iGem CGU_Taiwan 2017 - Collaborations

Integrated human practice

Connect With Industry_ Visiting Cheng Loong Paper Company

Cheng Loong Paper Company is one of the biggest paper company in Taiwan, so we contacted them and hoped to understand how our design can be applied in paper industry. During the visit, we had clarified three things_ First, the chemical pollution used to deink cause water pollution, and the company wanted to remove the use of chemicals due to the high cost of sewage treatment. Second, the strength of fiber is according to the length of it, therefore, reduce the opportunity of the contact between fibers and deinking agents preserve strength. Third, the cost of white paper produced by our device is higher than current method.

According to our discoveries, Cheng Loong suggested us to focus on preserving fibers. And due to low light penetration in paper pulp, we decided to deink paper before cutting it into paper pulp. Thus, we constructed a new deinking process which can specifically deink and hoped to preserver more fibers. Through the visiting, we understood the need and lack of factories, and tried to adjust our design to make it more practical for industry.

Contact 2012 TU Munich iGEM team for biobricks improvement

In the last design of our project, we contacted 2012 TU Munich to learn about their red light induced system biobricks. Through meetings, we gradually understand their original design. We appreciate 2012 TU Munich for giving us many advices of how we improve the biobricks. Lastly, we optimize the protein codon and reverse the direction of protein expression.

Study Enzyme Deinking From Dr. Su, Yu-Chang

To study enzyme deinking method, we have visited Dr. Su, Yu-Chang, an expert of dendrochemistry in National Chung Hsing University, Taiwan. Dr. Su had advised us several kinds of enzymes which are able to degrade cellulose and hemicellulose, and shared the experimental conditions that had been applied on enzymes in his research with us, which became a great help for the construction of our process. During the interview, we also had a tour to Dr. Su’s laboratory which equipped with small scale paper making machines. Later we established our own paper making process according to the learning from Dr. Su.

Study The Yeast Two-Hybrid System From Dr. Chang, Chuang-Rung

After knowing some candidate enzymes for deinking process, we had done molecular docking simulation to figure out which enzymes have best affinity with our substrate cellulose. Through the ranking of affinity, we had chosen three kinds of enzymes _ Glucanase, Xylanase and Lipase to deink paper, and planned to use Saccharomyces cerevisiae as our engineered host. For the purpose of preserving most fibers, we came to an idea of ‘’light stimulation’’, using light to control the secretion of enzymes. To know more about the light regulatory system in yeast, we had visited Dr. Chang, Chung-Rung in National Tsing Hua University. Dr. Chang is an expert in Epigenetics and Yeast Genetics, and he not only analyzed the advantage and disadvantage of using yeast as our host, but also shared how yeast two-hybrid system works. Dr. Chang’s precious advice had great effect on the design of our photo-induced system.

Participating in 2017 iGEM Asia Conference

In Aug 2017, we had participated in iGEM Asia Conference and presented our project to teams from Taiwan, China and Japan. Through this opportunity, we received many useful feedbacks and comments, which made us improve the shortcomings and lack in our project. We appreciate for these precious advices. And what’s also precious for us is that we met TAS_Taipei in this conference, and further look for an opportunity to collaborate with each other. Through using the biofilm technique from TAS, we got the chance to improve one flaw_ the loss of fiber caused by floatation in paper remaking process. This collaboration increase the integrity of our project, and make it more acceptable by industry.

Public Education and Impact

We designed a series of activities to educate our potential customers from different ages to be environmental aware. People used to use white and cheap paper, however, producing this type of recycled paper leads to water pollution and great loss of fiber. Therefore, in every activity, we told people the principle of our INKOFF project and how it became different from traditional paper remaking process. In this way, people understand how enzymatic deinking affect the earth and their lives, thus they are willing to accept higher price of our INKOFF paper. When doing such study, not only we are educating people, but also people are giving us many advices from their views. For example, a lady told us she think it’s not convenient to brush yeast on the paper. So we change the way we implement our engineered yeast, we spray it instead of brush it on. In our project, we try hard to bring new enzyme deinking concept to people; however, we surprisingly gained a lot from the public. Through this process, we are closer to people’s needs and thoughts. And we believe we are able to provide better design via interacting with the public.