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Integrated Human Practice

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This year the integrated human practice work of BNU-China 2017 iGEM team concentrated on the exploring the feasibility, safety, and potentials of the improved version of yeast surface display system. We contacted experts and technicians to discuss our design and experiment plan with them. Besides, we participated in a variety of related academic conferences to exchange ideas and gather others’ perspectives on our project. Results of these work have been proven helpful to the adjustment of the schematic design and the detailed experiment procedure. In addition, to lay down the ground work for future development, we’ve performed investigation on safety issue regarding possible applications.

Interview:

Interview with Prof. Meng Wenxiang at Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology

After the literature research phase, we’ve found that microtubule is a fibrous polymer which can self-assemble in vitro under suitable conditions. Its subunits are highly adaptable. Furthermore, it can interact with a series of valuable small molecules as a whole. Lastly, there are various microtubule stabilizing drugs which would help to maintain the integrity of the assembled structure. All the above features have made it suitable for the material of our extracellular enzyme loading scaffold. In order to have more insights on our ideas, we scheduled an interview with professor Meng Wenxiang, an expert on microtubule, before we initiated our experiments.

With Prof. Meng Wenxiang at Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology

To our disappointment, professor Meng directly pointed out a fundamental flaw in our plan, which was the stability of microtubule could not meet the ideal level of the extracellular scaffold. According to his research, microtubule could not exist in vitro for more than a week even with the help of microtubule-stabilizing drugs, such as taxol® and its analogues. This defect of microtubule invalidated its potential as the material for the extracellular scaffold, but it did inspire us to look for a similar but more stable material. Later, we searched for materials that met these requirements. At last, we found flagellar filament to be the stable self-assembled biopolymer we wanted. Thanks to professor Meng’s advice, we eliminated one possible systematical cause for failure in advance.

Interview with Prof. Zhang Linqi and Her PhD. Students at Tsinghua University

Since we were new to this technique, and it’s imperative for us to broaden the horizon of our perception on this technique by all means possible. Hence, we went to Tsinghua University to consult professor Zhang Linqi and her PhD. students, who had tons of experiences and knowledge base on this technique.

With PhD. Zhou Panpan at Qinghua University

After our presentation, we received positive feedbacks for professor Zhang and doctor Zhou Panpan. They both considered our project to be promising and would severely increase the capacity of the original system. As for the problems we had encountered in the wet lab, they kindly offered us with practical solutions and helpful advices drawn from their first-hand experience, which significantly elevated the efficiency of our experiment process.

Interview with Director of Research, Prof. XXX, of Beijing Smistyle Sci. & Tech. Development Co., LTD.

According to our research findings, Xynase, an enzyme from cellulase enzyme system, had been applied to substitute the variable D2 domain of flagellin FliC, and the adapted falgellins were successfully assembled into a functioning nano enzyme stick. Then it occurred to us to use the cellulose system as the prototype to test if our approach can increase the catalytic efficiency. To better define the contrast group for the comparison and to better portrait the actual using condition, we contacted Beijing Smistyle Sci. & Tech. Development Co., LTD, whose products covered all three enzymes in this system. We made an appointment with Doc. Zhao, the director of research of Smistyle.

With director of research at Beijing Smistyle Sci. & Tech. Development Co., LTD

Doc. Zhao listened to our power-point presentation attentively, and expressed her sincere appreciation for our project. Nevertheless, she indicated that the application of our improved system on cellulase enzyme system was not well-suited. The cost of manufacture of these enzymes had already been optimized to be very low, which made it economically unwise to go through sophisticated recycle procedure for repeated use instead of simply producing a large quantity of them and as disposable additions.

At the end of the interview, Doc. Zhao shared her thoughts on the suitable application for our system. Obviously, our target enzyme should be the ones that are hard to produce but highly valuable. This would make the choice of recycle with our system preferable than producing in quantity with a high cost. With these guidelines, we selected PETase (Part:BBa_K1921003加超链接), which can hydrolyze PET in low temperature.

Conference:

CCiC:

During Aug. 25 - 28, 2017, CCiC conference was organized and held by Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University in Fuzhou, China. Our team, BNU-China, had the chance to attend the event. During the conference, we introduced our project to the other xx teams.

Photo of all participants at CciC

Our iGEMer explaining our project to other iGEMers

Our iGEMer explaining our project to other iGEMers

In the conference, each team conducted in-depth communication and exchanged ideas on their own projects. The inspiring spark collided by thoughts and innovation among the teams made the attendees reap substantial benefits. After careful preparation, we dissected our project into following parts, background, project, design, modeling and human practice. Meantime, we also held open attitude towards the sincere suggestions and comments from other teams.

In the conference, not only did we strengthen the relationship with FAFU-CHINA, but we established new bonds with other teams as well. And the communication and mutual learning among the teams provided us with the opportunity to broaden our horizon and help us acquaint more people with our project.

Other Conferences:

Other than the CCiC conferences, we’ve also participated in some other academic events, including 2017 National Academic Conference for Cell Biology(Chinese Society For Cell Biology, CSCB), 2017 Synthetic Biology Summer Camp(Center for Synthetic Biology Engineering Research, CSynBER), xxx(国科大), meet-up with Team Tsinghua and Team Tsinghua-A .We took every chance to have our project scrutinized by experts, researchers, and other iGEMers. At the same time, we’ve deepened our understandings on synthetic biology and areas related to our project.

Our iGEMer at 2017 Synthetic Biology Summer Camp:Center for Synthetic Biology Engineering Research, CSynBER

Our iGEMer at 2017 National Academic Conference for Cell Biology:Chinese Society For Cell Biology, CSCB

Meet-up with Team Tsinghua & Team Tsinghua-A

Investigation:

During the CCiC presentation, we were inspired by the wide-ranging examination on biosafety issue team Peking presented. Considering the possible application of our system, we’ve decided to conduct an investigation on the perception of average customers held towards the biosafety issues on daily-life-related enzyme containing products.

Other Conferences:

We independently designed an online questionnaire, collected 451 responses and analyzed the data using SOJUMP. The analysis is as follows.

Demographic Variables：

1. Gender and Age █████████████████████████这里想要加粗显示███████████████████████

The male-female ratio of respondents was not the ideal 1:1. This result might be caused by the imbalanced gender composition of our school, but we don’t think this imbalance have a major impact on the overall outcomes. Other than that, this is a interesting character of our school. The respondents were of all ages, whereas the majority population (78%) were young people between 18 to 29 years old.

Gender and age composition

2. Occupation █████████████████████████这里想要加粗显示███████████████████████

The respondents were from all sorts of fields with a majority make-up of students (84%), owing to our educational surroundings.

Ocupation

3. Education Qualification █████████████████████████这里想要加粗显示███████████████████████

In the sample population, the educational qualification of majority was undergraduate degree or above, accounting for 77.17% of all respondents.

Education qualification

General Awareness：

Most of the respondents had heard of biological enzyme preparation. 23% had a certain understanding of the it. Only 18% had no idea of this concept.

General awareness

Application Fields:

Almost all of the respondents knew that there ewre enzymes in food and medicine. In addition, quite a few people knew the enzymes could be used in environmental protection due to the risen attention paid to this area.

Application fields known by the participants

Advantages:

In most people's opinion, the advantages of biological enzymes were the high efficiency of the production process and the high purity of the product.

Advantages of biological enzyme preparation known by the participants

Products:

Survey results showed that the common product as detergent, beer, yogurt and medicine had received more attention in daily life.

Biological enzyme preparation products known by the participants

Safety Consideration：

Nearly half chose to believe in the safety of biological enzyme preparations. While the other half said it depended on the situation, and only a tiny minority did not believe in the safety of the enzyme preparation.

Safety consideration of the biological enzyme preparation

According the survey, most of the respondents who didn’t fully believe in the safety of biological enzyme preparation were lack of the knowledge and understanding of it.

Reasons for concerns over biological enzyme production

Therefore, we believed that we could increase the public's awareness of biology enzyme preparation by promoting the knowledge of biological enzymes. So that people could gradually trust the safety of enzyme preparation.

Cross analysis between safety consideration and general awareness

Acceptance Degree：

This question is based on the question ‘Do you believe that the biology enzyme preparation is safe and reliable’. If the respondents didn’t take a skeptical attitude towards the biology enzyme preparation, we would raise the question to know more about whether the respondents were really willing to accept and use the products of enzyme preparation. According the survey, we found that more than half of the respondents would like to accept the products, the other said it still depends on the situation. We think the result is quite reasonable and acceptable.

Distribution of degree of acceptance

Impacts on daily life：

Only 9% of the respondents hold the view that the biology enzyme preparation has nothing to do with their life. Most of the respondents believed that biological enzymes had a certain effect on their lives. This suggests that the majority of respondents' opinions on this questionnaire are valid and worthy of reference.

Impacts on daily life

To view the original questionnaire, please click here.(超链接 目前还没法给你)