We would like to thank our team members for their efforts and contributions to our project, and the companies and individuals who have provided our team with generous help over the summer.

Team training and Project start

iGEM is a comprehensive competition with core of synthetic biology involving many subjects, such as computer science, mathematics and so on, so this year we enrolled new members in all majors of our university. Before this, we gave a lecture about iGEM, explaining what you need to do after joining the team, and what you can get out of it. After the written test and interview, the selected people entered one or more different groups according to their wishes. For example, this year we divided our team into four groups: the experimental group, model group, wiki group and HP group. Later, team leaders provided a list of books including synthetic biology, biological basic experiment, modeling, web making and other aspects. In addition to reading books, we needed to do some research. The team leaders assigned tasks to everyone in order to learn about the projects of the previous excellent iGEM teams. At the same time, the members of the experimental group were required to participate in weekly group meetings and the training of biological laboratory technique. The remaining groups attended meetings at regular intervals to learn about the project's progress and report their work. During the meeting, we discussed academic articles and brainstormed. What’s more, PIs and Instructors taught the knowledge of synthetic biology. After a while, we determined the direction of this year's project. When the summer vacation came, we began to experiment.

Attribution of team members

Team Leaders

Our team came into existence under the leadership of Chushu Zhu and Chuanyang Liu in December 2016. They observed our characteristics carefully and exerted our greatest potential. Our team worked efficiently due to their outstanding leadership.

Experiment

Chushu Zhu, Qijie Xu, Chuanyang Liu and Changsong Gao completed most of the experiments. Chushu Zhu and Qijie Xu were in charge of the miRNA locker assembly and parts contruction, including PCR, Agarose Gel Electrophoresis, double digestion, Gel Purification, ligation, mini-prep, transformation and so on. Chuanyang Liu and Changsong Gao were in charge of functional tests of miRNA locker, including cell lines culture, transfection, proteins detection, cell migration assay, chip assay and proliferation assay.

InterLab

Yilin Lei and Min Xiao transformed the plasmids into Escherichia coli DH5α and picked colonies. Herui Zhang and Fuhua Xie were responsible for measuring OD₆₀₀ Reference Point.

Yilin Lei and Shan Huang were responsible for the measurements of Fluorescein Standard Curve, OD₆₀₀ and Fluorescence.

Wiki

Qidi Yi and Churan Wen worked on the visual appearance of it. Qidi Yin was responsible for building the web. Churan Wen drew the pictures on the front page.

Modeling

Junling Yang and Chuanyang Liu were in charge of the modeling.

Team culture

Ziyi Qiao was engaged in designing the poster for the publicity of our project. Xiaoju Chang and Churan Wen designed our team T-shirt. Churan Wen and Min Xiao painted the logo of our team.

Presentation

Chushu Zhu, Chuanyang Liu, Xiaoju Chang and Herui Zhang will give the presentations during the competition, they have rehearsed several times and all of us gathered and discussed to improve it.

Human practice

Xiaoju Chang were in charge of HP. Xiaoju Chang introduced basic knowledge of microRNA to the students in The First High School of Changsha and Lijiao He drew some watercolors about microRNA for students. Furthermore, Xiaoju Chang published an article about miRNA in the WeChat public media and investigated the public’s understanding of miRNA. Besides, Churan Wen went to the Southern Medical University to interview Dr. LiLing about application and prospect of miRNA inhibitors. At the same time, Yilin Lei went to Nanchang University to interview teaching assistant Shuo Tu to do same job. Haotian Shi investigated the cost and price of other miRNA inhibitors on the market. Xiaoju Chang, Lijiao He and Junling Yang went to GENETALKS company to get some advice from CTO. Chushu Zhu, Chuanyang Liu, Xiaoju Chang, Shan Huang, Lijiao He, Junlingyang and Qijie Xu had an online communication with the iGEM team of Lanzhou University.

Acknowledgments

General Support

The project was supported by the Department of Chemistry and Biology of College of Science, National University of Defense Technology.

Project support and advice

This project was come up with due to a brainstorming and then we discussed the details about it in a group. We designed the experiments under the help of our primary PI Prof. Lingyun Zhu. Besides, Dr. Lvyun Zhu and Dr. Xiaomin Wu helped us to be familiar with the experimental operations. Our primary PI Prof. Lingyun Zhu also provided us a dedicated laboratory and equipments. Our instructor Mr. Xinyuan Qiu offered us the guidelines about conventional experimental techniques and great advises to ensure the smooth development of our project, and helped us to contact other colleges and institutes for collaboration. Besides, Prof. Dongyi Zhang offered us some important suggestions about the project.

Fundraising help and advice

We got experimental funding support from our PIs Prof. Lingyun Zhu and Dr. Lvyun Zhu and travel funding support from College of Science of NUDT. Our advisor Sisi Xie was in charge of expenses management.

Lab support

Department of Chemistry and Biology of College of Science provided a biology experimental platform for us.

Project adviser support

Our advisor Long Liu provided us solutions when we face difficulties in the process of proceeding the project.

Difficult technique support

Our lab was newly established and is short of the equipment which is able to do the nucleotide sequence screening. In light of this, we bought the sequencing service from Invitrogen^TM . Our devices and systems of parts was all verified there. Most of our regents such as enzyme were bought from TaKaRa^TM and some other bio-tech companies. Genscript helped to forward our part samples shipments to iGEM HQ.

Wiki support

Our advisor Qijun Liu provided us solutions when we face difficulties in the process of wiki production.

Human Practices support

Dr. Ling Li from the Southern Medical University, teaching assistant Shuo Tu from Nanchang University were very kindly to answer our question about our project.Besides, the CTO of GENETALKS company, Zhuo Song, also helped us a lot.

Team:NUDT CHINA/Attributions

Attributions