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: learn from former iGEMers, 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, former iGEMer Bowen Xiao and several former iGEMers from Beijing Institute of Technology helped us have a deep understanding of the requirements and spirits of iGEM through our meetings. They also shared their valuable experience with us, such as time allocation during the whole project and how to avoid missing any deadline. From this process we also learned our responsibility as iGEMers.
HP. Former iGEMers-Bowen Xiao
HP. Former iGEMers-BIT1
HP. 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.
HP. Interviewing Professor Shi-1
HP. 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.
HP. Visit to Dr. Wu at Laboratory of Quality and Safety Risk Assessment for Cereal Products, Institute of Crop Science -1
HP. Visit to Dr. Wu at Laboratory of Quality and Safety Risk Assessment for Cereal Products, Institute of Crop Science -2
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.
HP. 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.
HP. Tsinghua University-1
HP. Tsinghua University-2
Our team members are from several schools. We arranged 3 publicities in 3 schools. During these publicities we not only received many valuable suggestions, but also enhanced our social impact. In every speech, we first introduced the history and the main characteristics of iGEM, especially 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 helped our audience know the importance of food safety and deepen their awareness of this issue. We hope that these speeches can attract more people to join us and solve the potential human health threat in food.
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 responses from companies and received sponsorship fee of 11000 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.
HP. Questionnaire-1
HP. Questionnaire-2
HP. Questionnaire-3
HP. Questionnaire-4
HP. 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.