On May 28, we set off on our journey of collaboration. Since we shared a laboratory with LINKS_China 2022 and KEYSTONE 2022 (more information about our other elaborations is given below), a mini-conference was breezily held between the three teams. The aim of this mini-conference was to have a preliminary understanding of the feasibility and practicability of the aim of our project.
During the mini-conference, we shared our idea and design with each other in the form of a 15-minute presentation. We gained useful feedback with regard to our aim of the experimental designs, such as the use of magnetic beads, and were inspired by some new innovative points which could make our project more beneficial and meaningful. In return, we also provided suggestions and possible improvements to their projects which helped them make adjustments to their project and clarify their aims.
Overall, the mini-conference allowed us to share our idea and obtain practical and in-depth feedback from other teams. Potential future collaboration was also discussed at the conference, and we found out that sharing plasmid with LINKs-CHINA was a possible collaboration that could be carried on. Besides, the mini-conference was also beneficial because it helped us get prepared for the later conference with iGEM teams from all over China.
[图片]
## Southern China Regional Meeting 2022
After the meeting in May with the two high school teams, we gained experience and had a clearer understanding of the direction our project leads to. In June, our team was invited to participate in the Southern China Regional Meeting, the first high school team to be invited. The Southern China Regional Meeting is an annual event for iGEM teams' communication, held by SZU-China since 2017.
The purpose of the Southern China Conference is to unite iGEM teams from Southern China to come together and share the project's progress and solve the bottlenecks encountered in the current project development stage. In this setting, we gained valuable experience in successfully promoting our project. iGEMers from different teams discussed and brainstormed about project design, experiment development, modeling and hardware, human practice, etc.
During the meetup, we introduced our project FabRevivo to the iGEM teams at Southern China Conference and were surprised to find some similarities and connections with some teams present. We mainly focused on exploring the possibility of downstream products, and problems we had encountered, such as low ferritin magnetic force. In addition, experienced participants of iGEM also offered beneficial advice in HP's direction, helping us recognize the diverse ways we can conduct social interactions and human practices.
We obtained helpful feedback and conducted in-depth exchanges and communication with many undergraduate groups, especially SZU-CHINA and SYSU-CHINA (Shenzhen University and Sun Yat-Sen University). We exchanged ideas with other team members regarding modeling and found a potential for collaboration or partnership with SYSU-CHINA. SYSU-CHINA’s project, "ACCESS", known as "Animalcule Co-Catalytic Engineering for Salidroside Synthesis", also requires glucose at the beginning stage of the pathway. We saw the possibility of supplying our glucose, the degraded end product of natural cellulose fiber. In return, they can help us with the directed evolution of our designed yeast.
[图片]
[图片]
[图片]
## iGEM Teams June Meetup and Cooperation with BJEA_China
Although our communication with SZU-CHINA and SYSU-CHINA did not develop into long-term partnerships, from our last meeting experience with other iGEMers, we realized how precious and helpful it is to reach out for advice, connections, and even collaborations. As a result, we decided to participate in the iGEM Teams June Meetup, where we saw the opportunity to communicate with teams inside and outside of the country. Again, we have received just as much if not even more useful feedback.
Most importantly, we got into contact with the high school team BJEA_China as we were immediately amazed by their project regarding the engineering of PETase to achieve higher efficiency. Seeing the similarities in our project as we both work towards a better solution to PET degradation, we decided to collaborate on an article to educate the public about the production, manufacture, and harm of PET. In the article, we also cast our spotlight on involving everyone in the solution to PET pollution, so we discussed approaches that everybody could take on a daily basis to eliminate PET pollution. For example, sorting garbage, buying products made of biodegradable materials and so forth. Furthermore, we also wanted to integrate our project's core idea into this article on education. Therefore, we revealed the dominating percentage of PET in clothes components and suggested that we can all contribute to eliminating pollution by buying less unnecessary apparel.
[图片]
## SynBio Exhibition at School with LINKS_China
Besides publishing an article online, we also held an elaborate exhibition near the school gate with the help of LINKS_China. The content of the exhibition not only included Synthetic Biology, but also included the projects of the two teams.
GreatBay_SCIE gathered engaging information about the history of Synthetic Biology, the milestones of Synthetic Biology, and the most popular technologies in the field of Synthetic Biology, such as PCR and CRISPR-Cas9. This textual information was made into delicate posters along with numerous diagrams, making the information more easily understood by our peers and teachers from different departments. We also prepared a poster about our project "FabRevivo", including the background and our experiment design, and another poster about the inspiration of our project ––fast-fashion pollution, where people were introduced to different approaches to recycling unwanted clothes and involved in the elimination of pollution. LINKS_China 2022 had prepared a poster about their "UV PRISMA" project to share and educate people about different types of sunscreens. Many of our team members stayed at the exhibition after school, and there were many amazing discussions with other peers and teachers interested in our projects.
On the left-hand side, we prepared an empty poster for signatures where people were welcome to drop down any thoughts in any form and language about this exhibition, our projects, iGEM, or Synthetic Biology. We were all so happy to see all the encouraging drawings and positive comments in many different languages; this provided us with profound insights into the public's positive impression of our projects and Synthetic Biology. People were welcome to take away some of our self-designed souvenirs, including LINKS_China's sticker set, GreatBay_SCIE's sticker set, and two types of masks with different designs.
In the center of the exhibition, an area was set up for our interactive game - "SynBio Quick Quiz". We designed numerous quiz questions on different aspects of SynBio. Most of them are rather interesting than difficult. No matter what subjects one studied, everyone was able to take away our self-designed souvenirs plus pieces of interesting facts about Synthetic Biology. This is an area filled with joy and laughter.
We have also set up a display area where people are introduced to a range of laboratory apparatuses. Under our team members' supervision, every participant was encouraged to learn how to use a pipette. Besides, different types of culture media were sterilized and sealed in centrifuge tubes separately and brought to the exhibition. An introduction to each one of them was demonstrated with them, so our peers and teachers could have a deeper understanding of the terms of culturing bacteria or yeast. Moreover, prior to the exhibition, we prepared a petri dish with "SCIE x LINKS" written with K.marxianus (the species of yeast used by GreatBay_SCIE) on it. On the day of the exhibition, we sterilized the petri dish, sealed it, and brought it to the exhibition (It was totally safe to have a little sniff at the petri dish, and many reported that there was a smell of Japanese Sake!). Next to the petri dish, pieces of dried bacterial cellulose from LINKS_China 2021 were displayed as a fabulous result of Synthetic Biology. Not surprisingly, the display area was one of the most crowded areas in the exhibition!
[图片]
[图片]
[图片]
[图片]
## Cooperation and Sharing Plasmid with LINKS_China
This year, not only did we hold an exhibition with LINKS_China, but we also shared a laboratory with LINKS_China 2022. As our projects both involved culturing yeast, we communicated and discussed with each other about yeast transformation. LINKS_China 2022 gave us invaluable advice on yeast transformation as they started their yeast experiment prior to us. Later, when we started our experiment on yeast, we were suggested to use a recommended yeast tool kit. However, after the frustrating constant failure to construct the essential backbone of our wanted plasmid by ourselves, LINKS_China kindly and happily offered some of their stock of the shuttle plasmid 021, into which we integrated our own wanted coding sequence, marker, and origin of replication, of either Saccharomyces cerevisiae or Kluyveromyces marxianus. We obtained successful results of protein production using this plasmid from LINKS_China.
