Scientific researches and the masses should never be separated; in fact, there are close interactions between the two. It is hard for a product serve human well if it was made in a closed door.

Part one: Absorb nutrients from the outside world

Many of Chinese students are taught to study alone in order to avoid external disturbances, but it is better to listen to outside voices when doing researches. For just standing on others’ shoulders will lifted a project a lot. This part contains:

Consultation with expert

Staying in the lab won't let us know what technical issues of production and circulation should be considered, an experienced CTO of a biology company will offer really useful advice. Click here for detail!

Product evaluation

We investigated similar products available on the market, and scored our product. Click here to see what makes our product stands out in the market.

Interviews concerned on important application fields

Our project is mainly for academic uses. However, miRNA inhibitors’ role on medical treatment cannot be ignored but another main possible application of our product. Click here to see more information of the interviews.

Cooperation among groups:

In the end of August, we attended Conference of China iGEAMer Community, idea exchange meet for China region).click here to see what we have done!

Part two: Bear social responsibility

This year our project is to develop a novel approach for miRNA inhibiting, but that is not all. As an integrated project, in addition to pure research, it has several tasks needed to be done in practice:

Open that black box

Scientific research has never belonged to only a few people; we are responsible for science popularization of our product and its related contents. This year we did something different! Click here to check them out.

Moving our glow sticks for synthetic biology

Participating in a synthetic biology competition, we wanted to exchange our ideas on synthetic biology with other interested schoolmates, thus we gave a presentation carefully prepared to them. Click here for detail.

Attentions on policy-making

So far, no policy mentioned how to standardize the microRNA antagonist therapy has been made, so we will have to wait for it, however, we consulted professors and had a general idea of policy. Want to see? Click here.

Consultation with expert

We went to GenetalksGenetalks is founded in Santiago by a team of young scientists in North America. Since 2009, the clinical transformation of gene testing has been carried out, and it was formally established in Beijing in 2014. With the core of gene technology and other advanced technologies such as information technology and machine learning, the company is committed to technological innovation, application development and services in the field of medicine and health.Hope to receive some professional、market-based suggestions from technicians there, and we were lucky enough to have their technical director Dr. Song Zhuo interviewed. As the CTO, he really considered more than we students, which inspired us a lot.

The most important point we realized lays on safety. If a product or a technology is put into use, the very first thing is to ensure its safety. Thus, he put forward two questions:

Will the sponge affect the normal function of cells?

Will MicroRNA inhibitor work in positive correlation with level gradient?

These provided us new ideas of safety inspection of product beyond the mainline; to fully solve these questions, we added cytotoxicity test and concentration gradient experiment to our future work.

As for application, he mentioned the market of MicroRNA inhibitor is not limited to research or the treatment of human diseases, agriculture and animal husbandry are also potential and untapped areas for MicroRNA inhibitor. Moreover, market sense is also important for a project; a streamlined and efficient experimental method with a lower cost will make our project more popular.

Product evaluation

Prices of similar products

We made a research on the prices of similar products, and we summed up the results in the following table, this table can roughly show the market prices for miRNA inhibitors existed:

Company	Product	product's name	Price（rmb）
Sigma Aldrich	TuD RNA	MISSION Lenti microRNA Inhibitor	6,961.50
Guangzhou RiboBio Co.	micrOFF™ miRNA Inhibitors are synthetic antisense oligonucleotides, which is complement to mature miRNAs sequence , for loss-of-function studies of miRNAs.	micrOFF miRNA inhibitor	500/nmol
Shanghai Integrated Biotech Solutions Co.,Ltd.	it is a special designed RNA molecule that can bind with specific miRNA.	miRNA inhibitors	300(2OD),500(4OD)
Suzhou GenePharma Co.	an 21-23nt RNA molecule, and was Inhibitoryeffectsof2'-O·—Methoxyethyl-Modified ,can serves as an efficiently microRNA inhibitor	GMR-miRTM microRNA inhibitors	350（2OD）
Biomics Biotechnologies.	This is a miRNA inhibitor, which is especially chemical modified, so that it can serves as an efficiently and specifically inhibitor.	miRNA inhibitor	650/10nmol
BIONEER Trade(Shanghai) Co.,Ltd.	This specially designed RNA molecule, which has been specially modified, can bind with specific miRNA.	ccuTarget™ miRNA Inhibitor	5 n mole	368
						10 n mole	544
						20 n mole	720
GeneCopoeia Inc	This specially designed RNA molecule, which has been specially modified, can bind with specific miRNA.	miArrest™ miRNA inhibitor	4000-12000

Name of reagents	Unit price	Use level	Equivalent
Oligo	$0.12 / base	25.4 bases	$0.000302
EcoR I	$19.55/4000U(15U/µL)	0.1µL	$0.0073
Spe I	$19.55/150U(10U/µL）	0.1µL	$0.13
T4 Polynucleotide Kinase	$25.87/200U(10U/µL)	0.2µL	$0.26
T4 DNA ligase	$25.87/28000U(350U/µL)	1µL	$0.32
2×Tap Master Mix	$102.27 / 5mL(3 pieces/mL)	10µL	$0.05
Tiangen Plasmid Microkit Kit	$102.27 / 200 times	One time	$0.51