Team:TNCR Korea/HP/Gold Integrated

TNCR_KOREA — Digestable Gluten

Integrated and Gold Human Practices

"Free from gluten-free” campaign, ISNFF conference,
educational session, interview with gluten free bakery “Homi”, IGEM_TNCR Facebook page

Human Practices

We studied the relationships between DPP4 and diabetes which concerned us that the abuse of DPP4 to digest gluten could cause diabetes. Moreover, as excessive amount of DPP4 induces inflammation, we decided to use Anderson promoter to control the amount of DPP4 being activated.

Also, two of our survey clearly showed that Republic of Korea’s awareness of celiac disease is much lower than those of the globe. To compare the awareness, we made two survey targeting different participant. One survey was done during our campaign named “Free from gluten-free.” This survey was aimed to Korean and we asked students and teachers passing by to participate our survey. We received their responds by sticking stickers on a wide questionnaire divided into two sectors: yes and no. The other survey was done via internet which targeted people in the world. We designed our questionnaire in google form and posted it on the internet as an effort to get participants from abroad. In addition, we shared it with iGEM Greece to gain various participants. But to be sure, we added a question asking participant’s nationality, we can discriminate whether the survey was done by Korean or not. Through the two surveys, we clearly saw that the awareness of celiac disease patient was much less than other regions. This seriously concerned us as celiac disease is spreading throughout the world as western life style is expanding regardless of genetic heritage which is considered as a key factor causing celiac disease.

Thus, we went to “Homi,” a gluten-free bakery in seoul, to interview. Through the interview, we were able to recognize new how harsh industry of gluten-free in Korea was although gluten-free movement increased the sales of gluten-free bread. First, she told us that baking gluten-free bread requires much more work and time than those that does not contain gluten since around twenty ingredients needs pre-processing. Second, she mentioned that due to expensive price compared to gluten contained bread overlapping with economic depression, “Homi” is having a hard time due to lack of sales. Also, she is hoping the expansion of Korea’s gluten-free industry as industry of other country which is aware of celiac disease highly. These replies taught us people working on gluten industry was under difficult situation and baking gluten-free bread demands a huge effort.

After these surveys and interview, we felt even urgent to spread the idea of celiac disease patient and gluten-free bread. In order to spread these ideas, we went to educational session to teach children about the basics of synthetic biology and celiac disease patients. Also, through crowdfunding, we spread the idea and collected funds for further advertise there are people who cannot digest gluten and to donate for those who cannot digest gluten.

What Others Say

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Steve Jobs, Apple Inc.

What We Do

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