Public Engagement

About cell free system

Cell free systems combine cellular machineries, including polymerases, ribosomes, and transcription factors, in an in vitro setting to carry out the processes of transcription and translation, which circumvents the need for specialized, sterile equipment and media to culture living cells; and also, the lack of living cells eliminates concerns of biocontainment. These systems can function, as other methods, by adding essential components such as nucleotides, amino acids, and energy equivalents. In addition, we have shown that cell free systems can be freeze-dried along with genetic elements to form pellets that are stable at room temperature and are highly portable. These mean that cell free systems can be conducted in simple classrooms, and they also offer platforms to increase student involvement, illustrate core concepts in molecular and synthetic biology, and provide opportunities for independent, student-directed research projects in the life sciences.

We find there are few successful and engaging systems for teaching advanced molecular or synthetic biology concepts in a hands-on manner. This absence is largely due to the particularities of traditional biology experimentation—which requires a cold chain to prevent the biological components from spoiling, sterile equipment and media to prevent contamination—, specialized instruments such as shaking incubators, and concerns with the biocontainment of recombinant microorganisms. Therefore, the required time of cell-free system is much shorter than the that of a traditional one, and cell-free systems do not require lab equipment and those delicate freezers, as they can be proceeded only in a tube and under room temperature. Thus, it is viable for students and teachers to finish the experiment just in classroom. Moreover, although synthetic biology kits have great potential as educational tools to teach molecular and synthetic biology concepts but are generally too expensive to implement in classrooms due to the numerous infrastructure requirements of these types of experiments and lead to a series of problems like safety of the reagents. Lastly, as they do not involve the use of bacteria, cell-free systems are relatively safer than the traditional one for students to operate.

Fig.1

Fig.1 demonstrates the traditional synthetic biology approach, which is complicated and time-consuming.

Fig.2

Fig.2 demonstrates the cell free system approach is far more simple and suitable for teaching synthetic biology concepts.

Thus, with all of the downsides of conventional approaches, we look for a new educational device—cell free systems, which has two unique features corresponding to this aim: straight-forward in demonstration, and viable in classroom circumstances.

Fig.3

Fig.3 demonstrates the advantages of cell free system compared to the traditional approach.

Liking to the fragrance library

Our library can be efficiently applied to cell free system. For example, we can imply the banana odorant- producing part from our library into the cell free system and present to students how banana odorant is produced. Similarly, all the fragrance parts in our library could be used, and a vast range of examples will be demonstrated to students, thus provide students with the concept of molecular cloning and synthetic biology which includes the manipulation of different parts. Further, it can teach students about basic enzymatic reactions, draw the students’ attention to the experiments, and inspire potential research projects for more advanced student groups.

However, we didn’t actually give out any classes among primary school students. We have the concept, the suggestion from a professional teacher, and even as seen in Fig.4 a complete work of the GFP in cell free system, in another word, we have already got everything needed to give out the classes. The problem is that according to the biosafety reason, we are not allowed to take any out from the lab, not to say bring a tube of solution into a primary school, and to some extend our class may become some sort of human experiment. We don’t want it to cause too much trouble, not to say violating the safety principles, thus our ideology of cell free system only remains as a concept ready to be implemented.

Fig.4

Fig.4 demonstrates the result of GFP expression in cell free system.

More results in cell free system please read our article under the subtitle “results”

Feedback from a professional teacher

In order to improve our teaching process, we asked for suggestion from a experienced and professional biology teacher in the institution, Geoffrey Nyoro. He initially confirm ed our ideas about cell free system, and he even thought, with this method, he did not need to talk about several topics to achieve exactly same teaching result in fundamental biology class. In addition, he could reduce the time set for a teaching scheme. For instance, in the past, teaching molecular cloning biology cost him 6 periods for theory as well as practical exercise; he imagined in the future, the time required to teach the same topic will be reduced into only 2 periods, which is a huge improvement in teaching efficiency. Combining the class with experiments, cell free system can help students to understand course context more thoroughly. Using this method, his students can trace their initial fondness for the sciences to formative experiences with hands-on exploratory kits. Besides, Mr. Nyoro also proposed that cell free system could be used in a new way of identifying cancer at early stage.

Beijing high school team regional meeting

From the presentation, iGEM ambassador Ph.D. Candidate Zhang Nan recognized the deficiency of molecular biology operation knowledge among most of the high school teams. Therefore, we compile an operation booklet for all the new participants in lab work. Mr. Jeff Hu, the iGEM high school committee executive, found the booklet is potentially useful for the whole community. Therefore, he requested to let this booklet be used as subsidiary material for iGEM High school community.

(https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2019/7/71/T--RDFZ-China--Public.pdf)

Also, to make it more universal, we have both Chinese and English versions. If the condition allows, we will summon all the teams (epically high school teams) to translate it into more diverse languages.

We also engaged in CCIC seminar and learned a lot.

Reference

Huang, A, Nguyen, P.Q., Stark, J.C., Takahashi, M.K., Donghia, N., Ferrante, T., …Collins, J.J (2018). BioBitsTM Explorer: A modular synthetic biology education kit. Retrieved from https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/4/8/eaat5105

Team:RDFZ-China/Engagement