Silver
Our human practices including several aspects, such as biosafety, social activity and public education. Since Carindex is a genetically engineered product, so our work focuses on promotion of the knowledge of genetically engineered product and survey on people's concern about it.
Self-learning
1. The Third International Symposium on Epigenetic Genomics：
In order to complete our project and products, we need various knowledge from different fields. In May, 2017, the whole team participated in the third International Symposium on Epigenetic Genomics organized by the National Chung Cheng University. In this conference, we learned a lot from the professions and ask them a lot of question regarding many fields, including oral health studies. We had received a lot of precious information from the conference, we also had some discusses about the Biosafety with those lecturers. They helped us to ensure that our product are provided with the safest and most reliable biological safety cabinet to protect us and environment.
2. Safety Training：
Knowing that biosafety has always been a discussed issue in the society, in order to let the community trust our research and at the same time, promote our products, all of us participated in the safety training held at the school in the middle of September.
3. MIT beyond food mini bootcamp：
Since one of our goals is to win the entrepreneurship special prize, e participated in the "MIT beyond food mini bootcamp" held in Taiwan during May, 2017. Through this two-day camp, we learned a lot from many entrepreneurs in this field and experienced operation as a businessman. This helped us have a clear and better idea for our entrepreneurship plan.
Engagement with local
1.Product Pamphlet：
In order to let the public understand our product in an easy way, we released pamphlets regarding it. In the pamphlet, we briefly introduced how our product can be used, the technology that is applied, let them know that Carindex is a GMP. Then we tell them about the kill switch in our gene circuit design; let them know the concept of biosafety, at the same time, promoting the safety of our product.
2. Taiwan Health Insurance System：
Taiwan's health insurance has always been a discussed issue of social policy.
When we conducted the PMR market survey, we found that the general public did not have a complete understanding of Taiwan health insurance.
What’s worse, this lead to the abuse of social welfare system, resulting in the waste of social resources and the burden of state finances.
Carindex are expected to be able to collaborate with the country's health insurance system, and hoping that through Carindex, users will be able to know and improve their oral condition.
Due to the nature of dental caries, they are easily ignored by patients since it won't make them feel hurt at the beginning.
Nonetheless, it would be too late to go to the dentist after it hurt. And the worst result might be tooth implantation, a painful and costly procedure to the patient, and to the government pocket as well.
In order to save the follow-up medical resources, Carindex can help user made early caries detection so that potential patient can go to the dentist early, cure dental caries before it became serious.
We wanted to let the public know about this fact and have a correct concept, so we made a series of detailed introduction of Taiwan’s health insurance system.
We explained the meaning of health insurance and its situation in Taiwan over the past few years.
Expectedly, this could bring the public a correct concept to maintain a sustainable development of national resources.
Education engagement
1. Synthetic Biology Camp:
We set up plans to promote synthetic biology right after the summer started. We went to the university and senior high school, introduced the iGEM and synthetic biology, our team project to the students. Hence, they can understand about the biotechnology as well as the various aspects of the impact from it. Many students had having concern about GMP and related issue. After knowing what we were doing, they asked us what if the genetic modified bacteria we made broke out the device, how are we going to deal with it. Then, we told them about the kill switch we designed, ease their concern; at the same time, bring the security concept of biotechnology to them. According to after-class feedback, before the class, most of the students had have the same concern about genetic modified product. However, after this class, most of them grasped a correct and better understanding of synthetic biology, genetic modification, and it security. This eased their concern and make them want to do the same thing in future.
Professional Visiting
1. Visiting the Profession:
We visited Professor Mrs. Xiu-mei Chen of Taiwan University of Science and Technology in June this year, and asked her about the technology of detecting the concentration of bacteria on the chip. Then we learned that the chip developed by Professor Chen Xiumei could detect the concentration of many bacteria as well as the one we wanted to detect Streptococcus mutans, S. mutans. Therefore, we asked Professor Chen Xiu Mei about the technology and gained lots of meaningful advices to improve Caridex.
2. Inviting Professions:
In order to make our products closer to the market, we invited the CEO of the Renew Biocare Corporation Mr. Ully to discuss the current development of the device. During discussion, we got to know about similar products on the market. We absorbed the relevant advantages of those products, and managed to apply onto our products, improve the whole project.
Besides, this company is one of the leading dental materials companies in the world, so we also asked them to help us check whether our product is safe and forward-looking
Additionally, we invited to the National Yunlin University of Science and Technology teacher Mr. Zhong-guang Chen to teach us how to establish a product business model design, to help us in the subsequent commercialization of the product.
3. Visiting Dentists
We visited multiple dentists in order to understand the actual needs of the patient and their actual oral condition. Furthermore, dentist had a better understanding about what users really concerned about, especially the safety of our product. Those information helped us get loser to meet the demands of the public.
Survey
1. Oral Condition Survey:
In order to understand the oral status of the community in Taiwan, whether they have right concept of oral health care, and their thought over our product, we conducted an online survey. The survey results are as below:
Total sample number is 678 people.
Summary
From the above information we can see although the average level of concern for oral health is high, and more than half of people go to dentist regularly, still, more than 80% of people have oral diseases, more than those don’t go to dentist regularly. So we think that preventive oral treatment is necessary in Taiwan. Carindex is here to solve the problem.
2. GMP Concern:
Genetic modified product, GMP, has always been an issue of concern to the public. In order to understand how many people are skeptical about GMP, we conducted a series of surveys, including online questionnaires, actual questionnaires, booth activities. We managed to build an equal platform for communication for the public, not only to tell them about what we know but also listen to their thought about GMP. Thus, after the survey, we held public booth, university camps, the senior high school students experiment activities.
Finally, we made a analysis how public think about GMP before and after these activities. The results are as follows:
Total sample is 156 people.
Summary
From the above information, it showed that we not only gave people a better understanding about GMP but also dispelled their misunderstandings of GMP after interacting with them.
3. Rick assessment:
Based on this result, most people are concerned about the eco-environment and human health. So, we confirm the biosafety of our product both on user and environment.
Q：What if the bacteria ( like E.coli) get out of the device ?
A：We have a system called kill switch which and it will be turned on if bacteria break out the device, the switch will be turned on, and the toxin protein, mazF, will express toxicity, then kill E.coli by cutting its mRNA.
Q：How will you deal with the consumptive materials includes three glide glass after using?
A：Although our consumables seem like it can just be used one time, we have a kill switch to let we recycle them after customers have used. We try to avoid of doing great harm to environment in this way.
