Integrated Human Practice
Investigation on a remie factory
Since the banana fibers are similar to ramie in their composition, we decided to visit Hubei Jinhua Textile Group in Wuhan in order to find out the status quo of the degumming technology of natural plant fibers. We can feel a kind of pungent smell the moment we got into the workshop. We interviewed the company director and find out that they used chemical degumming technology in majority to treat ramie. He also complained about the disadvantages of traditional chemical degumming methods to us. For example, the fibers dealt by chemical degumming methods are inferior in quality. In addition, this way produces a large amount of sewage which is difficult to treat. And the poor working conditions caused by the chemical waste do great harm to worker’s health.
While visiting, we stumbled upon a defunct biological degumming device. The manager explained that the biological degumming method has once been taken into practice but disposed of since it had some problems in practical application. The most prominent problem is that the environmental conditions required for bio-degumming are too strict, resulting in high cost of bio-degumming. We decided to learn from the failure of biological degumming of ramie and make our project connected more to the reality and fit in the factory operations.
As a result, we add a PH responding system to make our engineering organism more intelligent and able to make autonomic response to the environmental changes.
Field trip to banana planting base
Xuwen, in Zhanjiang City, Guangdong province, is known as the first county in China for banana planting. We went to Xuwen this summer to take a knowledge of the current situation of banana stalks treatment. We talked with the county party secretary of Xuwen about the banana planting and the method to disposing remnant stalks. He claimed that they really didn’t know how to deal with the banana stalks in applicable ways. In normal, they just cut them down and pile up a part of them in the farmlands as fertilizer. And they had to discard the rest of them just beside the streets which is really a waste of space.
We also communicated with the leaders and experts of the local Agriculture Bureau and introduced our project and synthetic biology to them. We gave out our brochures of our project to them and they were looking forward to the industrialization of our project. They claimed that it is much better than the chemical methods which made a lot of pollution and will solve a big problem in the banana planting industry.
During our field trip to the farmlands, we found that the banana industry was hit by a kind of fungal infection-- banana panama disease. The fungus causing this disease is Fusarium oxysporum which infects banana in special. During our talk with the experts, we found out that this fungus can infect the banana trees through soil and water. We put forward that it has a large possibility that the fast spread of banana panama disease is connected to the stalk compost. In the previous year, the fungus in the banana stalk penetrated into the soil due to composting behavior, and then infected with new seedlings. The experts agreed with this guess and that the treatment of banana stalks today does exacerbate the spread of banana panama disease. As a result, our project may help with the banana industry not only by disposing of waste and increasing production value, but also by alleviating the damage caused by banana panama disease to the banana industry.
We also communicated with the leaders and experts of the local Agriculture Bureau and introduced our project and synthetic biology to them. We gave out our brochures of our project to them and they were looking forward to the industrialization of our project. They claimed that it is much better than the chemical methods which made a lot of pollution and will solve a big problem in the banana planting industry.
During our field trip to the farmlands, we found that the banana industry was hit by a kind of fungal infection-- banana panama disease. The fungus causing this disease is Fusarium oxysporum which infects banana in special. During our talk with the experts, we found out that this fungus can infect the banana trees through soil and water. We put forward that it has a large possibility that the fast spread of banana panama disease is connected to the stalk compost. In the previous year, the fungus in the banana stalk penetrated into the soil due to composting behavior, and then infected with new seedlings. The experts agreed with this guess and that the treatment of banana stalks today does exacerbate the spread of banana panama disease. As a result, our project may help with the banana industry not only by disposing of waste and increasing production value, but also by alleviating the damage caused by banana panama disease to the banana industry.
Banana panama disease: fungi disease caused by Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. Cubense infection and spread around the world. It will make banana withering and die away gradually. In general, 3-5 years is must to soil recovery.
Interviewing the expert in bio-degumming of banana stalks
We contacted Sheng Zhanwu, a researcher at the Hainan Institute of Biology, whose research direction is the biological degumming of banana stalks. Through a brief call with him, we learned that the advantage of biological degumming is the quality of the remaining banana fiber is better than which disposed by chemical method. At the same time, the waste is also less, the utilization rate of stalk is relatively high. The current problem is the cost, which has become a key issue that we need to pay attention to. We also introduced our project design and current progress to him, he gave us some specific analysis and guidance on banana stalk fermentation, which provided a great help to our experimental progress.
We also have a communication with Professor Landick.His suggestions mean a lot to us.
Professor Landick has taught at the University of Wisconsin–Madison since 1996 and was recently appointed "Charles Yanofsky" distinguished professor (biochemistry and bacteriology) and "Laurens Anderson" distinguished professor (biochemistry).
Professor Landick introduces his synthetic biology plant in non-food crops, his team selected ethanol as the final target product to make biofuel. One team member talks to Professor about our project, and ask for his opinion. Professor Landick think high of our project and point out that we could develop more meaningful and valueable substances from the banana stalks. There are many areas that is too poor, if we can develop a in-situ treatment of agricultural waste and build factories next to the farm, we can improve the income of the locals.
He also points out that our system's promoter is a induced promoter, which is difficult to use and induce. This suggestion is important to us, so when we construct our whole pathway, we choose pGAP instead of AOX1.
Professor Landick introduces his synthetic biology plant in non-food crops, his team selected ethanol as the final target product to make biofuel. One team member talks to Professor about our project, and ask for his opinion. Professor Landick think high of our project and point out that we could develop more meaningful and valueable substances from the banana stalks. There are many areas that is too poor, if we can develop a in-situ treatment of agricultural waste and build factories next to the farm, we can improve the income of the locals.
He also points out that our system's promoter is a induced promoter, which is difficult to use and induce. This suggestion is important to us, so when we construct our whole pathway, we choose pGAP instead of AOX1.
Education & Public Engagement
Showing young students the beauty of biology
In order to introduce synthetic biology to young students and show them the magic of Biology, we cooperated with HBUT-China and went to Tongji Affiliated Secondary School to teach the students there a biology class. During the class, we taught them a lot of knowledge of biology and took them to the gate of synthetic biology. In addition, we prepared them with a knowledge quiz to help them remember what they had learned. The students are exciting and cheerful all through the class. When we finally left, many students said that they felt the interest of Biology and hoped that one day they can do researches in Biology.
Teaching high school students microbiology experiments to help them understand our project
To promote our projects and iGEM’s influence, we hosted a summer camp for high school students who visited our college. We taught them to do microbiology experiments and explain our project to them. We told them the disadvantages of chemical degumming methods and what problem we can solve if our project is industrialized. Through several microbiology experiments, we want to show them the magic of microorganism—even though the size of them is small, they can function as a well-equipped and advanced factory. And it is also the magic of iGEMers. We are just small individuals, but we may change the world! We hope that we can inspire their interest in synthetic biology and contribute to the future development of iGEM.
Survey about the public's understanding of the use of banana stalks and banana fiber
Survey about the public's understanding of the use of banana stalks and banana fiber
Target:
We engaged an online research on people’s knowledge of banana stalks and fibers and introduced our project and its necessity to the public, leading their expectation of the future of the banana fiber industry.
Results:
From all the questions and answers above, we can see that there is a large amount of people haven’t known that we can utilize banana stalks to make something useful. Actually, they even didn’t think about that before. But the good news is, after learning the advantages and disadvantages of biological and chemical degumming method, they support with the biological one in majority. A large part of the public also express their great interest and hope in the widely use of banana fibers. They also put forward a lot of different things which they hope that one day can be made from banana fibers. In addition, they also give us a lot of advice on what we may come across in the promotion of banana fiber products and their worries over them, which means our questionnaire aroused public concern about the utilization of banana stalk and had a positive impact. In the future, we will pay special attention to these suggestions in the process of industrialization of our project, making our project more realistic.
Feedback:
This questionnaire has been of great help to our project. It not only let us know that banana stalk is a perfect unused resource, but the public does not know enough about it, indicating that except for experiments, It is necessary for us to let more people know the available value of banana stalk with extensive public publicity, which provides guidance for us to follow up on human practice, but also tells us that our project is of great practical value, compared to chemical treatment with more pollution. The public is more willing to accept banana fiber extracted by biological treatment, which gives us a lot of confidence. Of course, this questionnaire have aroused public concern about banana stalk treatment, which is necessary.
Here is our questionnaire and data:
Question 1 : What is your age? [Multiple choice questions]
Question 2 : How many people do you think bananas provide for staple foods around the world? [Multiple choice questions]
Question 3 : How many abandoned banana stalks do you think the world will produce each year? [Multiple choice questions]
Question 4 : A large amount of untreated banana stalks causes problems such as waste of resources. Nowadays, we can extract the fibers in banana stalks by various degumming methods to enter the textile industry. Which of the following methods are you more willing to choose to process the banana fibers for your clothes and paper? [Multiple choice questions]
Question 5 : Have you heard about or used products made from banana fiber? [Multiple choice questions]
Question 6 : Do you accept crafts and clothing made from banana fiber? [Multiple choice questions]
Question 7 : The more natural environment-friendly banana fiber products and low-cost chemical products which will cause much pollution, which one will you support? [Multiple choice questions]
Question 8 : Are you optimistic about the banana fiber textile industry and expecting the future spread of banana fiber fabrics? [Multiple choice questions]
Question 9 : What kind of items do you think banana fiber can make in the future? (optional) [Fill-in-the-blanks]
Question 10 : What problems do you think may be encountered in the promotion of banana fiber products? (optional) [Fill-in-the-blanks]
