Team:Hong Kong-CUHK/Engagement

Local Public Engagement

In order to gain acceptance of our project, we need to allow the publics in Hong Kong to know about our project and synthetic biology. We achieved youth education on synthetic biology by our workshop, introduced participants to what synthetic biology is and induced their deeper thought on ethical issues connected to synthetic biology. Through in-campus activities, we promoted synthetic biology to our schoolmates of different majors and specialties, aroused attention to this topic. Holding outreach activities, we made our project more connected to the public, we gained opinions and so we could make improvements for the real-life practice of our project.


High School

>> One day Synthetic Biologist workshop (4 FEB 2017)


About 30 Students from 12 different high schools participated in this workshop and had hand-on experience about synthetic biology experiments under our guidance. The day camp consists of lab experiments, lectures of basics of synthetic biology and genetics as well as sharing of our project. We also discussed synthetic biology-related ethical issues. We conducted survey before and after the workshop. According to the survey result, students have increased understanding of synthetic biology after this workshop! We hope that this activity can inspire high school students’ interest in synthetic biology.


Here are some highlights of significant survey results:

  • Click here for detailed questionnaire result.
  • Download our powerpoint and event detail !
  • View the list of participating high schools
Diocesan Boys' School Hong Kong Chinese Women's Club College
HKU SPACE Po Leung Kuk Stanley Ho Community College Ma On Shan Tsung Tsin Secondary School
N.L.S.I. Lui Kwok Pat Fong College Our Lady's College
Pentecostal Lam Hon Kwong School Queen's College Old Boys' Association Secondary
Qualied College St.Clare's Girls' School
St. Paul's Convent School Tsuen Wan Government Secondary School






University

>>CUHK Art fair (14-15 SEP 2016)

Target: University students and teachers
CUHK Art fair is a carnival held in our university. We used this opportunity to introduce students about synthetic biology and our project. Through DIY Liquid Nitrogen Ice-cream, participants got a taste of what synthetic biology is like. We raised up the synbio- vanilla ice cream issue to students, allowing them to know what synthetic biology is and synthetic biology is actually around us in everyday life. Our booth successful aroused students’ interest in synthetic biology, many non-science students got new insights and better attitude towards synthetic biology.

  • Check what our students say! (Attach Video)
  • Download the protocol to make ice cream yourself !














>> CUHK Information day (22 OCT 2017)

Target: High school teachers, students and their parents
Promote synthetic biology to high school audience. Though survey, we gain opinions and views of the high school audience on synthetic biology as well as our project.


General Public

Through outreach activities, we hear voices from the public about our project and concerns about synthetic biology. This was precious chance for us to go out of laboratory, get our project and synthetic biology connected to the community.



>> Visiting local community lab: DIYBio (12,19 JAN 2017)

DIYBio is the first growing biotechnological social movement in Hong Kong initiated in 2016. Through this platform, we hosted one public sharing session, presented our project to the audience and discussed safety issue with them. We also attended a talk given by HKU iGEM 2016 Team organized by DIYBIO Hong Kong and they shared with us their experience in iGEM.


>>Vibrant Science Academy – Summer Science Party @Hong Kong Science & Technology Parks （Sundays in JUL and AUG 2017）
We invited iGEM HKUST Team to collaborate with us. Holding a booth in this public science carnaval, we aim to arouse general public’s interest in biology and our project. Through fun interactive activities, kids learn simple and basic biology. We taught children to build origami model to allow kids understand the basic structure of DNA. We had another game “Who is the criminal?” focused on DNA application, allowing kids and their parents to know that DNA is closely connected to daily life. We promoted basic knowledge of synthetic biology to their parents as well. We encountered some talented kids with special interest in molecular biology and we met a few professionals in the field as well, they gave us rewardful advices and comments on our project.



>> Facebook Page
We created a facebook page to promote our team and project, we updated our progress with the public from time to time, we also share news and interesting facts about synthetic biology on this platform.


International public engagement

Due to the high population, East and South East Asia is the global source of influenza. In addition, rapid spread of Influenza is more serious in undeveloped country due to less developed system. Therefore, our project and the idea of synthetic biology should also be introduced to the publics in those countries. However, most underdeveloped countries don’t have the concept of synthetic biology. Among the region, Bangladesh is one of the most underdeveloped country affected by influenza and without the concept of synbio. Therefore, we first choose Bangladesh as the first targeted country.



Bangladesh

>> First ever synthetic biology event in Bangladesh (16 JUN 2017)
We cooperated with Bio Bangla, a community lab in Dhaka, to hold the first ever synthetic biology event in Bangladesh. We gave presentation about synthetic biology and our projects. About 40 students from 6 universities joined the event. The chairman of Microbiology department at Noakhali Science and Technology University- Firoz Ahmed and Prime minister a2i project consultant- Iran Khan also joined the event. After the event, we are very glad to notice that they will form the first iGEM team in Bangladesh in 2018. We therefore also provided advices in establishment of first iGEM team in Bangladesh.

  • It is result from survey
  • Participated Bangladesh Universities

Pakistan

>>Skype meeting with Biohacking space Peshawar (11 JAN 2017)
Biohacking space Peshawar is the first Bio-Hacking space in Pakistan.We had a quality video conference with Biohacking space Peshawar. We came up with vast possible collaborations opportunities that we could complement each other's technical limitations. This skype meeting achieved a step towards Synthetic Biology in Pakistan.

iGEM Conference

>> The 4th iGEM Asia- Pacific Conference (8 - 14 AUG 2016)
We joined the iGEM Asia- Pacific Conference conducted in Tainan in August 2016, we have gained deep insights into perspectives of synthetic biology, from ethics to big data processing, via in-depth discussions with fellow iGEMers. The experience workshop and presentations with the 20 Asian iGEM teams also gives us inspirations in operating an iGEM team and conducting human practice. We had got valuable advice in connecting ourselves to the public from Ana Sifuentes from iGEM headquarters. Professors gave us precious advice on our future planning and orientation and pointed out the practical difficulties and problems hiding inside our project.

  • Click here for detailed evaluation report.

>> Pan-Pearl iGEM Teams Meeting (5 AUG 2017)
We attended and presented our project in the conference. We had exchanged ideas with other iGEM teams as well. Supervisors from other iGEM teams gave helpful advices for improvement of our project. We also gain more experience in presenting and answering questions, it was like a small rehearsal for Jamboree.


>> DIYBio Biosafety Sharing (11 AUG 2017)
DIYBio HK shared with us their safety protocol, biosafety practice in their lab as well as the recent situation and regulations on genetically modified organisms in Hong Kong. We gain precious inspirations from the talk on biosafety and we realized that regulations in Hong Kong need to be improved. Meeting with all other local iGEM teams, we had nice communications on difficulties we are facing respectively and gave each other suggestions.

     

Email: igemcuhk1617@gmail.com