Team:NJU-China/HP/Gold Integrated
Activities
I
In the very beginning just after coming up with the idea of losing weight, we tried to figure out people’s attitudes towards being fat. Thanks to the software designed by
SYSU-Software, we successfully recorded the emojis netizens are using when they talk about body weight, obesity or slimming on microblog through the technique of web crawling. By the end of February, a great amount of information had been accurately recorded and specifically analyzed. We found that people tended to use negative emojis when mentioning about their growing weight, while positive emojis when expressing the wishes of regaining slimness. By investigating people’s attitudes in this way, we felt the strong urge and necessity to help people with weight control, and then came our complete project.
SYSU-Software, we successfully recorded the emojis netizens are using when they talk about body weight, obesity or slimming on microblog through the technique of web crawling. By the end of February, a great amount of information had been accurately recorded and specifically analyzed. We found that people tended to use negative emojis when mentioning about their growing weight, while positive emojis when expressing the wishes of regaining slimness. By investigating people’s attitudes in this way, we felt the strong urge and necessity to help people with weight control, and then came our complete project.
Figure 1 emojis people use when mentioning of being fat
The top 3 emojis people use are tears, heart and smile; and the frequency of use is 17%, 10% and 7%. Other emojis seem much less popular than them.
Since the emoji “smile” often means that I am not pleasant with what happened (coomon in Chinese netizens’ usage habits), we can infer that two of the top 3 emoji represent sad and unhappy moods towards increased weight, which indicates the emotional keynote.
Moreover, we classified these emojis according to the feelings they represent:
Since the emoji “smile” often means that I am not pleasant with what happened (coomon in Chinese netizens’ usage habits), we can infer that two of the top 3 emoji represent sad and unhappy moods towards increased weight, which indicates the emotional keynote.
Moreover, we classified these emojis according to the feelings they represent:
Figure 2 feelings of people when mentioning of being fat
Compared to the positive emotions, the negative emotions make up 53% and are more diverse. Overall, the emotions netizens expressed towards being fat reveal that they are eager to get rid of obesity and become slim. However, the actual circumstances they face in the process of losing weight somehow make them hold negative emotions.
II
To better understand people’s expectation of weight-losing therapies, we carried out a questionnaire survey among ordinary people. According to the feedback, 60.85% of our respondents had trouble with controlling weight and longed for slimming down, implying that our project did cater to the need of a large number of people. Moreover, despite the difficulty of persisting, going on a diet and taking exercise were still the best choices to most people, which revealed that there is still plenty room for the improvement of obesity treatments in a long run.
During this research, 258 respondents from different genders and ages received our investigation.
During this research, 258 respondents from different genders and ages received our investigation.
Figure 3 proportions of female (orange) and male (blue)
Figure 4 proportions of different ages
We collected their opinion about obesity and different methods of losing weight, in order to find out a more specific direction of our project.
Figure 5 viewpoints of losing weight on diet (blue: effective; orange: not effective; pink: difficult to hold on; green: difficult to keep the weight off)
Figure 6 viewpoints of losing weight by exercise (blue: effective; orange: not effective; pink: difficult to hold on; green: difficult to keep the weight down)
Figure 7 viewpoints of losing weight by using weight-reducing aid (blue: effective; orange: not effective; pink: difficult to hold on; green: difficult to keep the weight off)
Figure 8 viewpoints of losing weight by bariatric surgery (blue: effective; orange: not effective; pink: difficult to hold on; green: difficult to keep the weight off; darker blue: do not know)
The reflection indicates that these prevalent methods to lose weight all have different kinds of defects in some way. So it is high time that we should invent a new therapy which overcome most of these problems in our research.
Figure 9 reasons why people choose not to use weight-reducing aid (orange: side-effect; pink: price; blue: effect; green: not know much; darker blue: others)
Fig 9 shows that side-effect is the most concerned problem people may worry about when using medicines like weight-losing aid. So our primary work is now clear.
III
Hoping to know more about the prospect of our project, we paid a visit to Nanjing Military General Hospital, a grade III, class-A hospital famous for its service in Nanjing.
In order to further shape our project direction, we interviewed some doctors from the department of endocrinology in Nanjing General Hospital, and obtained their professional opinions on the current situation of obesity. As is known to all, the inventions of most anti-obesity drugs on the market focus mainly on the medicine efficacy and the technology breakthrough, however the acceptance of patients and the side effects are under less consideration. Suggestions from the doctors shed light on the further improvement of our project, which also reminded us of the safety issues that should be well concerned and dealt with when our synthetic biotechnologies encounters clinical medicines inevitably in the near future.
In order to further shape our project direction, we interviewed some doctors from the department of endocrinology in Nanjing General Hospital, and obtained their professional opinions on the current situation of obesity. As is known to all, the inventions of most anti-obesity drugs on the market focus mainly on the medicine efficacy and the technology breakthrough, however the acceptance of patients and the side effects are under less consideration. Suggestions from the doctors shed light on the further improvement of our project, which also reminded us of the safety issues that should be well concerned and dealt with when our synthetic biotechnologies encounters clinical medicines inevitably in the near future.
lecture our project to doctors
Hazards of Obesity
    Obesity is associated with increased risks of many diseases ,like diabetes mellitus, cardiovascular and heart diseases, and even cancer. The chances of obesity people to have hypertension is 2 to 6 times higher than those of normal weight. Apart from this, the doctors also pointed out that obesity can cause many mental illnesses. Obese people, especially young women, often feel ashamed to show themselves in public; and such lack of confidence may eventually make them miss out opportunities.
Obesity Treatment
Drug therapy, healthy lifestyle like diet as well as physical exercise are preferentially adopted when patients receive a treatment, mostly because of the better feasibility and the less side effects. However, most of them feel hard to insist and have problems of rebounding, etc.
Surgery, such as liposuction and sleeve gastrectomy, compared to other obesity treatments, are used in certain situations when patients are in an urgent need to lose weight. Nevertheless, the treatment cost is expensive and the side effects are inevitable.
Surgery, such as liposuction and sleeve gastrectomy, compared to other obesity treatments, are used in certain situations when patients are in an urgent need to lose weight. Nevertheless, the treatment cost is expensive and the side effects are inevitable.
listen to doctors' advise
Molecular Targeting Therapy
Concerns
Doctor Qiu affirmed us for the creativity and novelty of our project, but she also put forward some concerns. First of all, there may be unknown risks in our project, since we use siRNA drugs to knock down the expression of BCL2, which is a key gene in cell apoptosis. Certainly it will lead to a chain reaction and induce apoptosis, but what is the fate of adipocytes debris? When it comes to nucleic acid drugs, extra gene expression must be valued. Moreover, the rare application of targeted drug in treating obesity may result in some distrust of our patients. Doctor Qiu joked that if she was fat, even if our project had gorgeous results on mice, she was unwilling to try such a new drug. Because unlike cancer, obesity is not that mortal and many therapy options are available, it is less prone for people to risk their lives using unknown drugs just to become slim. Furthermore, the sustainability of our medicine efficacy should also be taken into consideration, given that the ideal frequency of intravenous injection is twice a month for patients. It is obvious that too short medicine efficacy sustainability compelled with everyday shot is inadvisable. Doctor Qiu argued that siRNA drugs would unavoidably be degraded in patients body so the long-term drug efficacy is definitely where our future efforts should lie.Reflection
Targeted ablation of adipose tissue blazes a new path for obesity therapy, but the road is sown with thorns. We need to conduct vigorous monitoring at metabolic level after the mice are injected with our drug, and drug efficiency should be evaluated in the long run. If this drug is to be put into application in the future, safety assessments should be strictly executed. Our aim is not only to remove the fat issues, but also assure other tissues remain intact.IV
In May 2017, we participated in an academic debate competition held in China Pharmaceutical University, which was about the better use of biotherapeutics. And later in August, some members of our team attended the Conference of China iGEMer Community (CCiC-2017) held in Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University. During this meeting, we shared the ideas and experience of our project with other iGEM teams all over China together, learning useful suggestions from each other.
V
In May 2017, we participated in an academic debate competition held in China Pharmaceutical University, which was about the better use of biotherapeutics. And later in August, some members of our team attended the Conference of China iGEMer Community (CCiC-2017) held in Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University. During this meeting, we shared the ideas and experience of our project with other iGEM teams all over China together, learning useful suggestions from each other.
our teammate is reporting our work
our advisor is illustrating our project
VI
Two months ago, a patient who had suffered from obesity type II diabetes for many years accepted our interview in Nanjing Military General Hospital, helping us to further understand the real situations obesity patients were confronted with.
When talking about the best method of losing weight, the patient gave most credit to the treatment of useful medicine, compared to other ways like diet or exercise. Our interviewee believed it was subcutaneous drugs that helped him reduce about 20 kilograms while battling against Type Ⅱ diabetes in the past few years. And as for the suitable methods of medicine intake, he thought it doesn't matter whether the drugs are oral or injected, valuing medicine efficacy more than other aspects.
When talking about the best method of losing weight, the patient gave most credit to the treatment of useful medicine, compared to other ways like diet or exercise. Our interviewee believed it was subcutaneous drugs that helped him reduce about 20 kilograms while battling against Type Ⅱ diabetes in the past few years. And as for the suitable methods of medicine intake, he thought it doesn't matter whether the drugs are oral or injected, valuing medicine efficacy more than other aspects.
Our members giving presentation in CCiC in FAFU.
