By bringing together engineering principles within a biological context, synthetic biology enables creative innovation. In our efforts to teach students about synthetic biology, we wanted to parallel this integrative foundation.

To do so, we partnered with Ms. Pagni, an art teacher for 5th and 6th graders at Walker Upper Elementary School, and created an art competition for her students. The goal was to bring science and art together. We felt that this was the best way to generate excitement about synthetic biology as a science for her students and to stimulate creative thinking. Recent data has illustrated that creativity, from a neurological perspective, is quite similar in highly talented scientists and artists.1 Instead of arising from “two cultures,” as one might suppose, creative thought in art and in science stimulate similar associated cortices and both shown increased activation of socioaffective processing. We were hopeful that this connection in creativity would manifest through the direct integration of art and science.

While at Walker, we described our project, gave a brief lesson in DNA composition, and then led an edible DNA demonstration for forty of Ms. Pagni’s students. Afterwards, we went on to describe the art competition. The overarching goal was to use art to describe and reflect the ideas of synthetic biology.

Solving world problems is not always glamorous. When our team decided to further investigate wastewater, we were not sure what kind of smelly situation we had entered. In our visit to the local Rivanna Wastewater Treatment, Wastewater Treatment manager Tim Castillo quickly revealed that the toilet flush is just the beginning. In fact, the process of wastewater treatment is complicated, and we found this system, which would come to inspire our project, quite fascinating.

As we went about beginning to work with Pc. denitrificans, a main player in wastewater treatment, we realized that most people, quite like ourselves, knew little about water treatment aside from the pungent aroma. We thought it would be appropriate to pay homage to the many employees who literally do our dirty work by educating the public about wastewater. We researched not only the modern-day processing of wastewater, of which there are several, but also the story of how such a process came to be. Dating back to the Minoan Empire of 3000 BC we tell the story of wastewater treatment through the ages. The link to our site is here.

The next step came in distribution. How were we going to get students, or anyone for that matter, interested in learning about wastewater? It was only too fitting to try to educate others about the business of wastewater treatment while they were doing their business. Creating and placing these attention-grabbing stickers in UVA bathrooms was ideal for generating a captive and curious audience. We hope that this humorous image of Jefferson will encourage readers to our story, thereby informing the public in a creative way.

On July 29th, we hosted the Mid-Atlantic mini jamboree in which five other teams attended. The teams that joined us are William and Mary, University of Delaware, University of North Carolina at Asheville, University of Maryland, and Georgia State University. The morning was filled with presentations from each team and constructive breakout sessions. The most rewarding part of this session was the dialogue established. Individuals from all different teams were working with one another cooperatively, reflecting that we are all part of the same iGEM community.

Instead of concluding after the final team presented, however, we wanted to provide some exposure to what one can do with iGEM beyond the jamboree. To do so, we brought in Shaun Moshasha, an alumnus of Virginia iGEM 2014, and other professional who, like Shaun, work in DIY labs. Shaun spoke about what iGEM has meant for him and his career, and he described how much he has enjoyed working in his DIY lab, called Open Bio Labs. Following his talk, we had breakout discussions with the eight other lab professionals Shaun had brought with him to gain a better understanding of what kind of entrepreneurial opportunities arise from iGEM. Ultimately, this jamboree was a great way to learn more about the iGEM community, to become friends with team members from other universities, and to get exposure to the innovative opportunities that iGEM presents for our futures.