Team:NYMU-Taipei/HP/Silver
Silver Human Practice
Visit Far East Bio-Tech Company
To find out the most effective way to solve the energy crisis and to ensure our project is responsible and good for the world, NYMU-Taipei this year paid a visit to one of the largest biotechnology company in Taiwan, Far East Bio-Tech Company. We visited Mr. C. C. Chiueh, the founder of FEBICO. He gave us some professional suggestions from an enterprise view and inspired us to find out more prospective ways to conduct our project.
Interview with Dr. Han-Jia Lin
Later in October, we held an interview with Dr. Han-Jia Lin, a microalgae specialist from National Taiwan Ocean University. We not only discussed the biosafety concern of genetically modified microalgae with Dr. Han-Jia Lin but also consulted him with the mutualistic relationship between Escherichia coli and microalgae in our co-culture model. Dr. Han-Jia Lin gave us lots of professional and constructive advice, which had deep effects on our project.
Education
This summer, NYMU also engaged with lots of senior high schools to advocate our project, including Wego Bilingual High School and Taipei First Girl High School. We introduced the main concept of our project to them and educated the students what is synthetic biology, so they could be more acquainted with iGEM. We also invited CGU Taiwan to present their project to us as well.
Besides educating senior high schools, this year, we also held a special activity- the iGEM NYMU-Taipei 10 Year Exhibition. We presented all the posters from the last decade so that the audience could have deeper understanding of iGEM, and how iGEM influenced previous participants' future development. We hoped that through this ten-year exhibition we could make synthetic biology advocated the general public.
Biosafety concerns
Most important of all, NYMU this year collaborated with TAS Taipei, and they helped us with suicide mechanism functional test. Their test results make us more certain that our suicide mechanism is reliable, which means that our project is responsible and without biosafety concern. Moreover, we also educated Taipei American School how to conduct site-directed mutagenesis as well as assay biofilm production, which is also a great progress to their project.
Wego
Establish a 2018 iGEM team
In September, NYMU iGEM took a step further in terms of educating kids and spreading awareness of iGEM.We went to Wego Bilingual High School encouraging them to establish an iGEM team for 2018. One of our members of NYMU iGEM came from Wego Bilingual High School and we decided to target the freshmen in high school in hopes of sparkling an interest in establishing a team next year. We presented the introduction of synthetic biology with the entire science department faculty.
Collaborate with CGU
To do so, we invited the iGEM team from Chang Gung University to present their project as well to increase the examples for potential project ideas for these freshmen. Since our project track was Energy and CGU iGEM team focused on the Environmental track, students were able to see different takes on project ideas.
Conduct a survey
We interacted with these high schoolers by not only presenting how our project and explaining the power of synthetic biology but also walking down the aisle, asking questions and talking with them on their view of synthetic biology. Before and after our presentation, we also conducted surveys to over 100 freshmen in Wego Bilingual high school to fill out. These students all took time during class to complete this survey assignment. Survey questions included their opinions on the importance of algae and synthetic biology.We then used their survey responses to target our presentation. After our presentation, we noticed evident in both the children’s faces and the surveys result that they were much more interested in synthetic biology. We sincerely hope through this reach out and education outing we could touch on these high school students' future and inspire many to join the world of synthetic biology.
Survey Results
In the survey before the presentation, the results indicate that out of the 200 Wego high school students, most of them were neither familiar with iGEM nor the benefits of algae. After the presentation, the results from our second survey suggest that students have learned a lot more from the presentation given. In addition to understanding different components of iGEM, they are now more aware of the underlying advantages of age. Most importantly, as a result of our presentation, Wego Bilingual High School now intends to create their own iGEM team for the upcoming year.
Survey before the presentation:
Fig 1: Most of the students had never heard iGEM. Only 6% students have heard iGEM.
Fig 2: The answer for the question is Taiwan – only 31% students know that their country has the highest carbon emission around the world. This shows that more awareness has to be drawn towards Taiwan citizens in acknowledging the importance of alternative energy use.
Fig 3: The answer is 19.6 kg per day – nearly 80% students chose the wrong answer. This result also shows that most people are not aware the scope of carbon footprint and threat it has imposed on us.
Survey after the presentation:
Fig 4: 97% students(74% extremely clear + 31% clear) clear on advantages of algae after our presentation.
Fig 5: 95% students think there more research should be done on algae. That is, most students know the importance of algae research on energy after our presentation.
Fig 6: 97% students are more familiar with the field of synthetic biology after our presentation.
Fig 7: 50% students are interested in pursuing synthetic biology. This data shows that, as a result to our presentation, we have inspired students to engage in this competition and studying synthetic biology. As a result, Wego Bilingual High School now intends to build their own 2018 iGEM team for the following year.
Taipei First Girls’ High School
Advocate synthetic biology and the iGEM
On September 28, 2017, NYMU-iGEM team headed to Taipei First Girls' High School in order to promote the iGEM competition in high schools. The Biology club in Taipei First High School (TFGBC) is composed of students who are interested in the biology field. After contacting with TFGBC several times, we decided to held a seminar in Taipei First Girls' High School. We not only introduced synthetic biology, the iGEM Giant Jamboree, other iGEM teams' works, and iGEM high school track but also briefly talked about our project -Smart AlgaEnergy. To advocate the IGEM competition was the main purpose of this seminar. We hoped it could stimulate their passion for synthetic biology, maybe even becoming iGEMers in the future! After our presentation, both NYMU-iGEM team and TFGBC wanted to have further academic exchanges in the future, such as lab visiting, student practices and so on.
Affiliated High School of National Cheng Chi University
Asist a 2018 iGEM team
During the period of iGEM NYMU-Taipei 10-Year Exhibition, the team has received messages from the Genetic Engineering Club members of The Affiliated High School of National Cheng Chi University.They are willing to set up an iGEM team next year, but they are uncertain of everything about iGEM. Therefore, they want to visit our exhibition and join the forum on iGEMers’ past and future. In two weekends, we took the club members to visit our laboratory, and explained to them about the concept of iGEM and synthetic biology. Also, we talked about our project in order to give them more details and views about iGEM. In fact, this is a very special communication, and we feel honored that we have triggered their passion for synthetic biology. We hope that they can set up their own iGEM team next year successfully, and we look forward to having further academic exchanges in the future. Most importantly, we believe that they can show their creativity and bring surprises to the whole world.
iGEM NYMU-Taipei 10-Year Exhibition
The Origin of iGEM NYMU-Taiepi 10-Year Exhibition
This year we are hosting the iGEM NYMU-Taipei 10 Year Exhibition where we would like to present projects of NYMU-Taipei from the past decade. Other teams would be able to see the brainstorming process, the problems past members faced and a step by step process of how they solved any issues. We would also like to analyze how topics and thinking process evolved over these past ten years. We look forward that through this 10-year exhibition we can share the biology and biological innovation applications to the general public, current iGEM participants or even future iGEM participants.
In this exhibition, we presented NYMU-Taipei team stories and experiences we had in the past ten years as well as arranged short talks with past-iGEM participants for advice. The panorama is the whole picture of the exhibition, and you can see how we arranged the venue.
Interview with Senior iGEMers
During the arrangement of iGEM NYMU-Taipei 10 Year Exhibition, we had interviewed with twelve senior NYMU-Taipei iGEMers, who attended iGEM from 2007-2016. Through these interviews, we observed and learned how synthetic biology had impacted the past members of NYMU-Taipei team, and how “designed thinking” affected each person’s scientific career. In addition, these seniors gave us lots of suggestions to adjust and improve our project. The feedback significantly meant iGEM experience from all NYMU-Taipei iGEMers could be passed down through the long-standing ten-year team history.
You can read here in our excerpts of five of the essence of the interviews, other interviews can refer to our team Facebook page. Furthermore, we re-made two posters, providing a visual overview of all topics of projects from the past ten years in iGEM NYMU-Taipei, and they could be viewed here as a high-resolution PDF.
Opening Ceremony
September 4th was an important date of iGEM NYMU-Taipei 10 Year Exhibition, the opening ceremony. We invited the president of National Yang-Ming University, Prof. Kung-Yee Liang, the primary PI of Team NCTU_Formosa, Wen-Liang Chen, and the members of The Investigator Taiwan, to address speeches for the exhibition. We welcomed everyone to come to the open ceremony and celebrated with us, understanding projects from the past NYMU-Taipei teams.
The news related to opening ceremony and the following exhibition was published on our school's official website, you can click here for further information. We are very grateful to National Yang-Ming University for financial support and all kinds of assistance in the whole iGEM journey.
Public Engagement
Scientific American provided us with a lot of publications on synthetic biology and genetic engineering, so that we could introduce how synthetic biology works and what iGEM is to the public and students in National Yang-Ming University. Prof. Chuan-Hsiung Chang also explained synthetic biology and iGEM to visitors on exhibition. We not only outreached genetic engineering, synthetic biology and iGEM, but recruited students in our campus to attend next year’s iGEM competition.
Forum: “From Past to the Future”
In order to make people learn more about iGEMers’ scientific career and how iGEM influenced their choice, a forum, called “iGEM NYMU-Taipei talk: From Past to Future”, was held on the final day of the exhibition. We invited two senior iGEMers, Shang-Jui Tsai, who attended iGEM 2011 and now is a Ph.D. student at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, and Jui-Tzu Huang, who attended iGEM 2014, to share their stories and career development after iGEM.
Interestingly, Shang-Jui shared his idea with us via webcast from Baltimore. His Ph.D. project just derived from his iGEM project- “Wireless neuro-stimulator featuring Optogenetics”. It was very cool for us to turn iGEM project into career goal and objective. We expected the two inspirational talks to promote public awareness of iGEM, and unlimited possibilities after iGEM competition.
After iGEM NYMU-Taipei 10-Year Exhibition
During the exhibition, we had a wonderful chance to communicate with other iGEM teams, students in National Yang-Ming University and the general public. We also understood more deeply about the team history of NYMU-Taipei, improving our project and having us to know what our future career may look like. The whole exhibition meant a lot to us and we would like to express our highest thanks to all teams who attended this exhibition, and all people who helped and supported us.
Though iGEM NYMU-Taipei 10 Year Exhibition had ended, just like Sir Winston Churchill once said, “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” We hoped that all our effort and the exhibition would make positive change in the world and the iGEM community.
Album
Chang Gung University
National Chung Cheng University
National Chung Hsing
The Affiliated High School of National Chengchi University
Teacher
Taipei Wego Private Senior High School
TAS_Taipei
Assist our characterization of shuttle vector
Taipei American School collaborated with us by assisting our characterization of shuttle vector with Holin- Endolysin- NrtA system (BBa_K2350021), and measurements of growth curve with Escherichia coli DH5α, by adding lactose to induce kill-switch, in order to determine whether the suicide system works. With their assistance, we verified that the concentration of E.coli significantly decreased after kill-switch functioned in different lactose concentrations.
Figure 1 TAS_Taipei independently tested the function of our lactose-induced kill-switch system. In different concentrations (0-250 mM) of lactose, it decreased the bacterial population.
Teach about conducting site-directed mutagenesis
We have also shown mutual friendship for our long-lasting relationship by teaching them how to conduct site-directed mutagenesis as well as assay biofilm production. Also, two TAS students, Catherine Chang and Leona Tsai, are also NYMU team members. This year, they helped us communicate with team TAS_Taipei, finished public outreach for Human Practice, and presented our project at the 5th Annual Asia Pacific Conference and the Giant Jamboree.
Far East Bio Tec
We want to build some connections between the society and our lab work. We are convinced that we will not succeed to accomplish our project without the interaction outside the lab, including learning the market trend in algae and energy field, novel technology applying and gaining suggestions to our project. Furthermore, we believe that we have the responsibility to eliminate the misunderstanding about genetic engineering in a community. As a result, sharing the experience about conducting a high standard of biosafety in our project is necessary. Introducing the iGEM spirit and promoting the concept of synthetic biology are also important goals we want to reach through all kind of activities outside the lab.
This summer, we were honored to meet with Far East Bio-Tec Company(FEBICO) in their headquarter.
Far East Bio-Tec Company is the largest microalgae supplier in Asia, and its clients are located mostly in Japan, Europe, and the USA. Providing high-quality microalgae products to serve public's nutritional, cosmetic and biomedical needs is their primary mission.
Mr. C. C. Chiueh, the founder of FEBICO, met us in person. He not only gave us some professional suggestions from an enterprise view but also inspired us to find out more prospective ways to conduct our project. We summarize the key points we have reached in this conversation ：
Conclusion
(1.) International market trends and opportunities
The price of petroleum is not very high in the current international market, so it seems to have less profit on producing biofuel. However, we can never underestimate the threat of energy consuming. The energy crisis is still visible in the upcoming future since a number of fossil fuels in the Earth is limited. Hence, it is not quite urgent but definitely imperative to develop sustainable energy sources. Microalgae oil may be a capable one of them. FEBICO once had the interest to join the green fuel plan proposed by the government of Taiwan.
(2.) High additional value in algae
FEBICO has its dependent in-house microalgae laboratory.It aims at creating microalgae biotech products with high added value. That is, the FEBICO products contain some rare nutrients or have particular functions. For example, Vegetable DHA from marine microalgae, Astaxanthin from Haematococcus Pluvialis mixed with Spirulina in capsule and immune diagnostic reagents, etc. Mr. C. C. Chiueh also threw out the idea of filtering pollutions such as endocrine disruptors by algae, viewing it a promising design that will solve environmental problems.
(3.) Production in commercial scale
FEBICO has a 140,000-square-meter manufacturing site with over 60 microalgae culture ponds at southern Taiwan. With the patent of “Cracked Cell wall”, FEBICO can pop the thick cell wall of Chlorella like popcorn without producing heavy metal pollution. It allows up to 80% absorption rate, maintaining 100% nutrients in algae.
(4.) iGEM spirit and biosafety
We introduced iGEM competition to Mr. C. C. Chiueh. “Get and give” is the core spirit in the design of “Biobricks System” which made a great contribution to synthetic biology. To some extent, sharing brings more benefit than merely competing each other. However, it is a pity that it is still a minority to find out a “sharing” term in commerce. Besides, to diminish the concern about genetic engineering, we explained the function of “Suicide mechanism” in our project. With the picture of the plasmid we constructed, it is clearer to understand the concept. Positive construction means making stuff instead of researching basic things. Both of us－FEBICO and NYMU iGEM team are making effort to achieve this goal.
Mr. C. C. Chiueh showed his interest in DNA sequencing. Diminish concern about the genomic engineering.
Discussion with Dr. Han-Jia Lin
NYMU team has the honor to consult Dr. Han-Jia Lin, an associate professor in National Taiwan Ocean University who specializes in the research of microalgae, about our project design and wiki content. Professor Lin also gave us some feedback to strengthen and enhance this year’s project. This includes a deeper understanding of photosynthesis mechanism, the mutualistic relationship between E.coli and microalgae in our co-culture model, and the biosafety of genetically modified microalgae. After the discussion, we reconsidered the result and application of our pigment project. We sincerely appreciate Professor Lin‘s generous assistance and helpful advice. After the Giant Jamboree, we hope to share with him about our experience and amazing journey and have further chance to collaborate on microalgae research.
Dr. Han-Jia Lin
Research areas：Biochemistry, biotechnology
Related research areas: Metabolism, Genetics, Proteomics, Algaeology, Nano Chemistry
Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at John Hopkins University
On July 16, 2017, thanks to the help of a senior NYMU-Taipei team participant, we contacted a Ph.D. student from Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at John Hopkins University, Chien Ting Li. Through Skype webcam, we discussed our project with him, including experimental design, theoretical mechanism, and the follow-up application. Chien Ting also shared with us how academics and industries in the US view biomass energy, and how we can improve our co-culture system and simulation model. This exchange was inspirational and fruitful, and we really appreciated that Chien Ting pointed out what we missed in the process of brainstorming.
