Team:Nanjing-China/HP/Gold Integrated

Team:Nanjing-China - 2017.igem.org

On September 27, three members of team Nanjing-China went to interview professor Zhang yan in School of chemistry and chemical engineering in Nanjing University , who focus on the design and construction of molecular probes for molecular imaging.

 

The students who were responsible for the formaldehyde probe experiment first expressed the confusion about the linear relationship between the fluorescence intensity and the concentration of formaldehyde aqueous solution. Prof Zhang mentioned the measurement of  target protein and formaldehyde molecules binding constants, and reminded us to make it clear the relationship between extracellular formaldehyde concentration and intercellular formaldehyde concentration , so as to know how much the effective combination of quantitative detection of formaldehyde molecule and protein.

 

Prof Zhang noted that the experimental environment was our solution, but our goal was to detect gas content in the air, so she reminded us thinking how to achieve gas enrichment to the solution. She said that chemical reactions were often used to convert the detected substance into another one, but it was not possible for us to specifically target formaldehyde, hydrogen sulfide, and hydrogen. She then talked about another chemical method using a model substrate so that in the bacterial culture environment with formaldehyde, we could achieve high concentration of formaldehyde in the cell microenvironment.

Prof Zhang encouraged us not to focus too much on the whole cell probe, but to think the concept of smart cell. She believed that even at this stage of the physical and chemical probe occupying a strong market, we could still prove that the whole cell sensing system was extremely advantageous.

 

Next, we consulted Prof Zhang for the safety of experimental operations. She reminded us that the operation must be completed in the volatile solution in the fume hood; for the organic solution of different concentration, we had to concern about cell tolerance and find the maximum operating concentration from database to protect the safety of personnel.

 

Prof Zhang said we had to know if the target gas metabolism pathway of the cell itself interferes with our experiments. She agreed that hydrogen sulfide and formaldehyde were  important signaling molecules in organisms. If the target gas in cells is of a high affinity, it is bound to have a certain impact on the results of our experiment.

 

Finally, we compared the similarities and differences of small chemical molecules in traditional probe and Prof Zhang recognized the innovations and challenges of our project and wished the experiments to achieve good results.

Greatly inspired from our trip to AddiseO and our interview with professor Yan Zhang, we have designed and made a little film about the bio-safety measures in our lab.
Besides bacteria, fluorescent dyes and UV light, we deal with formaldehyde and hydrogen every day, which poses great threat to our safety. Therefore, it is of great importance to conduct all the experiments under certain bio-safety norms which cater our specific needs.
There are altogether four parts in our film, including explanations of operations in the super clean bench, in the fume chamber (formaldehyde-related), in the gas chamber(hydrogen-related) as well as under the UV light.
In this film, we try to not only promote the bio-safety measures in our lab but also encourage more teams to engage in this huge cause and find better solutions.