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Human Practices
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Thanks to advances in molecular biology and biochemistry, scientists have been able to consistently detect lower and lower concentration of molecules1, to the point that single molecules can be reliably recognized with methods such as polymerase chain reaction (PCR)2, fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH)3 and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA)4. This has opened doors for synthetic biology to create better and more accurate diagnostic tests that use biomarkers like nucleic acids and proteins as targets5,6. Through such advances, the field of molecular diagnostics developed. Unfortunately, current standard methods require expensive equipment or trained personnel, which generally limits their usability to hospitals or laboratories. Recently, there has been a push to develop new tests that fuse the reliability of standard methods with affordable platforms such as lab-on-a-chip or paper strips to overcome these restrictions7-9. We wanted to help close this gap and set out to engineer a diagnosis principle for the detection of a wide array of targets that could be used without difficult-to-meet technical requirements.
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Make Munich (6th and 7th May 2017)
Make Munich is the south Germany´s biggest maker and do-it-yourself tech festival. This was a 2-day event where many innovative, technology loving makers had the opportunity to show their skills in their booths, in talks and in various workshops. This year there were a huge variety of booths and workshops from different categories. Also, the audience who visited the event included young kids, students, and seniors. This event was a perfect event for all kinds of audiences fascinated with technological advances.
We are very thankful to the Make Munich team for inviting us to this fascinating tech event. This was our very first public event where we did our first poster presentation and our first public interaction. We got many encouraging comments and ideas on how we could proceed in future. Plus, we also met many tech and synbio geeks who were very kind to give their views on our project development. We also had the opportunity to meet many startups which were based on synthetic biology as well. Plus, we also met some old iGEMers from different countries who gave us more tips on handling our iGEM project.
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IKOM Life Sciences (23rd May 2017)
IKOM is a voluntary student organization with 100 students from TUM, who organize career forums, scientific exhibitions and workshops annually. IKOM Life science is one of such event organized by IKOM where other students can meet different biotechnology and other related companies. It is highly recommended for all life science students and it is visited by students from all the universities in Munich.
This year's IKOM was really interesting with a high participation from different biotechnology, pharmaceutical and consulting companies. We met many companies from different parts of Munich and we also had the chance to talk to them personally. Some of those companies were interested in our work. Also, we had the chance to see what different companies can offer which helped us later to decide which sources to use in future.
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KLVHS youth meetup (3rd June 2017)
KVL organized the 3-days camping program with different workshops, presentations and activities for young students from schools and universities around Munich. The event was organized by a local group of youths which were involved in this organization. This is also a yearly event where the students camp there and are allowed to participate in all the events whenever they want as a part of this interaction. We were happy to give them some insights into our Project and give them an idea about synthetic biology and iGEM. Many were school students and had no idea about this field.
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Open House day LMU Biocenter (13th July 2017)
The open house day at the LMU Biocenter is an annual event that provides opportunity for everyone to come and experience the features of biological sciences. The Faculty of Biology at the LMU hosts this event for potential students, neighboring residents, and all interested citizens. In addition, the faculty also displays different research projects done at the Campus in Martinsried. This year, we had our own stall in the Biocenter along with other research groups from the LMU.
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Responsible research (20th July 2017):
The Responsible research was a one-day long symposium organized by the LMU Graduate School of the Life Sciences Grosshadern. There was a high participation of graduate students, postdocs, senior scientists and other interested students. Some of the topics that were discussed included some issues in research like: What is responsible research? How can we present data accurately and reproducibly? What exactly is plagiarism, and how can it be avoided? What do we need to know about open science? What is an Ombudsperson? These topics were especially directed for the next generation researchers. There were also keynote lectures from Professor Dr. Joachim Heberle (DFG Ombudsgremium for Science), FU Berlin, Professor Dr. Marcus Munaf (University of Bristol), Professor Dr. Debora Weber-Wulff (HTW Berlin). We also had breakout sessions on Avoiding Plagiarism, Animal Research, Clinical Trials, Experimental Design and Statistics, Image Analysis, Open Science. The program ended with a barbecue dinner and interaction.
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South African scouts talk (17th July 2017)
Some scouts from the Girls Guides South Africa came to visit our lab. It was a group composed of 5 instructors and 10 high school students. We did a poster presentation where we explained about the iGEM competition and synthetic biology. We also showed them the prototype of our device and explained them the concept and the inspiration behind our project. They were very interested in knowing more about working in the field of science and our motivation why we chose to take scientific careers. They asked us a lot of questions about antibiotic resistance and how antibiotic abuse endangers human health.
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Amgen meetup ( 4th August 2017)
We also presented our iGEM project CascAID to the 8 students of the Amgen Scholars program. Amgen Scholars Program provides undergraduate students from different fields with the opportunity to engage in a hands-on research experience at some of the world«s best institutions. In Europe, there are 5 hosts institutions who conduct the Amgen Scholars Program namely, ETH Zurich, Pasteur Institute, Karolinska Institute, LMU Munich, and the University of Cambridge.
The students who were part of the Amgen Scholars program in LMU Munich were invited to a special presentation with us. We answered their queries and gave them more information on synthetic biology and iGEM. Most of them were unaware of both and it was a great pleasure for us to be able to give them some insights into the iGEM world. Many were also highly motivated to hear that iGEM provides such a big platform for students interested in synthetic biology.
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Interview with Eurofins Genomics (17th August 2017)
Eurofins Genomics, as one of our sponsors, paid a visit to our laboratories where we explained them more about our project, as well as showed them equipement and methods we are using. Their impressions along with an interview they did with us, can be seen on their website.
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Marienplatz public interaction (3rd September 2017)
We believe that the best way of making people aware of synthetic biology and its future perspective is public interaction. Most ethical issues can be overcome by informing the public about the subject. For that sake, we went to the center of Munich, Marienplatz which is famous not only for the locals but also it is a hub for tourists from all over the world. We took our team members along with our camera and survey sheets to ask the public about their view on synthetic biology and modified organisms. We also explained them about our project design and asked them if they would be interested if we had such a device in the market. The people seem to be very excited about it and were willing to buy such simple lab-on-a-chip devices if they become available in the future.
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Nano day (10th September 2017)
The Nano day is a special program organized annually by NIM (Nanosystems Initiative Munich). Students from different labs working in physics, biophysics, and synthetic biology were present with their posters. The participation of interested people was really high. There were also do it yourself session and displays of different technologies so that the general people and students could try it themselves. A general quiz for everyone was also part of the program and at the end the winners of the quiz were awarded with gifts. There were also talks from renowned professors and researchers on different topics.
People showed great interest in our work and were willing to participate in our survey as well. The program took place from 11:00 am to 18:00 pm and was open and free for everyone.
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