Difference between revisions of "Team:ETH Zurich/HP/Silver"

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<p>This page is used by the judges to evaluate your team for the <a href="https://2017.igem.org/Judging/Medals">medal criterion</a> or <a href="https://2017.igem.org/Judging/Awards"> award listed above</a>. </p>
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    <section class="toc">
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        <h1>TOC</h1>
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    <section class="main-content">
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        <div class="headline">
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            <h1>Promoting Synthetic Biology</h1>
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        <section>
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            <h1>Pitch at the ETH Student Project House</h1>
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            <p>ETH Zurich is establishing a student project house that allows students from various
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            backgrounds to follow own ideas and projects. They organize pitching events where students
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            can present their ideas and connect to other students with similar interests. Due to the
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            generally high demand of time and resources, life science projects have not yet been in the
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            focus there. We aimed to help to change that. To do so, we went there to present one of our
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            earlier ideas that would have been more engineering oriented. That way we introduced
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            mechanical engineers, computer scientists and other students from ETH Zurich to synthetic
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            biology. Following, we passed on our own experiences with a student-led life scientific
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            project to the SPH-manager.</p>
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        </section>
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        <section>
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            <h1>Talk at NTU Athens</h1>
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            <p>Building reliable networks out of simple, well-characterised components is an engineer's daily
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            work. Synthetic Biology is no different in this aspect; it appears that nature favours reuse of
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            elementary biological mechanisms in all kinds of systems. Systematic research has revealed a
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            number of reasons why some biological cirtuits are more abundant than others, namely
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            efficiency and robustness to parametre variation. Such principles are universal in the world of
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            technology and should be accessible to engineering students who had little or no prior
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            exposure to biology.</p>
  
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            <p>Thus, Nikolas, set out to present some pieces of our project to the graduate students of
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            Computer Science and Electrical Engineering of the National Technical University of Athens,
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            where Nikolas obtained his EE diploma. The talk had three parts: First, he introduced the
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            basic notions needed to describe gene regulation (central dogma of molecular biology, genes,
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            promoters, repressors, et.c.). Second, he briefly presented Uri Alon's work [1] and explained how certain gene circuits have been proven successful in
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            processing signals of the cell environment, filtering noise and enabling appropriate responses.</p>
  
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            <p>Finally, he outlined how we took advantage of these high-level construct in our project, e.g. by engineering an AND-gate to increase the specificity of our strain, and by emplying a heat-deactivated repressor to control the expression of our cell lysis system.</p>
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<h1>Silver Medal Human Practices</h1>
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<p>iGEM teams are leading in the area of Human Practices because they conduct their projects within a social/environmental context, to better understand issues that might influence the design and use of their technologies.</p>
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<p>Teams work with students and advisors from the humanities and social sciences to explore topics concerning ethical, legal, social, economic, safety or security issues related to their work. Consideration of these Human Practices is crucial for building safe and sustainable projects that serve the public interest. </p>
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                    <img style="width:40%; height:auto"
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<p>For more information, please see the <a href="https://2017.igem.org/Competition/Human_Practices">Human Practices page</a>.</p>
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                    src="https://2017.igem.org/wiki/images/1/1f/T--ETH_Zurich--NTUA_talk.jpg"
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                    alt="Nikolaos giving a talk at NTUA"
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                    />
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                    <figcaption>Nikolaos giving a talk at NTUA</figcaption>
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            </div>
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        </section>
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            <h1>References</h1>
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            <ol>
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                <!-- TODO Provide reference for Alon's book -->
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                <li>Alon, Uri. <cite>An Introduction to Systems Biology: Design Principles of Biological Circuits.</cite> CRC Press: 2006
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<h3>Silver Medal Criterion #3</h3>
 
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<p>Convince the judges you have thought carefully and creatively about whether your work is safe, responsible and good for the world. You could accomplish this through engaging with your local, national and/or international communities or other approaches. Please note that standard surveys will not fulfill this criteria.</p>
 
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<h5>Some Human Practices topic areas </h5>
 
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<li>Philosophy</li>
 
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<li>Public Engagement / Dialogue</li>
 
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<li>Education</li>
 
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<li>Product Design</li>
 
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<li>Scale-Up and Deployment Issues</li>
 
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<li>Environmental Impact</li>
 
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<li>Ethics</li>
 
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<li>Safety</li>
 
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<li>Security</li>
 
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<li>Public Policy</li>
 
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<li>Law and Regulation</li>
 
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<li>Risk Assessment</li>
 
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<h5>What should we write about on this page?</h5>
 
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<p>On this page, you should write about the Human Practices topics you considered in your project, and document any special activities you did (such as visiting experts, talking to lawmakers, or doing public engagement). This should include all of the work done for the Silver Medal Criterion #3. Details for your Gold medal work and/or work for the two Human Practices special prizes should be put on those specified pages.</p>
 
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<h5>Inspiration</h5>
 
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<p>Read what other teams have done:</p>
 
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<ul>
 
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<li><a href="https://2014.igem.org/Team:Dundee/policypractice/experts">2014 Dundee </a></li>
 
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<li><a href="https://2014.igem.org/Team:UC_Davis/Policy_Practices_Overview">2014 UC Davis </a></li>
 
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<li><a href="https://2013.igem.org/Team:Manchester/HumanPractices">2013 Manchester </a></li>
 
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<li><a href="https://2013.igem.org/Team:Cornell/outreach">2013 Cornell </a></li>
 
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Revision as of 12:14, 17 September 2017

TOC

Promoting Synthetic Biology

Pitch at the ETH Student Project House

ETH Zurich is establishing a student project house that allows students from various backgrounds to follow own ideas and projects. They organize pitching events where students can present their ideas and connect to other students with similar interests. Due to the generally high demand of time and resources, life science projects have not yet been in the focus there. We aimed to help to change that. To do so, we went there to present one of our earlier ideas that would have been more engineering oriented. That way we introduced mechanical engineers, computer scientists and other students from ETH Zurich to synthetic biology. Following, we passed on our own experiences with a student-led life scientific project to the SPH-manager.

Talk at NTU Athens

Building reliable networks out of simple, well-characterised components is an engineer's daily work. Synthetic Biology is no different in this aspect; it appears that nature favours reuse of elementary biological mechanisms in all kinds of systems. Systematic research has revealed a number of reasons why some biological cirtuits are more abundant than others, namely efficiency and robustness to parametre variation. Such principles are universal in the world of technology and should be accessible to engineering students who had little or no prior exposure to biology.

Thus, Nikolas, set out to present some pieces of our project to the graduate students of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering of the National Technical University of Athens, where Nikolas obtained his EE diploma. The talk had three parts: First, he introduced the basic notions needed to describe gene regulation (central dogma of molecular biology, genes, promoters, repressors, et.c.). Second, he briefly presented Uri Alon's work [1] and explained how certain gene circuits have been proven successful in processing signals of the cell environment, filtering noise and enabling appropriate responses.

Finally, he outlined how we took advantage of these high-level construct in our project, e.g. by engineering an AND-gate to increase the specificity of our strain, and by emplying a heat-deactivated repressor to control the expression of our cell lysis system.

Nikolaos giving a talk at NTUA
Nikolaos giving a talk at NTUA

References

  1. Alon, Uri. An Introduction to Systems Biology: Design Principles of Biological Circuits. CRC Press: 2006