1) Organizing a symposium about synthetic biology for the pubilc

On Oct 1st, we held an open symposium for middle school and high school students. We planned and managed the event and as guests, we invited three experts from microbiology (Prof. Oshima), synthetic biology (Prof. Kiga) and bioethics (Dr. Nudeshima).

The main content of the symposium was a panel discussion by the guests (plus our PI, Dr. Tagawa) and the theme was "What is life? What is a living organism?" As the audiences expected, the panelists held heated debates. We felt we were watching cutting edge discussion on synthetic biology and they gave us new perspectives.

In total, about ten middle school and high school students participated in this event and also, undergraduate students from iGEM Team KAIT JAPAN also joined it.

In the Q&A session, from the public to students with life science major, the audiences from various backgrounds asked questions and the panelists were eager to answer them.

2) Giving lectures about biosafety at local high schools

On September 2nd, we visited two high schools in Saitama Prefecture. We gave lectures and organized groupwork activities at both schools.

At the lecture, we explained about gene modification and synthetic biology. As for gene modification, we took specific examples in a real society. We emphasized that it's necessary to distinguish the merits and demerits and take an advantage of the former.

After the lecture, the students moved on to groupwork activity. In this activity, we assigned a famous animation character to each group and asked the students to think and discuss how to make the character, introducing gene modification into a real animal. It was a great opportunity for them to enter the world of synthetic biology.

3) Attending Summer School (Theme: Social Epidemiology)

On September 9th and 10th, some team members attended 5th Summer School of Japan Society of Research and Information on Public and Co-operative Economy. (The venue was Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto.)

The theme was social epidemiology which is a branch of epidemiology. This academic field focuses particularly on the effects of social-structural factors on states of health. Most team members major life science and when it comes to disease analysis and therapeutics, life science mainly focuses on micro materials like gene, metabolite, cell and etc. In contrast to the microscopic and innate viewpoint of life science, social epidemiology focuses on more macroscopic and acquired side of disease. This difference was interesting for us.

We received a lecture from Dr. Ando in Osaka University. Her recent research interest is disease analysis with work-related psychosocial factors. It was really meaningful for us to get in touch with her passion to find social prescriptions to improve the adverse effects of precarious employment.

Currently, the inter-disciplinary research between genetics and epidemiology is not quite advanced enough yet, we think. However, in the near future, when we analyze possible causes of disease, it'll be important to integrate both of the viewpoints.