Team:UNBC-Canada/HP/Gold Integrated

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Outside the Lab

High-school Teachers

Through discussions with local high school teachers we learned that synthetic biology is not a deeply explored topic in upper division classrooms, and that biotechnology has been removed from the grade twelve biology curriculum. With this knowledge, and an alignment of concerns, we decided to implement their concerns for the betterment of primary and secondary education in Northern British Columbia. This quickly became a major focus of our initiative Bringing Synthetic Biology to the North.

With the above deficit in mind, we approached high-school education improvement in the following ways. First, we asked teachers what they wanted their students to learn from us then created specialized presentations each classroom we visited that integrated concepts specific the teachers’ wishes, as well as included introductory concepts on synthetic biology as well as the vast applications of biotechnology. Furthermore, we wanted to integrate synthetic biology more deeply into the classroom that could work alongside the current BC curriculum to fill the gap of the recently removed biotechnology unit. Therefore, we developed a lesson plan booklet consisting of introductory synthetic biology concepts and biotechnologies. Each lesson plan was written in a way both teachers and students could understand, with concept checks at the end to make sure students understood what they read.

Elementary School Teachers

All of our team members grew up in communities around Northern British Columbia. After much discussion among ourselves we agreed there was a collective lack of introduction to science during our elementary years, and a further lack of enthusiasm for the field. We also couldn’t remember a formal introduction to synthetic biology until our late years of high-school, or for some early years of university. Our thoughts and feelings aligned with conversations we had with current elementary school, primary, teachers, where they admitted that in their classrooms science wasn’t a focus nor did they feel they showed it the enthusiasm it deserved. As a team we brainstormed ways to address this problem. We came up with a few avenues. First, we designed a free Synthetic Biology Activity Book, that contains eight synthetic biology based, interactive activities for elementary students. This is for teachers to use to help introduce young students to synthetic biology. We contacted and distributed our activity book to various public and private elementary schools in Prince George and surrounding Northern communities. Our other approach was community-outreach based. We aligned ourselves with our local museum to be guest scientists for a few of their camps throughout the summer. We also involved ourselves in demonstrations and science fair activities for youth, see more on our silver medal HP page.

In the Lab

Our Regional Health Authority, Northern Health

At the beginning of the year, during the process of picking our project, we had multiple conversations with the CEO of Spirit of the North Healthcare Foundation (works in cooperation with the Northern Health Authority, the regional health authority for Northern British Columbia) as well as with other Northern Health Professionals (NHP). Through these discussions we learned that the predominate mode of MRSA transmission in healthcare facilities is from one (infected or colonized) patient to another through contaminated hands of healthcare providers. They indicated that those at greatest risk of infection are the elderly, those with chronic diseases and/or those undergoing invasive procedures. We also learned that the current treatment for those infected with MRSA is vancomycin, an intravenous antibiotic that has been compared in harshness to chemotherapy. NHP’s also discussed concern in their daily practice about the spread and proliferation of MRSA.

Furthermore, Northern Health provided statistics for us that indicated that, in comparison to the Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance Public Health Agency of Canada 2015 infection rates of 0.29 MRSA cases per 1000 pt. days compared to Northern Health infection rates, which were higher at 0.37 per 1000 pt. days in 2015 -2016.

The combination of concerning statistics, as well as with the information provided to use from NHP’s demonstrated to our team the burden MRSA on Northern communities. These conversations and burden ultimately became the factors propelling our project choice.

Medical Lab Technicians at Canada Day

We had the opportunity to speak with a few laboratory technicians during our time at a local park for Canada day. This group of three technicians were extremely interested in our project. At the time, we had two branches planned for our project, first was to use hfq protein to bind our constructed sRNA’s to S. Epidimidis, and second was to develop a novel detection method for MRSA. Through our discussions with these lab technicians we learned that there is new detection method just about to break the market. We then asked them if they thought proceeding with our detection method would be worthwhile, to which they replied no. With this new information, we looked further into current and projected methods and found consistency in what the lab technicians informed us of. Therefore, we decided not to pursue this arm of our project and direct our focus on Hfq and gene silencing.

Dr. Andrea Gorrell

After conceptualizing our RNA based system, we had multiple conversations with Dr. Gorrell about how to execute our project. Being the protein expert at UNBC, she suggested that we first attempt to solve the ambiguity surrounding Staphylococcus Hfq; namely, whether or not it is necessary in RNA hybridization. This gave us the plan to express and purify Hfq, and subsequently test the binding affinity of Hfq to RNA using fluorescence polarization.

Dr. Keith Egger

When we began our project design, we originally thought of engineering E. coli to carry conjugative F-factor plasmids with our genes of interest and co-culturing these E. coli with Staphylococcus aureus to allow for plasmid transfer between bacteria. Our rationale for this was "using the same way resistance is spread to ultimately destroy resistance". We then approached Dr. Keith Egger, a microbiology expert at UNBC, to inquire if this would be possible. Dr. Egger provided us a vast amount of information pertaining to the issues around the concept. Although it sounds great in theory, we abandoned the idea and, under his recommendation, turned our focus to phage delivery of sRNA as a future avenue for our project.

Safety First - Important Considerations

Lydia Troc

We approached the biosafety officer at UNBC, Lydia Troc, for advice and guidance on dealing with MRSA, a level 2 pathogen. Through our discussions with Lydia, we changed the path of our project in the following ways. First, we decided to utilize Staphylococcus epidermidis, a level one bacteria that is a very close relative to S. aureus, rather than MRSA itself (level two), in order to test our system before proceeding with the more pathogenic, expensive MRSA. Even though we decided to use S. epidermidis, Lydia advised that we still apply for safety approval to use MRSA in the Level Two facility at UNBC. Therefore, we did apply and gain approval to work with MRSA, but will only do so if our system works in S. epidermidis. Furthermore, Lydia helped to ensure we were knowledgeable on stringent safety procedures while we worked in the lab.

Dr. Sarah Gray

We approached Dr. Sarah Gray and her lab for safety and lab etiquette advice, as the lab bench we used was adjacent to theirs. As we spent our time working in a shared lab space we used Dr. Gray’s expertise to translate proper lab etiquette to our team. This information helped us work safely and efficiently in the lab, especially for the team members whom were not familiar with research lab safety.