kit. After that, we compared it with prepared standard curve to measure the total phosphorus content of East Lake.
number |
result（OD（700nm）） |
average |
P concentration mg/L |
||
1 |
0.069 |
0.063 |
0.072 |
0.068 |
0.79 |
2 |
0.107 |
0.109 |
0.105 |
0.107 |
1.23 |
3 |
0.097 |
0.097 |
0.096 |
0.097 |
1.17 |
According to Vollenweider's classification criteria for reservoir lake nutrition status, the water quality of East Lake exceeded 7 to 10 times of the standard criteria.
4.2 Questionnaire and interview
In order to know people’s understanding of the eutrophication pollution of the East Lake to make our project more realistic, we did some survey activities. We designed an electronic questionnaire and distributed it in Wuhan University, Xincun Street, East Lake community and the sewage treatment plant. In the end, 85 questionnaires were collected. We processed the data and the result is as follows:
4.3 Synthetic biology enters the community
In order to spread the idea of synthetic biology, we contacted with the local community and organized “WHU-iGEM come to the community, synthetic biology science activities”. We introduced GM, synthetic biology, and the pollution situation of the East Lake water quality to community. Meanwhile, the contents of our project was also included. Not only do we promoted synthetic biology, but also brought some science knowledge and technology to the residents, which enhanced the scientific awareness of them. Finally, this activity achieved great result.
5.Breakthrough——collaborate with IHB CAS
5.1 problem solving
After our first round of brainstorm, we found that there is a flaw in our design— we didn’t take the bacteria resistance into consideration. If we intended to use synthetic biology to solve eutrophication, the harmful substances in the environmental water body would have an impact on the expression and bacteria survival, so as the resistance problem. Realizing this, we visited the authoritative algae research base in China—— Institute of hydrobiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, in April. R. Zhang introduced the most advanced sewage treatment method - the bacterial and algal symbiosis system and the biofilm system. Then, we systematically reviewed the relevant information of it, and made dramatically improved and improvement to our design.
5.2 new lab for WHU-China
After redesign our project, we found that there were insufficient equipment in our scientific training lab. Fortunately, IHB CAS generously extend a hand to us. R. Zhang instruct us to carry out the experiment related to algae research.
6. Synthetic biology enters the classroom！
In April 2018, we carried out the "Synthetic Biology Science Lecture, Microbial Plate Graffiti Competition", and did propaganda and education work. We guided them to understand the concept of engineering bacteria. To make the learnig process fun, we organized a microbial flat-grain graffiti competition by using engineered E. coli as painting material. This activity gave us the opportunity to educate children about synthetic biology and introduce iGEM.
7. Visit BGI！
We visited BGI headquarter in May, 2018. During this trip to BGI, we were fortunate to have the chance to communicate with the instructor of the Huada High school team (previously judge). She gave us a lot of help and provided us with some new idea in aspect of HP development and experimental design. By coincidence, we met her in CCIC and she give us some precious suggestions on how to give presentation.
8. visit Bluepha!
We visited Bluepha in May, 2018. Bluepha is the first synthetic biology company in China and they have done a fascinating job in industrialization of synthetic biology. Member of Bluepha, our alumnus Boxiang Wang gave us some important suggestions on the guidance of the development of follow-up experiments. Moreover, it was very crucial that he advised us to try the CCAS/R optical switches, which we finally used and worked well in our project.
9. communication with Team SYSU
We met up with the iGEM team in Sun Yat-Sen University in May, introducing each other's projects, teams and experiments, sharing some experience in modeling, and exchanging ideas. We built strong friendship with each other and later they gave us a big help in modelling about data processing. We communicated with each other by video chat.
10.communication with Team Worldshaper
On July 31, 2018, the high school team worldshaper came to visit us. In addition to giving them introduction on the project, we took the initiative to help them contact the community and provide them with a platform to showcase project and broadcast synthetic biology.
11.Sewage plant interview
We visited XSH Water Co., Ltd. to learn more about how the real factory works. The manager Zhang gave us a detailed introduction about the overall process of sewage disposal. He took us to the sewage treatment tank and showed us the drug add-on room as well as some laboratories equipped with sewage plants. We talked about our project and he thought our design was very creative——instead of controlling the sewage discharge，active remediation of environment is more direct. In addition, the idea of changing pollutant back to resource is very effective and exciting.
12.CCiC meeting
In summer, we participate in the biggest iGEMer communication meeting in China——CCiC. This meeting attracted nearly all teams in China, which is a brilliant platform for us to communicate, to learn and to reflect. During these wonderful days in Shanghai, not only did we broaden our horizon but also we got many suggestions on our project from other groups, for example XMU, SDU and HZAU.
Integrated Human Practices
Rome was not built in a day, so as the establishment of our system. Step by step, we improved it in the process of thinking about how to better deal with the problem of eutrophication caused by excessive phosphorus in environmental waters. Finally, we discovered that the system we built can be applied to the processing of other elements. In the process, some HP plays a decisive role. In the integrated HP category, we will show how these HPs directly influence the direction of our project design—the impact of society and the environment on our projects.
Our general design step(click to see details)
The first two steps are directly determined and changed by HP, and the latter design is also completed with the help of some HP.
1.Candlelight navigation—— communicate with professor like a friend
The motivation of our project came from a conversation between a professor and some of our team members. In Wuhan University, “Candlelight navigation” is an opportunity for students to directly communicate with professors and get instruction ranging from life to academy. By this chance, we had an unforgettable conversation with Professor Xin Lu who majored in bird ecology. He stressed the importance of environmental protection for many times:” The water of the East Lake used to be so clear that there were always many teachers and students swimming in it… However, because of the deterioration of the ecological environment and excessive sewage discharge, the East Lake was once covered with a layer of horrible green film. From then on, we have no longer seen anyone swimming in the lake…”
Since then, these words has been lingering in our minds. After a year, five people from that conversation joined iGEM. The purpose of the competition was to make the world a better place. At that time, we set the initial blueprint for our project.
East Lake is the second biggest lake in the city in China and Wuhan University is located on the shore of it. Therefore, it is convenient for us to see it, the once beautiful East Lake. . .
Eutrophication is a big problem in China, In the past few decades, many beautiful rivers and lakes have become no longer clear due to eutrophication, and the delicate ecosystem has been destroyed. East Lake is one of them…
In the following year, we have been thinking about how to solve the problem of eutrophication more effectively., and we determined our project – phosphorus accumulation, the content of phosphorus is the key to eutrophication. At the same time, we consider that the general phosphorus removal process is to directly fill the sludge containing phosphorus, because it is impossible to achieve "bacteria phosphorus separation". the release of phosphorus is introduced to our design, so that the phosphorus collected from the environment can be controlled by people and released as resources for reuse. It is a resource-friendly environmental treatment.
2. Breakthrough——collaborate with IHB CAS
After we discussed our thoughts with the professor Mao in the collage of Resources and Environment, he gave us some advice: If you want your ideas to become reality, you must consider the survival of the bacteria when they are exposed to contaminated water. We have not done so much thinking about the resistance of bacteria before.
Then, we have consulted a lot of academic literature, and we found that it takes plenty of energy for bacteria to recycle phosphorus since this process involves Poly P dynamics. We also found that some environmental factors such as nitrogen content will not only affect the growth of bacteria, but also the efficiency of phosphorus accumulation.
We came across a big problem therefore because we can’t solve these problems by just adding a few pathways.
Finally we went to the Institute of Hydrobiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences for help, R. Xuezhi Zhang introduced us a very advanced methods to treat the sewage—the symbiotic system of bacteria and algae! He also introduced us a symbiotic biofilm system, which is so helpful for our design and project improvement.
The symbiotic system can greatly improve the resistance of bacteria and the algae can reduce nitrogen content in water. The EPS (extracellular poly substances) can trap almost all kinds of harmful chemical agents. Furthermore, algae can provide bacteria energy through photosynthesis. The problems that troubled us can be completely solved by introducing a symbiotic system, and even make it better!
After that, we improve our project and carefully re-design the whole system!
Our laboratory conditions were not sufficient to culture and monitor algae. Fortunately, we have cooperated with the Aquatic Institute and we sent a group of our team member to the Aquatic institute to complete the experiment of symbiotic and biofilm formation with the guidance of teachers!
3. Visit Bluepha！
During the communication with Bluepha, alumnus Boxiang Wang affirmed our project and gave us lots of suggestions. We talked about our project in detail. The most troublesome thing for us at the time was the search for optical switches. He recommended two valuable documents for us. Finally, we decided to use CcaS/R optical switch system and this system works well in our experiments!
He also gave us a follow-up experiment grouping and expanded recommendations, which were helpful.
4. XSH Water Co., Ltd.
We visited XSH Water Co., Ltd. to learn more about how the real factory works. The manager Zhang gave us a detailed introduction about the overall process of sewage disposal. He took us to the sewage treatment tank and showed us the drug add-on room as well as some laboratories equipped with sewage plants. We talked about our project and he thought our design was very creative——instead of controlling the sewage discharge, active remediation of environment is more direct. In addition, the idea of changing pollutant back to resource is very effective and exciting.
Besides the encouragement, we also learnt that most of sewage plant would make a direct landfill of sludge which contains phosphorus absorbed from polluted water. This is not a sustainable way for both environment and resource. This makes us more determined to complete the whole design chain from the pathway to the hardware application about our project.
