Team:Shanghaitech/Overview
Overview
In the Human Practice (HP) part, we seamlessly intergraded with our project, to do the HP for the project and to design / redesign the project for the HP. Briefly, inspired by the creativity and enthusiasm of non-biologists through interviews, we sought to find a solution to engage more general public to advance synthetic biology in an interactive way.
We invented MagicBlock, a platform that integrates controlling software, robotic hardware and quorum sensing bacteria as basic blocks to build gene circuits.
To put our platform into practice and obtain feedback for further improvement, we held two workshops to introduce the basic idea of synthetic biology and MagicBlock, and then guided participants to use MagicBlock to design their own bio-products.
Fascinatingly, we received various thought-provoking designs using MagicBlock elements, such as water pollution alarm, synthetic music, and bacteria painting panel, all originated from non-biologists, which potentially will inspire future research. Also, we received valuable feedback suggestions from participants and experts to improve our MagicBlock. We imagine a future of synthetic biology empowered by a more broad population and our MagicBlock should contribute to it a platform.
Background investigation
We interviewed people of different ages and occupations. We have found that many people are very enthusiastic and imaginative about bio-designs, yet have little knowledge in synthetic biology and little lab experience. We highlighted a few interesting interviews blew. Besides, we also have sent out questionnaire for broader audience. Their opinions are listed in the Background section.
‘We love designing bio-products.’
‘ But we have no lab experience, and know little about synthetic biology.’
‘What can we do?’
We build a part database, including input like the light sensor, output like GFP, etc. Our users can search in this database and use such parts to build their own design diagram.
‘It is awesome. But I have one suggestion. Actually common users don’t need to prepare the robot on their own, live videos might be good enough.’
Beforehand, we thought each user should have their own robot and launch the experiment at different places. Considering the suggestions from the workshop, we created a cloud platform with lab live streaming, which enables all the users to test the part on the same platform and integrate the database together.
Other improvements
Based on the questionnaires and deep interviews, we also improved our software and hardware, including reducing the mechanic force of the robot, adding ‘help’ instructions in the software as well as improving the user interface.
Future
Overall, the participants were surprised and attracted by Magicblock and showed their great support. We will keep their advice in mind and keep improving our project in the future. We believe that the Magicblock will one day help more people realize their synthetic biology dreams.
