Team:RIS BKK/Judging

Judging

Integrated Human Practices

         As the first Thai team, it would only be fitting if what we did related to Thailand in some way. A large portion of the society in Thailand is agricultural-based, and that portion significantly affects the rest in multiple ways, whether it be culturally or economically. Thus, the society we reside in influenced our project to be related to agriculture, and how we can help our agricultural workers. By talking to many scientific experts, their feedback guided our project to what it is, while keeping the initial goal of helping our farmers in mind. Many iterations of the project were proposed, rejected, and revised until the project could settle into what we really could accomplish with our time and skill level available. The project was possible because of the relationship between our social environment and us, as well as the expert opinions we received.

Plant Synthetic Biology

         The goal of our project is to allow plants to fix nitrogen on their own. We have shown that nifH containing plasmid from Agrobacterium have been successfully transferred into orchid petals, plants, through the process of GUS assay in plants. Once plants can perform the process of nitrogen fixation, the need for chemical fertilizers and the costs associated with growing rice and other crops should decrease significantly.

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