Team:DUT China A/Awards
Awards
Throughout this year, we did a lot of meaningful things. Here, we summarize the work we did according to the medal criteria. You can click on the links below to go to the respective pages.
Registration and Giant Jamboree Attendance
Competition Deliverables
- Wiki
- Poster
- Presentation
- Judging Form
Special Prize
1. Measurement
We performed a measurement approach with gold nanoparticle-based colorimetric detection using DNA aptamers. It is well known that short ssDNA is readily adsorbed onto the surface of AuNPs without any modification and that such ssDNA-treated AuNPs are more stable than untreated ones. With this in mind, to test the usefulness of the aptamer for the kanamycin, we applied a colorimetric method using AuNP aggregation. When salt was added to the solution containing ssDNA aptamer-treated AuNPs, the color of the solution didn't change, but when the kanamycin was added into the system, the AuNPs aggregated and exhibited a change of color from red to purple. We used A620/A520 to reflect this change.
2. Model
We use mathematical modeling to determine parameters and narrow our
range of options. Specifically, three models were adopted for our
project: The binding of aptamers to target spots, the appropriate time
for growth of hydrogels and the determination of inhibitor.
The first model, we established several equations based on the
molecular mechanism in cell micro-environment and solved them.
The second model, we used post feedback neural network to predict the
radius of colloidal particles in given time. By training the network
with experimental data, we can get an approximate mapping from time to
radius of colloidal particles.
In the third model, we
interpreted the issue as an optimization problem and used
thermodynamics theory to quantify the objective and constraint
functions.
3. Integrated Human Practices
As the project began, we interviewed hospitals, medical treatments supply companies and professional scientific research institutions and were inspired to come up with our project of Circulating Tumor Cells (CTCs) capturing. We also contacted some researchers in related fields to ensure the viability of using aptamer and DNA hydrogel to recognize and encapsulate CTCs. With our project being carrying out, we also received guidance from many professors and experts. Especially thanks to HaploX for their support.
4. Education and Public Engagement
We helped a high school to establish their synthetic biology community, and also launched a long-term teaching and experimenting development plan for the high school. We organized debate competitions in our university to discuss the issues involved in the project from different perspectives, which turned out the strengthening our project’s connection to the society. This year, we continued our university's iGEM Student Association. We organized training courses and activities to popularize Synthetic Biology and iGEM in our university. Additionally, we held an information sharing event at the 70th anniversary celebration of our university to promote our project and conduct on-site communication.
5. Entrepreneurship
Our project is about Circulation Tumor Cells (CTCs) capturing and we devoted ourselves to building a kit aiming at detecting and catching individual living CTCs. We never gave up applying our projects in both scientific and application fields. We successfully attracted attentions from HaploX Company, who focuses on accurate target tumor medical treatment. We are mentioned that our project aiming to living CTCs may be helpful for their technical vacancy, so we provided a business plan for HaploX at the early stage of the project. During the development of our project, HaploX kept in touch with us and even offered us a specific report of our project on their official social media account. They would also like to provide detailed sample analysis and sample detection as our feedback.