Team:NTHU Taiwan/HP/Gold Integrated
Gold Integrated
Integrated Human Practice & Gold
According to the definition of Human Practice from iGEM, each team should interact with the whole society, to figure out what the world lacks and to dedicate our ability to the needs. In our team, the concern of environment and health are the ultimate targets. The crisis triggered by Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals (EDCs) has not only be forgotten gradually by us after the Vietnam War since the contaminated regions are narrowed in certain places, few and few people pay attention to these dangerous chemicals.
Visit Experts
(1) Visiting to Institute of Environmental Engineering, NCTU
This summer, we visited researchers in Institute of Environmental Engineering, NCTU, whose study mainly focus on wastewater treatment. They reviewed our project and provided some suggestion for us.
1. Since enzyme producing technique is not yet mature enough to date, we should reinforce more on detection so that we can increase the efficiency of enzyme usage.
2. Agricultural wastewater has more than an imaginable amount of aerobic particles. Even if the water seems clean, it will still block the filter system in minutes. We should re-design our structure.
3.Activated carbon can only act well under the good water condition that is, containing only ions or extremely few molecules.
[ Figure. 1.1.3-1 ] The researcher in IEE of NCTU( right one) and us.
(2) Meet up with advisors, professors and iGEM NCTU
In May 2017, we invited Assistant Professor Warren C. Ruder, PITT, Professor Wen-Liang Chen, NCTU and Professor Chao-Min Cheng, NTHU, to review our project. Meanwhile, we also shared our project with “NCTU iGEM” mutually. This meeting was held before we could start our plan, which halted us from rushing forward. We stopped, reflected and then adjusted our orientation and strategy:
1. Our project contains too many high techniques or skills like EIS, Monobody application, frozen cell technique, gold plating, IoT integrate, etc. Combining all of these together is somewhat complicated and never was there a team who successfully did so. However, it would be a standout if our team managed to pull it off. We should reconsider simplifying our project. On the other hand, every technique needs a lot of tests to fit new working environment or for a different application. With a limited time, it is hard to achieve.
2. The condition of wastewater is always harsh. To put an exquisite device to dispose of it with such a great amount remains problems to be solved. We should better consider some other more valuable target.
[ Figure. 1.2.2-1 ] Meetup and presentation for Prof. Rudder, Prof. Chen and Prof. Cheng. They gave us lots of advices and suggestions which help us very much.
Institution meetup
(1) The Wastewater treatment plant of Science Park
When we talk about water disposal, the first thing comes into our mind would be wastewater treatment plant (WTP) since most water that is contaminated or used by humanity would all eventually go to WTP. Thus, WTP becomes our primary target for practicing and working out our idea. In September, we went to WTP of National Science Park for investigation and sampling. There were three engineers in WTP who helped us realize the whole plant including monitoring station. We learned much about how WTP dispose of the wastewater step by step and also how they control the system:
1. Before entering the plant, nearly most wastewater has undergone treatment by each company. Actually, the inlet water is not that dirty as what we supposed but it still contains lots of metal ions and molecules that need to be rid of. And in these years, the main issue in WTP is ammonia nitrogen degradation. Targets like EDCs are not what WTP concern, engineer Chang said. EDCs’ concentration in wastewater is too low since the water coming in from all sorts of factories dilute it. The main harmful substances left are still a lot of ammonia nitrites and heavy metals added by Chang.
[ Figure. 2.1.1-1 ] Flow chart of WTP of National Science Park. Cited from Hsinchu Science Park Bureau, Ministry of Science and Technology
2. The visit to the monitoring station helped us a lot in dry lab design. This plant is one of the most novel plants which applies testing Ammonia nitrides disposal plant and an alto control system. This testing plant is built because of the rising attention of Ammonia nitrides and the alto control system installed for the purpose of reduction of complicated control steps. Unfortunately, the first renovation, again, implies that EDCs probably is not a priority WTP. However, the alto control system does make us realize the importance of automatic control system and IoT(internet of things). Since the engineers, all use the smartphone APP to receive first information of every disposal plant so it inspired us to develop an APP and we made it !!! On the other hand, Based on the prototype alto-control system we have seen there, we conceived an idea to combine alert, buzzer, e-mail, newsletter and a real-time website displayer etc., that is, the IoT concept, and we have finished the construction of e-mail and smartphone newsletter thanks to the techniques offered by the Ministry of Economic Affairs. The purposes of building IoT is simple - we can reduce the risk of mistake or omission. Also, we want to unify every controller, monitors, meter and everything that is involved all together so that it would be easier to manage and has a larger space to expand other functions; for example, adding varies sensors for different chemicals or even microbes.
[ Figure. 2.1.2-1 ] Visit to WTP in National Science Park. Orientation before field visit.
[ Figure. 2.1.2-2 ] Visit to WTP in National Science Park. Field visit to the treatment tanks.
[ Figure. 2.1.2-3 ] Visit to WTP in National Science Park. Monitor station guidance.
Field investigation
[ Figure. 3.1-1 ] Visit to organic beekeeper, owner from Ying Hsang farming resort. We try to realize the surrounding environment of an organic bee farm, hoping that our device could help better it.
[ Figure. 3.1-2 ] Visit to A-Hsiung and A-Pu organic mushroom stand. Mushroom cultivation is a quality agriculture that every single drop of water matters. They need a extraordinary fine water monitor system, which is where we can cooperate with !
What we can do is to lower the threshold and the cost of an application so as to track for a long period and make transformation faster and easier. And this may attract many farmers to join the ranks of organic agriculture. Eventually, the farmers mentioned that it is hard to avoid contamination. As long as they use the water in the downstream of the river, it is impossible to get a license. Land in Taiwan is too small, so the farms are close to each other. Once there is a non-organic agriculture nearby, pesticide and fertilizer will pollute their own farm indirectly.
[ Figure. 3.1-3 ] We interviewed one of famous organic farmer, Ron Chi farm’s owner in HsinChu, who shared us many dilemma that most organic farmers faced nowadays.
[ Figure. 3.2-1 ] This field investigation to our potential customers. Many evidences show that aquaculture posts a lot of environmental issues.
Seminars
[ Figure. 4.1-1 ] We hosted the creativity and brainstorming activity in the iGEM Taiwan Conference.
As for the second section, in order to consistent with our own project, we've designed a forum about the environment: Life X Technology X Environment. We’ve designed three problems for each group to solve. First, give a solution that combines with microorganism and daily products to tackle with air pollutant. Second, come up with the idea to integrate both microorganism and buildings to generate power or reduce the wasted heat. Third, design a bio-system that can be embedded into the asphalt road to deal with the car exhaust emissions or the urban heat island effect (UHI). This section was highly praised because each team came up with numerous interesting ideas after intensive discussion and we all found it meaningful for the training itself! In conclusion, our designed warm-up activities have shown the four core values of iGEM: teamwork, think out of the box, crossover integration and deal with the real issue around the world. All the thoughts came out from that day may one day be a project or something we are eager to fulfill. We believe deeply that these difficulties truly exist and are waiting for us to dedicate ourselves in!
[ Figure. 4.1-2 ] The “teamwork section”. iGEMers focused on scheming out new idea for each program.
[ Figure. 4.1-3 ] The reassembled team were brainstorming. In the second stage, hey needed to conceive a way to better the world.
[ Figure. 4.2.2-1 ] 2017 5th Asia Pacific Conference.
2. According to iGEM NCTU’s project, they continued their former work in last year, trying to extend an extra function, aiming at a different target. In our case, this plan is something that we could try out because our we have a similar condition! Our devices have been completed around 70% though we only have one featured probe, EDCs probe. There is a high potential to develop some other featured probes or to integrate other iGEM team’s detectors like what we are doing now with iGEM WLC.
[ Figure. 4.2.2-2 ] During the session, we proposed advices and questions to many teams.
Government collaboration
[ Figure. 5.1-1 ] 2017 GF Competition and Workshop of Ministry of Economic Affairs, we are announced to join semi-final contest and also won 2000 USD.
[ Figure. 5.1-2 ] 2017 GF Competition and Workshop of Ministry of Economic Affairs, we won the excellent work prize and a bronze medal and 60000 NTD.
The whole system is set on three levels. First is the processor; second is the IoT and third are demonstrators. In the first level, we connected the demo-board to temperature meter, PH meter and our EDCs detector, which collect data and undergo a two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and then the proofread results will be transferred to IoT network. The data can be sent to a various receptor or memory like automatic control system, Node-RED, and MediaTek Cloud Sandbox. Take automatic control system for example, when the water quantity increases too fast, the controller will receive real-time data and changes its position to reduce the feed water so that the following reaction section could have sufficient time to react. As for the Node-RED system, after receiving data from demo-board, it will decide where they should go. The destinies could be a newsletter, FB Messenger, Email, Twitter or alert and Node-RED will also categorize who is authorized to receive based on the water condition. Finally, the data grabbed by cloud will be sent to our smartphone APP so that the users could supervise the real-time water quality.
[ Figure. 5.1-3 ] The blueprint of our IoT system. This branch chart describes includes every important element that we integrate in.
So far, we have built up the whole framework of the system but there are still some functions that haven’t been completed including Two-way ANOVA, connection with an automatic control system and integration of our EDCs detector. Two-way ANOVA is one of the crucial parts which needs a huge database to eliminate every effect from all the other variations. However, we cannot catch up to the deadline this year but we will build up this database in the future. Besides, since we need more data and experience to integrate EDCs probes and automatic control system, this part of work has not been executed. Nonetheless, this arduous work will be done in the near future as well.
[ Figure. 5.1-4 ] The Node-RED system. We utilize it to perform our IoT idea. Each green box on the right hand side is a single IP of user. The three main boxes on the left hand side is three different parameters like temperature and PH value. As to those boxes in the middle, they are the categorization machine which will define who is authorized for these certain data.
[ Figure. 5.1-5 ] Our MediaTek Cloud Sandbox will save the data uploaded by demo-board there and synchronize with the smartphone real-time monitoring APP.
In the future, we will collaborate with other iGEM teams to increase the diversity of our detecting device. For example, we will integrate other types of detectors like what we are doing now with iGEM WLC’s E.coli detector and iGEM NCKU’s nitrate detector. These tasks would not be too easy but that is what we have to do.
[ Figure. 5.1-6 ] Multilayers filter system. This part will be installed behind automatic control system which will keep it stay in adequate and affordable inlet water.
[ Figure. 5.1-7 ] Our prototype model based on the former blueprint. When the physical factors detected has exceeded the safety range, it will trigger the alert.
Cooperations
[ Figure. 6.1-1 ] Group photo with our SHU partners. This is there workshop and the model in front is a mini farmland which is used to scenery simulation.
Our main job is to build up a 3D model for a better following test for our EDCs detector and enzyme filter. This part is pretty vital since our enzyme filter is only capable for a small stream in, that is, we didn’t make a 1: 1 model owing to the concern of cost and result uncertainty. However, we designed the model based on flow dynamics and the data collected from field investigation. We are pretty sure that this model could demonstrate the real condition and is ready for any series of tests. The purpose to build up 3D model is not only to bring imagination into the living but also to serve as a pilot application. We are going to find out the potential problem that might happen after we put it into a real application so that we can fix it or improve it.
The whole cooperate session lasted for two months. Back and forth, we continuously optimized the model and learned from each other. Finally, we successfully integrated our valve control system and filter prototype into the 3D model.
．Collaborate Memo :
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NbO1KsUCSVLY1CGG31l_EkLZHMoyFnxzLPMMkBZLLVg/edit
[ Figure. 6.2-1 ] Technique transfer from our lab to iGEM NYMU. We offered a self-designed photo bio-reactor to iGEM NYMU, helping them to do the experiment.
．Collaborate Memo :
After the 5th Asia-Pacific iGEM Conference, NYMU team had a chance to contact the primary instructor of NTHU team, Dr. Ya-Tang Yang and his laboratory students. Dr. Yang is the associate professor of Institute of Electronics Engineering, National Tsing Hua University. They provided us with a set of Photo-Bioreactor made by themselves, and taught us how to use the Photo-Bioreactor. During August to September, we discussed with Dr.Yang and his lab students, trying to fix some difficulties we encountered.
After the Photo-Bioreactor finally worked smoothly, we started to measure the OD value of microalgae we cultivated, collected huge amounts of data, and drew growth curves for our projects. Meanwhile, we shared collated data to Dr. Yang’s lab for research use. We believe this collaboration would be a great academic exchange, and produce some interesting results. The pictures below show Dr. Ya-Tang Yang, NYMU team member with Dr. Yang’s lab, and the growth curve of Chlorella vulgaris as well as Synechococcus elongatus PCC 7942.
[ Figure. 6.2-2 ] The growth curve of Chlorella vulgaris as well as Synechococcus elongatus PCC 7942 utilizing the photo bioreactor.
-NYMU
