Team:BIT/Practice/Silver
Background research
1. We interviewed Ms. Yu Ruozhen, researcher from Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences. She introduced the application of biosensor in her researching filed, water quality monitoring. She pointed out little research had been done in the field of our project as present mature and systematic applications are to water quality monitoring. It suggests that in some degree, the findings of our project can meet the market demand. We asked Ms. Yu some questions about ecological restoration as well. The present researches on biological impact on polluted areas are mainly done by comparing areas of similar natural conditions. She believes our project can bridge the gap in this field.
2. We visited the Aquatic Biology Laboratory in Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences. Through visiting the laboratory and listening to the introduction from concerned researchers, we have learned that a large number of biosensors are applied to water quality monitoring at present. They do undifferentiated detection when the pollutant is unidentified, and if early warning occurs they use further physical or chemical method to qualitatively analyze the water quality. This matches the hypothesis of our project.
3. We have had a face-to-face interview with firefighters―the potential users. Through survey we have learned that the present carry-on devices firefighters use are able to do part of ray and chemical material detection, but fail to identify the real damage the environment does to human body. Moreover, only basic devices are used to detect possible harm as there is no time for them to be equipped with advanced devices in event of emergencies, which increases the odds of fireman getting harmed in exposure to unknown environment. Their need proves that our device has enormous market potential.
4. Professor Deng Yulin of Beijing Institute of Technology has helped us with inspiring ideas and the general thinking of this project. He has shared with us the application of synthetic biology and its deeper meaning, and given much advice in team building and safety management.
5. Associate professor Lv Xuefei brain-stormed with us and did some correction on part of our project.
6. Associate professor Li Xiaoqiong has offered a variety of insightful ideas about the combination of our hardware and biology and the necessary technical support.
7. Our friend ZJUT-China provides data to support our program. Annex I
Program improvement
1. After learning our precise progress, Ms. Yu Ruozhen, research fellow from Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences, offered us some advice. In the first place, she pointed out that we should take the inherent shortcoming of biosensor―tolerability―into consideration and improve it. Secondly, she suggests we have a contrast between DNA damage radiant and the degree of oxidative stress injury of cells and establish mathematical modelling.
2. As target users, the firefighters hope that our device can help them to find out the environmental condition before they step in so as to better serve as a danger indicator. This gives us a good direction for project improvement. In most conditions, the environment firefighters dash in remains unknow, thus our device can work better if equipped with UAV, etc. Therefore, we will keep improving our device to make it more portable and convenient.
3. At the beginning of our project, we tried to learn public opinion on our project in the form of questionnaires and over 200 effective copies are recovered. By analyzing, we have learned that most people are quite interested in our project and some of them respond that their relatives with related jobs are expectant of the findings of our project.
Education
1. we invited teachers and experts related to the project to supplement relevant knowledge for us and help us conduct the experiment better.
2. The team has organized a one-day-long senior high lab day activity for students from High School Attached to Capital Normal University. We showed them around our labs and delivered a specific lecture to better their understanding in synthetic biology. Furthermore, we offered them a deeper level science popularization activity. Last summer vacation, we provided them with a two-week summer experiment course so that they could join us and do experiment with our guidance and tutoring, get the chance to participate in iGEM, master the corresponding experimental skills, and arouse their interest in becoming an iGEMer in the future. We also required them to keep the necessary experimental records and reports to cultivate their basic scientific research habits.
3. We have attracted people to participate in our activity by organizing outfield activities. They could win prizes by taking part in interactive games, by which they can learn about basic knowledge of synthetic biology and get to know IGEM.
4. We have disseminated synthetic biology and IGEM by holding science popularization lectures. What’s worth mentioning, to enrich the lecture and attract more audience, we also touched upon topics in space biology by making good use of the rich teaching resources of our university and the diversified educational background of our team. We explained the intersection between synthetic biology and space biology.
Online Publicity
1. In this internet era, new media are definitely efficient ways to reach wide audience. We have recorded our daily experiments and team building progress by Weibo and Twitter to let more people know about our team and project.
2. We update VLOG in Bilibili to introduce our daily experiments and HP work to let the public keep track of IGEMers’work and let students who are interested in IGEM learn IGEAM in advance .
3. We update WeChat Official Account with popular science articles.
