First Greater Bay Area Synthetic Biology Forum and the Second Greater Bay Area Synthetic Biology Conference
We co-organized the First Greater Bay Area Synthetic Biology Forum and the Second Greater Bay Area Synthetic Biology Conference with the South China University of Technology. The first forum was held in the Chinese University of Hong Kong, which the theme was: “Rewriting the Genetic Codes - the Development of Synthetic Biology in A New Era". The second conference was held in the South China University of Technology with the theme as "The Application of Synthetic Biology and Socialization". The two conferences are synthetic biology topic forums which aim to deepen the regional cooperation among Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao and promote the development of synthetic biology education. Universities include the University of Hong Kong, Jinan University, University of Macau and Guangdong University of Technology joined as participants, we also had experts include Professor Hong XUE, Professor ZHU Wei, Professor CHENG Hon Ki Christopher etc. to give us constructive advice. The collaboration with the above stated universities and professionals helps more emerging synthetic biology researchers like us to better grow and develop.
Hong Kong iGEM Symposium 2019
We co-organized the Hong Kong iGEM Symposium 2019 with the HK LFC PC team in order to collaborate with different iGEM teams in Hong Kong and share progress among teams. iGEMers shared their projects and comments through the presentation session and group discussion. Secondary school teams gained some suggestions and experience from students of all teams. The university teams act as senior iGemer to help our local junior teams so that the idea of iGEM could be inherited. Meanwhile, Senior iGemer communicate with each other in order to improve the performance of HK iGEM teams.
Collaborate with University of Macau
On July 27th, the University of Macau came to our lab to visit us. We established good connection by providing feedback and contact of authoritative expert of related studies. We further discussed technical problems including: 1) Knowledge on BioBirck scar usage; 2) Common protein expression condition; 3) Suggestion on how to complete the medal requirements.
Collaborate with Hong Kong University of Technology
From the meetup with HKUST on August 17th, we found that they have the difficulty in finding the suitable plasmid from companies. Thus, we suggested them to carry out mutagensis with the plasmid we have in HK-CUHK lab. We provided the mammalian dCas9 plasmid developed by our laboratory for HKUST to carry out mutagenesis to create dCas9 they needed so as to save its energy in the subsequent experiments. HKUST is very experienced in dry lab modelling, thus we ask for their help in starting the dry lab modelling. They taught us the basic commands of Matlab, and give us possible directions like calculating kinetics in our system for dry lab modelling.
Collaboration with the University of Edinburgh
On August 2nd 2019, we met with the University of Edinburgh iGEM Team. We discussed what our projects are about and tried to find ways how we could potentially help out each other. I signposted their team for modelling – The University of Edinburgh recommended us to reach out to St. Andrews team for dynamic modelling advice and explained how constraint-based modelling works in case they’d find it useful. The University of Edinburgh also offered help in learning how to program in Python. Our team offered to do wet lab measurements for the University of Edinburgh in September.
Collaborate with the Institute of Pomology of Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (IPCAAS)
With the interview with National Centre for Banana Improvement in Guangzhou, we noticed the problem of applying our design in the in-field setting: applying in soil is not applicable and the concentration of the biomarker (DSF) we targeted in the field may not be sufficient to activate our detection system. Therefore, we have changed our focus to apply our design to the facilities in export and import facility like Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department (AFCD) in Hong Kong for direct sample screening. According to our previous interview, these kinds of departments are looking for lab-independent devices for testing pathogen. His words opened up another path of detection kit as product to us, which redirected our product to be applicable to custom use of elimination of infected bananas from getting imported in certain countries or regions.