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iGEM Human Practice

Home Achievements Project Human-Practice Notebook Attributions

Overview

"Human Practices is the study of how your work affects the world, and how the world affects your work." — Peter Carr, Director of Judging. What’s Human practice? It is not just a work to confirm and strengthen what we think is right. Instead, we should learn to share our knowledge with the world. We can’t just instill our personal cognition into others, nor can we blindly believe in whatever others say. All in all, human practice is all about “gain, give and mutual interaction”.

First, we build up a system constructed by the three topics below: Project, Us and the World. What we found is that our activities can actually made up a comprehensive interaction (refer to the following picture beside) For example, we “gain” professional suggestions from experts in various fields, which have made us think of repositioning our project; To conduct educating, we “give” what we know to those who are laymen in synthetic biology and sugar controlling. Other examples of give and gain also includes marketing and sponsorships. It is also necessary that we set up mutual pathways for knowledges, which are also known as meetups, collaborations and cross-domain communications. Totaling up all of them, we’ve excellently completed human practice.

To achieve our goal, we consult experts in different areas of study

Expert Consultation

Nephrologist

Time

7/22
Location

Bio-Lab
Consultant

Dr. Wu

×

Nepthrologist

Taiwan has the reputation of “the kingdom of Hem dialysis”. Yes, this is apparently not a thing we should be proud of. A huge sum of money is spent on this problem every year. But, you probably don’t know that a huge ratio of these cases are caused by neither drug abuse nor consuming too much salty food. Instead, diabetes is what may leads to kidney diseases. So, we invited Dr. Wu from the division of nephrology to tell us about the negative effects of diabetes.

In the interview, he mentioned that due to hyperglycemia, HHNK and DKA, which may cause headache, nausea, or even drive people into coma, is often found in people with diabetes. Furthermore, hyperglycemia can also cause the filtration in the glomerular to accelerate, which leads to its hypertrophy. As the function of kidney is gradually damaged, it can no longer eliminate the deleterious substances from our body. With urea and creatinine surging, a person could eventually end up in renal failure. From above, we can get a conclusion that diabetes is surely a thorny chronic disease that we should be cautious of.

Taiwan has the reputation of “the kingdom of Hem dialysis”. Yes, this is apparently not a thing we should be proud of. A huge sum of money is spent on this problem every year. But, you probably don’t know that a huge ratio of these cases are caused by neither drug abuse nor consuming too much salty food. Instead, diabetes is what may leads to kidney diseases. So, we invited Dr. Wu from the division of nephrology to tell us about the negative effects of diabetes.

In the interview, he mentioned that due to hyperglycemia, HHNK and DKA, which may cause headache, nausea, or even drive people into coma, is often found in people with diabetes. Furthermore, hyperglycemia can also cause the filtration in the glomerular to accelerate, which leads to its hypertrophy. As the function of kidney is gradually damaged, it can no longer eliminate the deleterious substances from our body. With urea and creatinine surging, a person could eventually end up in renal failure. From above, we can get a conclusion that diabetes is surely a thorny chronic disease that we should be cautious of.

Fitness Coach

Time

7/29
Location

Smooth Fitness Studio
Consultant

Coach Wei Qian-Fu

×

Coach

After we had a discussion with Dr. Wu, we changed our aim from controlling diabetes to losing weight. Since weight losing is nothing more than controlling the diet and exercising for most people, we soon contacted with a fitness coach and paid a visit to his workshop, so as to learn the relation between them and our project.

While we are conversing with the coach, we had a heart full of doubt: Where’s the dumbbells or treadmills we usually see in a gym? After we consult the coach, he told us that the main point of “fitness” is not focusing on building bulky muscles but living a healthier life. We were confused by the time we heard this statement, thinking that it might not be what we had expected.

However, after about two hours of explanation, it dawned on us that what he said was all about one core concept: excess is just as bad as deficiency. Training excessively is damage, while no exercise is unhealthy as well; too much intake of sugar is harmful, while too little sugar consumption is even more dangerous.

Similar to what Dr.Wu had told us, knowing how to adjust one’s own physiological stage and managing a balanced diet is the only way to live a healthy life. How wise it is. Perhaps this is the kind of thing we won’t be able to learn from the coach who’s pro in developing six pack abs. In the end of the discussion, he even taught us a breathing method used in training which helps regulate our breathing. To be honest, we had a special experience after today’s visit.

In sum, this interview has surprised us - even ordinary things such as breathing has variations, but also let us learn a lot about regulating daily nutritions. Before finishing, he also suggested us to consult to the nutritionist, assuming that we might receive a different response. However, the two experts made similar proposals in the end, showing us the part our work needs to improve.

We summarized our project to the fitness instructor. He told us about his work. He has his own workshop, where he focuses on designing lessons, trying ways to stimulate advances in physical function, such as improving the ability of impairment. He said that what he does is absolutely different from those who conduct training for the purpose of body strengthening.

We: Can we say that, this is similar to what we call OT (occupational therapy)? Coach: Probably yes. But, I am just a coach for assistant purpose.

We: Will you recommend any kind of health supplements to your clients?

Coach: No. Due to the differences of individual needs, I think it is more appropriate that doctors do something like that instead of me. But, I can give them advices on what efficacy they may need for their supplements.

We: Any examples?

Coach: Sure. Let me take weight losing. It’s easy to understand that if a person want to lose weight, the amount of calorie he consume must exceed the amount he take in. So, in the initial phase, calorie consumption is what we focus on. As long as he get used to the diet, we started to focus on the nutrients in food. Since too much starch may lead to obesity, we should make a reduction. Lastly, if he can follow all these requirements, we can than adjust his diet into a much healthier one, like, adding more organic food or something. If we ask a client to stick to all these rules at first, we can say that there’s no possibility that his determination will last.

We: Have you ever seen someone, like, desperately push himself to the limit no matter what it cost, and, just to lose weight?

Coach: Of course, yes. But, I would like to say that if you only care about your stature, but ignore the true value and purpose of exercising; I will tell the person, I’m sorry, but, I think we may not suit your need, and it will be better for you to look for someone else.

We: So, how do clients get started?

Coach: First, we reach a consensus with our clients. Then, we analyze their current physical conditions. Since we should prevent clients from over exercising, we, have the obligation to remind those who train themselves in rashness of the importance of keeping a regular daily routine.

We: So, how’s it like to have a “regular daily routine” ?

Coach: Try to avoid overworking. Also, too much sleep is not advisable.

We: So, how healthy we get is not in proportion with how much we exercise, right?

Coach: Exactly. You shouldn’t do what your body can’t afford just to get a sense of achievement.

We: So, in addition to exercising, do you control your diet as well?

Coach: Of course, yes. But, we don’t deliberately restrain the appetite, for people drop off easily because of that.

We: So, according to what you said, do you consider our project beneficial?

Coach: Sure. I can say that it is really an innovative idea. But, what you should know is that the mechanism of sugar controlling in our body is much more delicate than you can imagine. You guys should give an insight into some impact it may bring to, like: Will there be any side effects? Will people be too reliable on it? Will a long term dosing lead to endocrine disorders? These are all what you should be wary of.

We: Can we lose weight by just stop eating anything?

Coach: Yes. But, I must say that if you stay in the condition of hunger for too long, the cell in your body may gradually reduce the consumption of energy. Thus, as long as everything is back to normal, your weight will bounce back rapidly. So, to sum up, how to maintain is far more important, and also, far more difficult.

We: We’ve heard of some activists on weight losing. They even take methods such as liposuction and gastrectomy. What’s your opinion?

Coach: Fat will still accumulate after liposuction, and gastrectomy is an irreversible harm to our body. To be blunt, I’m on the side of disapproval.

Nutritionist

Time

9/11
Location

McDonald's
Consultant

Nutritionist Liu Guan-Ling

Outreach

Science, not only the lab, but into into the public

The Poll

Time: 9/16

Location:
Taichung City

Participants:
The public

Walk into the public!

S&T Month

Time: 5/22, 23, 25

Location:
Lecture Hall & Bio-Lab

Participants:
Mingdao students

iGEM in Campus!

Elementary School

Time: 9/22

Location:

Chiao-Jen Elementary School

Participants:
Kids

Sow Seed of Science

Monterosso

Drink Sampling

Time: 10/3

Location:

Mingdao High School

Participants:

Mingdao staff and students

Just Drink It!

×

Drink Sampling

In order to know whether sweet foods are more favored by the public, we held an event in school, called “Drink sampling”.

We made the statistic this way: We offered both sugar-free and sugary beverages. There were buckets placed beside each beverage pail. First, the participants were given two cups of drinks from each pail. They were asked to decide which one they like, and toss both of their cups into the correspondent bucket. At last, we sum up the cups in each bucket to find out the result.

There are also games to attract more people. It’s a shame that we weren’t able to elaborate the process of our project to every participant due to the chaos, but, it is sure that we’ve not only increased public’s attention on both our project and IGEM but also successfully introduced more people into the domain of gene engineering.

Here's the result:

Here are the two opinions after the events :

Student A :
This time, the member of Mingdao iGEM 2017 hold a activity - drink sampling, which done the survey and the endorsement at the same time. I think the activity is great because the main goal of iGEM is to satisfied people's requirements after finding it, and the objective of genetic engineering is to make people's life more convenient. By the way, the drink taste better with sugar in most people's opinion.

Student B :
Although I’m not one of the members of the IGEM team, I still learn a lot from the course concerning this project. During the preparation, I saw some previous souvenir, which makes me wonder what kind of surprise they will bring us this time. First, they asked us to drink some beverages. Some were normal and some were sugar-free. This really confused me. Then, they asked us which one we preferred. I thought that they were doing some research to study the dietary habit of Mingdao students. Though didn’t participate in the game they play later on, I could surely feel the hard work they put into carrying out this project. You guys really did a good job. I sincerely hope that this activity can benefit your experiment. But, I suggest that next time the activity could be more simplified, or you can try walking instead of standing at a particular place!

Food and Drug Administration

Time : 9/27

Location : TFDA Office Building

Participant : Section Manager Zhou

Food Industry Research and Development Institute

Time : 9/29

Location : FIRDI Research Building

Participant : Doctor Zhu Wen-Shen

FIRDI - Content

Introduction

FDA(Food and Drug Administration) is a govenment institution. They’re responsible for the management and supervision of commercialized food and medicines. They aim to intensify the regulation and risk assessment for food, drugs, emerging technologies and cosmetics. Also, they strive to develop core examining technology to create a safe environment for customers. You can say that FDA is the goalkeeper of people’s dieting.

  The first experiment is plasmid DNA extraction. After explaining the concept of it, we divided them into six groups, and chose a leader from our team members for every group. Most of the students had never used pipette before, which made them tense but eager to try. After all, what we students usually use are always droppers, beakers…and so on.
 

Highlight :

Based on the reference from the WHO, the amount of calorie we consume from refined sugar should not exceed 10% of daily sugar intake.

Refined sugar added in items that can be called “heath food” should not exceed 25 grams, which is half of daily sugar intake for adults. Also, items with more than 50/3 grams of refined sugar should be labeled.

If a product is only to be positioned to a kind of common food, it won’t be required to pass any examination procedures. But, if it is to be a health food warranted by the government, it is necessary that you pass the inspections on food additions and ingredients.

The list of food additions that could be used is now available on the internet. Manufactures are required to hand in their examination result themselves.

The reason why GMO products do not prevail in Taiwan is not related to the regulations. Governing ministries will only require GMO products to be labeled because some people is still suspicious about the safety problems.

If after 5 years, a new regulation is enacted, and the standard is adjusted, we will examine the product with the new standard again.

Before commercializing, a product could go through either human clinical trial or animal study.

There is something needed if a product are to be commercialized:
(a.) The effect of the product must be testified
(b.) Descriptive data about:
- The bacterial strain used
- How it was grown and preserved
- How its DNA strand in reconstructed
- Whether any toxic or allergic reaction is found

Conclusion

As students being unfamiliar with the procedure of law, we understood the inspection standard of laws about health food and GM food after interviewing the section manager, Mr. Chou, which gave us a new angle of sight to reexamine the position of our product.

FIRDI - Record

We’ve successfully genetically engineered E. coli expressing high-affinity active PTS transporter system and low-affinity facilitated Na+/glucose cotransporter system by screening in MacConkey and glycerol agar plate with chloramphenicol, respectively. Our data is consistent with the previous study that overexpressing glucose transporter genes do really harm E. coli partly due to disturbing glycolytic pathways.

PTS expressing bacteria grew difficultly in LB broth but Na+/glucose transporter expressing bacteria grew comparably with general E. coli, suggesting that high-affinity active transporter did interact with sugar-related substances in LB culture media and harm the bacterial survival.

In our results, glucose absorption by Na+/glucose transporter expressing bacteria was achieved to 97% after 4 hours with 1.2 times enhanced efficiency compared to the normal E. coli. To further increase the rate of glucose uptake, one may think about the glucose metabolism or conversion to other materials when entering into the cell.

FDA

Introduction

FDA(Food and Drug Administration) is a govenment institution. They’re responsible for the management and supervision of commercialized food and medicines. They aim to intensify the regulation and risk assessment for food, drugs, emerging technologies and cosmetics. Also, they strive to develop core examining technology to create a safe environment for customers. You can say that FDA is the goalkeeper of people’s dieting.

In our results, glucose absorption by Na+/glucose transporter expressing bacteria was achieved to 97% after 4 hours with 1.2 times enhanced efficiency compared to the normal E. coli. To further increase the rate of glucose uptake, one may think about the glucose metabolism or conversion to other materials when entering into the cell.

Not limited to laboratory, we make business approach

Education

Expert Consultation

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iGEM Human Practice

Project

Research

Experiment

Model

Prototype

Human Practice

Gold

Silver

Collaborate

Engagement

Achievements

Medals

Prizes

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