Human Practices
How we interacted with our community
Midwest Meetup-Collaboration
As iGEM advocates collaboration among teams, a number of teams in the Midwest US gather annually to discuss projects and learn from each other. We attended the Midwest Meetup with Michigan State, Ohio State, Alma College, and Carroll High School at MSU's campus. The day began with general ice-breakers and a talk from an MSU iGEM alumni. This friendship continued through a boisterous lunch at one of MSU's dining halls and culminated with a scavenger hunt across MSU's campus. In the afternoon, the teams presented on current stages of their projects. Carroll High School, as they were supported by the US Air Force Academy, had designed a biosensor to detect toxic hexavalent chromium that is frequently encountered in the aerospace industry for painting aircraft. MSU was designing an anaerobic methanotroph that could convert the methane produced in oxygen-less landfills into a biofuel precursor. OSU's project involved a nitrogen-fixing bacteria that could supplement corn growth, and Alma College was designing a construct to degrade TMA from red meat in the digestive tract to reduce heart disease. The collaborative discussion helped teams view roadblocks from new angles and think of new solutions to problems. We also benefited from discussing cell free systems with Carroll High School and mathematical modelling with Alma College.The UMich team thoroughly enjoyed this event and highly encourages other schools and regions to try and organize events like this as well! We certainly left with new friends and perspectives on our project.
Food Waste and Sustainability Panel
Concerned about how the public views environmental sustainability, we created a panel discussion on “food sustainability” to create a dialogue with experts and the public. This led us to consider how the general public might regard environmental sustainability. Our team hoped to excite a generation of future scientists about sustainability by involving them in this dialogue. To involve students at the University of Michigan in our research, we held a panel involving three professionals from various fields of research and M-Dining, the Michigan Dining hall organization. Therefore, the event showcased voices from the industry, ecology and evolutionary biology, public health, Urban planning and health management. The professors presented on their research and their thoughts on the ways companies and the public can be more sustainable and produce less food waste. Students had an opportunity to ask questions and engage with the matter of discussion.
In an academic setting such as the University of Michigan, we thought it best to take the approach of a panel open to the public in order to draw in students, professors, and residents of Ann Arbor. The panel provides a safe space for people to ask questions and allows for experts on the matter to present their research.
The panel was moderated by a member of our team and featured three faculty members who brought a variety of perspectives to the table. We researched the faculty members’ prior work and experience and drafted questions for the panelists in collaboration with them. The featured faculty members were:
Lesli Hoey from the Center for Sustainable Systems and Urban Planning
Lisa Bradshaw from Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Kieth Soster from Sustainable Food Systems Initiative and MDining
Natural History Museum
In order to engage the future generation of young scientists in problem-solving through biology, we held a children’s workshop event in collaboration with the University of Michigan Museum of Natural History in Ann Arbor, MI. We developed an activity designed to engage the children in thinking about DNA, how it orders biological processes in the body, and how synthetic biology can be a tool for problem-solving. The activity was constructing plasmid bracelets out of string (as the plasmid backbone) and beads (the DNA). We encouraged the children to think of each bead as a different gene and gave examples of how a gene could produce different hair or eye color. We also emphasized them to consider how even though there were a limited number of bead colors and styles, every bracelet was unique. This activity was engaging and exciting for the children, and though we did not use very technical language, it illustrated some essential introductory concepts in genetics and biology that played an integral role in the development of our project.
Meeting with Dr. Wolfe from the University of Michigan Chemistry Department
In order to quantify the amount of AHL present in spoiled milk, we performed well-diffusion assays as described in the experiment section. However, the concentration of AHL in milk was too low to be detected by the assay. After literature searches, we decided to use liquid-liquid extraction (LLE) to concentrate AHL in spoiled milk to a very small volume. During our initial attempts, we encountered technical difficulties due to the complexity of milk--an emulsion was formed during LLE and we were not able to separate the organic layer from the aqueous solution; the experiment results from our initial trials were not optimal either.
Since LLE is a common technique used in organic chemistry, we consulted multiple experts seeking their advice on our experiments. We had a meeting with a professor, Dr. John Wolfe, in the Chemistry Department at the University of Michigan for advice, where he gave us suggestions on how various components of milk could potentially affect our experiment and how we can improve our experiment process. Specifically, due to their structures, AHLs have greater solubility in organic solvents compared to aqueous solvents, while other components in milk (e.g. vitamins and cholesterol) are also soluble in organic solvents, resulting in AHLs mixed with other organic compounds that hindered our experiment. Dr. Wolfe gave advice on extraction solvent, milk sample selection, and filtration, and we adopted his advice for our LLE experiments.
Ohio State iGEM Team Meetup
Three members from the Ohio State University iGEM team visited Ann Arbor in the summer. Our team gave them a tour of our lab space and discussed about iGEM as it was their first year attending the Giant Jamboree. We enjoyed dinner together at an Ann Arbor local restaurant where we continued our discussion and had a Q&A session. To conclude the day, the OSU team members joined our team’s weekly meeting to observe how we organize and plan on a weekly basis.
Food Conference
We presented our project to many faculty and farmers at The Community of Food, Society & Justice Conference on October 18th, 2019. We received valuable practical advice and even possible consumerization opportunity. We were approached by workers from a dairy farm and corporate managers who are interested in investing our project. They told us that our biosensor has great potential in rural areas where resources are scarce. Other professionals have reminded us that our design can attract consumers more if we incorporate the design as part of the packaging of milk. The host of the conference, Dr. Virginia Murphy, has reminded us to clarify that “the only ferderally-mandated expiration dates are on infant formula and baby food, although some states also require dates on dairy products.” This further validates the importance and potential of our milk- spoilage-detecting biosensor.
