Team:CIEI-BJ/HP/Silver
In the first week, several potential projects for iGEM were discussed and researched thoroughly by our team, ranging from hemoglobin, telomere to bionic technology and acceleration of banana’s ripening. But concerning the practicality and safety of our project, we ultimately decided to conduct a research on mosquito repellents. Before we started, it was essential for us to be acquainted with ecophysiology of mosquitoes and public expectations of current mosquito repellents, so we distributed a questionnaire both online and offline. Moreover, we also went to the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention and visited several experts there to know about the latest development on repelling mosquitoes.
In order to know the expectations of current mosquito repellent products in the market, we designed a questionnaire, and put it online and offline. Our questionnaire covered task-oriented questions from the often-used mosquito treatment methods, the subjective evaluation of the effectiveness, the concern about toxic substances, to the acceptance level of biosynthesized products. More aspects were considered through the design of our questionnaire. A questionnaire must cooperate with people. In the real-life scenario, we shortened the question down to 10 to ensure the effectiveness of the research. In China and oversea*, 807* peoples have answered the questionnaire. This questionnaire served as a lighthouse, providing information to potentially improve our overall as well as guiding us to shape our project well. The results showed that most of the people are annoyed with the disgusting mosquitoes. From people’s feedback of our questionnaire, we also knew that non-toxin and high effectiveness are considered as the most significant features of mosquito repellents by the public.
In order to get some professional knowledge about taxonomy and ecophysiology of mosquitoes, the disease they transfers, and the specialized method people use to prevent mosquito-caused diseases, we went to the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention and consulted with the experts on July the 28th. The staff showed us the specimens of various kinds of mosquitoes and the mosquito capturing devices. From the conversation, we realized that the mainstream way of mosquito treatment is still toxic chemical or low dose of pesticides. The disadvantage is quite obvious: despite the mosquitoes could grow endurance through time, the chemicals would cause a devastation of the ecosystem while killing other species other than mosquito. Furthermore, the substances get metabolized in human body in most of the cases, especially for young children and the pregnant women, the harm of toxic like DEET could increase exponentially due to their special body condition. What’s more, there are several kinds of diseases spread by the mosquitoes, such as Malaria, Zika Virus and Yellow Fever. This experience gave us at a different horizon to look at our problem. Other than information that are directly related to our product, we learnt much about the side knowledge about mosquitoes. To prevent the fatal mosquito-borne diseases from people’s life and keep people healthy, it is really important to produce a kind of mosquito repellent which is toxic free and effective.
Concluding from the questionnaire and our field trip to CDC, we knew that it is critical for a successful mosquito repellents to be nontoxic and effective. After elaborated research, we decided to design a genetic circuit to produce citronellol, which has totally zero toxin and can repel mosquito effectively.
We, CIEI-BJ, together with our sister team CIEI-China, set up CGEM Summit and invited another iGEM teams (HFLS-H2Z-HangZhou,RDFZ-China, BIT-China), predecessors iGEMers from Qinghua university , and four professors to our forum, aiming to share our research.
In the beginning, the four iGEM team shared their own research one by one and elaborated their idea and experiments. Then our instructor Mrs. Wang expressed her congratulations and expectations to our new generation who are highly possible to make great contributions to synthetic biology in the future. After this, Professor Chengqi from HangZhou ZC Bio-Sci/Tech Co. LTD shared his own experience when doing research as a biosynthesis scientist. In addition, Professor Lichun from Beijing Institute of Technology made a speech explaining the great significance to study synthetic biology and use it to solve global problems like famine. Moreover, Yinjin, one of the founders of Bluepha, shared his own experience as an iGEM team member with us. At last, Professor Zhang Hongxiang from Chinese Society of Biotechnology provided us with some suggestions on research and made a speech at the closing ceremony.
In this summit, we shared our research with each other and developed a further understanding of the great importance and multiple applications of synthetic biology. Thanks to iGEM, we became close friends with each other and we would work together to improve the world with biosynthesis technology!
Our team made several public speeches about our project in schools and at the corner of Xidan road in Beijing. Our main goal was to let the public know about synthetic biology and its various applications which could improve our living standards and environments. We also hoped to provide an idea, which was to use new technology to improve the world we are living in, to the public and let them pay more attention to the relationship between diseases from mosquitoes and public health. Moreover, we were sincerely expecting more people to join us so we could work together to make the world a better place with biosynthesis technology.
◆Everyone has to wear lab coat, rubber gloves, goggles, surgery mask when carrying out experiments.
◆Before every experiment, our teachers have informed us about the procedure and details of every step to ensure everybody is prepared for the experiment.
◆Everybody has to wash their hands completely before and after each experiment. In addition, everyone should use 70% alcohol to sterilize hands before entering every laminar flow.
◆Ensuring a sterile environment for experiments: keep Eppendorf tubes and pipettes free from unneeded bacteria or impurity.
◆Food and beverages are not allowed in labs.
◆Power off the equipment after the experiment, avoid fire.
◆Emergency equipment is well prepared and all of us understand clearly how to use them when we need.
◆Solid wastes should be put in solid waste cylinder, liquid wastes should be put in liquid waste cylinder.
◆E.coli used in our experiments is harmless to human body.
