Education and public engagement

YouTube

This year our team initiated an educational YouTube channel in collaboration with five other teams spanning four different continents. We were able to implement our initial idea to create an international platform to which we promote iGEM, explain the general concepts of synthetic biology and inform about new exciting projects. Our channel reaches out to students who are not aware of iGEM yet and holds great potential to inspire and educate future iGEM teams in a multicultural and exhilarant way.

Student Outreach: Lab tour

Additionally, we wanted to grant students from a local school who had a particular interest in science a direct insight into our laboratories. We showed them basic techniques of molecular biology, gave them the opportunity to participate in the process themselves and gain hands-on knowledge in the lab.

Student Outreach: Student internship

Furthermore, we invited an international student from China as an intern to our lab. This gave us the opportunity to mentor an highly motivated student and expand our skills as educators. She contributed to our project as well by taking on tasks such as producing agarose gels, lab supplies and pipetting PCR mixtures and contributed significantly to our part of the 2017 iGEM InterLab study.

Student Outreach: Panel discussion

The issue of antibiotic resistance is a highly controversial topic in both the public eye and the scientific community. We organized workshops for young people from different backgrounds to inform them about the current issues and potential solutions. We invited 22 young students to join us in a panel discussion called: “Nothing In Pipeline? - The Problem Of Modern Antibiotic Research”. We aimed to illustrate how their own life can be dangerously affected by antibiotic resistance and how they can potentially contribute to the problem in the future.
We divided the students into groups and provided each with materials about the topic. The students had to do they own research and present the issues during a guided discussion. Our primary focus was the fact that the research on new antibiotics stagnated since the development costs considerably outway the profit. Most of the students haven’t been aware of how critical the topics have become and how much they could positively impact the process.
With our workshops and the panel discussion, we were able to demonstrate how important it is to be aware of antibiotic resistance and its causes and was is needed to prevent a further progression of the process. This way we sensitized potential future scientists and doctors to think critically and ethically when it comes to the development and the application of antibiotics.

Student Outreach: Zometool

DNA strains have a complex structure on a very small scale and are therefore difficult to imagine for people without extensive knowledge of biology and biochemistry. We decided to assemble the biggest DNA helix in Germany using the construction set Zometool together with students, children and their families. The structure has a size of 2.7m, depicts one turn in its entirety and is available to the public in the Jugendforschungszentrum (JFZ) in Nagold (GER).
Zometool is mathematically based on the golden ratio and allows the construction of structures with 2-, 3- and 5-fold symmetries which can be applied to a variety of scientific pursuits. We decided to involve the public in the ambitious construction task to not only visualize one of the most important biological structure but also show them how versatile and multidimensional science can be.

Tübinger Fenster für Forschung

The University of Tübingen organized a public event called “Tübinger Fenster für Forschung” which is an open international platform where young and experienced researchers can present their work. We introduced our team, iGEM and the project of 2017 at our section. Furthermore, one of our members contributed to the Science Slam by featuring synthetic biology in the talk “Buy a Nokia - get an iPhone.” We were very excited to inspire the audience especially the students to get involved in the field. This event showed us that synthetic biology, as well as genetic engineering, are still mostly unknown to the public, and people are surprised to hear what can be done with these methods.

March for Science

In recent years the freedom of science has been questioned internationally, and even evidence-based knowledge has been under pressure. The "March for Science" campaign on April 22, 2017, was organized to amplify the role of science in public policies, empower the public interest for science and build a global community of science advocates. We wanted to show our support as well and joined the scientific community in Tübingen at the local March for Science as ambassadors for synthetic biology and biochemistry. We were overwhelmed by the positive feedback and felt encouraged and empowered in our role as scientist contributing to a better future.