Team:SHSBNU China/Human Practices

• Acknowledgement
• Team
  Team Members Our School Collaborations Attributions
• Judging
  Judging Achievements
• Model
  Modeling Software
• Safety
• Human Practices
  Intergrated Human Practices Public Engagement
• Parts
  Overview Basic parts Composite Part Collection Improve
• Lab
  Experiments Notebook Protocols
• Project
  Inspiration Description Design Results Hardware Demonstrate Prospect

Integrated Human Practices

Overview

In the process of designing our project, there were some parts we cannot be perfect, so we did some human practices to solve those problems. On the one hand, we wished to visit some experts and get some professional advices to improve our design. Besides, we also realized that synthetic biology has a good effect on public education, so we also did some public engagements to advertise our project and to let people be more interested in biology.

Attending Conference of China iGEMer Community, CCiC

On August 19th we flied to Shenzhen for the 6th CCiC. The routine of CCiC was similar with iGEM Giant Jamboree. We would like to experience team presentation, panel session and poster session in advanced. The initial purpose of this “Trip” is to experience and communicate with other teams as much as possible.

However, on the day before we hit the road to Shenzhen, our results of the flow cytometry indicated the reparation was ineffectual. Therefore, we had an additional task: to take inspiration from this event and to find out debug methods.

During the poster session, we viewed all the posters and surprisingly found several projects that may inspired us. We discussed about our project with FUDAN-TS1 team, who was going to build an evolutionary library. The methods we used have certain similarities. We told them that our repairing system were failed without any pre-indication. They helped us to analyze each step of our experiment and offered us suggestions about where the modification can be made. For example, the reverse transcription protein that we used may have low efficiency.

Judges from CCiC committee gave comment to our presentation and experiment. They reminded us about comparing other method in DNA reparation. After attending the CCiC, the experiment seemed to have large portion to be improved.

HP with BNU-China

Before collaborating with BNU team, there was a problem needed to be solved. Our initial destination was to search for some suggestions about the probable utility of our product. We envisioned that our system can be used in gastrointestinal test, and we received ideas about the usage scenario as well as some advice about optimizing the system.

They told us that intestinal environment is complicated. It is difficult to complete the whole process of quantitative detection in the intestine. Therefore, the plan we came up with was to complete quantitative detection outside the body -- letting bacteria test chemicals in the intestine and readout the final results in the experiment. This suggestion eventually promoted us to propose the idea of putting bacteria in a capsule.

Also, we discussed about the leak problem of promoter. They suggested us to change to a stronger promoter, optimized the system or designed a multi-bacterial system. We finally chose to optimize our system.

Communication with Shijiazhuang Pharmaceutical Group

After discussing with BNU, we met another problem that how it can keep testing in human body. In August, we got an occasional chance to get in touch with the manager of Shijiazhuang Pharmaceutical Group, and we visited there to get some advice for our project.

In the pharmaceutical factory, we first met with the minister of the biopharmaceutical department, and the purpose of this initiative was to introduce them our project and get some inspiration from their proposals. We told her about the “Probe” and we talked about its working mechanisms and its utilizations. We initially considered that our product would be used by doing subcutaneous injection. As a pharmacologist, she first told us something about drug production after hearing our introduction. In addition to learning about the basic processes of pharmaceuticals, she said that the current drug is highly demanded for efficiency, but the effect of our project will take many days to show. She told us that we can't keep injecting a person for so many days, so we needed to focus on improving our product’s efficiency.

First of all, we thought of perfusion culture, that is, to carry out a dynamic balance of testing in the human body. But the pharmaceutical sector told us that, considering about products need to meet hygiene standards, the perfusion culture is not very acceptable to the public. They also introduced us about the information of SRP, but we found that as far as our products were concerned, because there was no available literature.

Eventually we went to the drug regulator department and found a staff there. After introducing our project, she recommended an article that she thought would be helpful to our experiment. The paper is an article published in science by two MIT professors about the monitoring of bleeding in the digestive tract of pigs. They designed a capsule to act as a tool to monitor bleeding in the pig's intestines, where bacteria and signal transmitters are available, and the gathered information can be transmitted directly to an outside computer by radio to realize real-time monitoring. This program effectively solves the problems of low efficiency, short detection range and long detection time. The article inspired us, so we designed a capsule ourselves. We put the bacteria in the capsule and hope to have an effect in a day.

After we saying what we had envisioned, the staff also reminded us that the size and hardness of the capsules could also affect the usage, so we needed to think about whether the drug user can swallow the capsule. At the same time, she reminded us that the cost of a capsule should also be a major consideration. In order to save resources, we chose to use the recollect the capsule after use it. In the end, we decided to use magnets to recycle it from fece.

Communicating with People's Liberation Army General Hospital & Navy General Hospital

In order to get more professional advice about the capsule we designed, we went to People's Liberation Army General Hospital, as known as 301 Hospital. This time, we interviewed a director of the testing department who recently works on a capsule related project. We first explained the project to him. He told us that at present, there is no semi permeable film product, and 3D printing cannot do semi permeable film, as the lack of the accuracy. Now the only way to detect intestinal inflammation is to use gastroscope to remove the tissue and then put it under the microscope.

Then, we asked how long the capsule would stay in the body. He told us that a normal person takes about 4 hours from swallowing the capsule to going out of the stomach, which is under the influence of fasting and cathartic. In addition, he reminded us to pay attention to the effect of gastric acid on the capsule. There is also the influence of mucus on capsule. Because the capsule works to the maximum in the human colon, but the colon is very short, the actual working time available for the capsule is very limited. Besides, thiosulfate, which is based on intestinal fluid as carrier, may wrap the capsule in the mucus. Mucus is difficult to penetrate the semipermeable membrane. In these cases, E. coli in the capsule is difficult to work effectively.

At present, there is no way to collect capsules to detect intestinal inflammation. He suggested that we could cover the capsule with a layer of enteric coating, which could reduce the impact of gastric acid on the capsule. In addition, he suggested that we do some experiments before the actual production of the capsule to see if the mucus with the same viscosity as the intestinal fluid can penetrate the semipermeable membrane.

After that, we went to the Navy General Hospital and asked a director in the field of molecular biology. We first explained our project to her. She asked if we could test it in vitro. But we say that thiosulfate is very unstable and easy to degrade, so it is difficult to detect in vitro. Then, she reminded us something to pay attention to in capsule design. First is the specificity of our receptors and whether they would be interfered by similar chemicals. Secondly, she asked us to pay attention to whether the magnet in the capsule would interfere with the detection signal. She told us that the smaller the capsule, the easier for the patient to swallow.

All of these problems remind us some points that easy to be ignored in capsule design. In the end, our capsule design certainly avoids these problems.

Conclusion

While the project was carrying on, we met lots of difficulties. By taking part in CCiC, we got advices of improving our system. By collaborating with team of BNU, we knew how our design could be used. By communicating with Shijiazhuang Pharmaceutical Group, we knew that putting our bacteria in the capsule could solve the testing problem. By exchanging ideas with two hospitals, we knew how the capsule should be designed. All the advices from professional let us have clearer plans, and communicating with others while doing our project made our work more efficient.