Team:ULaVerne Collab/Public Engagement
SACNAS Art, Science, and Community Day
Our team collaborated with the SACNAS (Society for Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans) association from the University of La Verne to organize this one-day event that invites local elementary schools to the university and get a tour of the different facilities in the science department, learn about different aspects of science, and participate in fun and engaging activities. Our team gave a presentation to the elementary students explaining about what is a gene, synthetic biology and its uses with fun animations. We also had activities where we taught the students how to pipette liquid food coloring dyes into agarose gels for the first time, which to our surprise they went from poking every hole into the gels into filling every well perfectly by the end of the activities. Below are some of the "fun" molecular powerpoint slides we tried to make for them.
University of La Verne Spring 2018 and Fall 2019 Club Fairs
Among the many clubs on campus, our team represent the Synthetic Biology club, which is one of the few science clubs on our small private campus. We asked students and faculties who passed by our booth what they know about synthetic biology, and we were not surprised to have found out that almost no one knows or have heard about it. We explained to them what the field consists of and gave examples of the synthetic biology iGEM projects that the university's students have done since 2015. Many of them were surprised at what our students have accomplished throughout the years, and quite a number of students have expressed interest in the field and asked us about applying to iGEM in the upcoming years. We are eager to see the new innovations that the future generations are going to bring into the field of synthetic biology.
Spotlight Weekend
During the university's spotlight weekend that welcomes new freshmen to the school, we set up our team's booth to the theme of GMOs and iGEM. A few of the faculties stopped by our booth at the sight of our "I Love GMOs" sign and asked us about what we are doing. Other than that, we asked the incoming freshmen and parents about how they feel about GMOs. Many people do not seem to know exactly how they feel but expressed that they "heard that it is bad". Our members explained to them about what is GMO and the real-life applications of GMOs and synthetic biology that they might have been consuming or using everyday. We ourselves already know that the public thinks anything GMOs are negative, so we were glad to just be able to merely inform the young seeds of the university and other people about what it really is regardless of whether they should support it or not.
Weekly Open Insulin Video Call
Since the beginning of summer we have been joining the Open Insulin's weekly community Zoom call every Wednesday evening in order to update everyone on each other's projects' progresses, and to share significant information, knowledge and resources with each other. The people joining the call are the Open Insulin team members, including the wet lab and dry lab people (social scientist, public health person, legislators), different scientists and researchers in various fields from different regions of the country, Biohacker spaces like Biocurious, and other organizations that express interest in the Open Insulin project. Due to our limited knowledge and resources compared to others, we mostly share about our wet lab processes and troubleshooting to better the insulin synthesis protocol, and ask others for advices and resources necessary for our team's project.
American Diabetes Association "Tour De Cure" Diabetes Walk
We volunteered and participated at the "Tour De Cure" Diabetes Walk held by the ADA (American Diabetes Association) to celebrate those who are living with diabetes. At the event we cheered and provided necessities for walkers, runners, and cyclers who have completed their 10K/5K routes. During our spare time, we spent a few hours talking with participants, volunteers, pharmaceutical representatives, and ADA staffs that were there about our project and motive, and asked them about any experience with diabetes and their thoughts regarding current insulin price in the US and what they want to see change in the future. When asked that question everyone was unsure but attributed the high price to the monopolizing manufacturers but also believe that other stakeholders are involved as well. However, everyone was somewhat pleased to know that we are working towards synthesizing open insulin, as they all acknowledge that the price of insulin in the US in indubitably high and most of the time hard to afford.
