Team:EPFL/SummerSchool

Education
and Public
Engagment

Summer School Teaching

The event

Every year, EPFL organize a Summer School program for high school students from Könitz, near Bern in Switzerland. During one week they discover our campus, the facilities and laboratories, as well as the research, conducted. The 4th of July, we had the opportunity to integrate synthetic biology into this program by teaching them about the iGEM competition, presenting our project and guiding them to perform three experiments related to it.

The experiments

The experiments were based on Biobits Explorer1, we adapted them to fit with our project. We started by expressing sfGFP into OnePot PURE which allowed us to teach them about protein expression, as well as cell-free systems. Then, we isolated DNA from banana and strawberry, this simple experiment taught them about DNA and cell lysis. The last experiment was to amplify the banana DNA by RPA, they learned how DNA amplification works and how RPA differs from PCR.

The outcome

The feedback was very positive, the students were happy to have some independence in their experiments and to observe fluorescent proteins. It was also an enriching experience for us, as it was our first time working as a team and performing in front of an audience. It highlighted our strength and areas of improvement in presentation skills.

EPFL Open Doors

The event

The 14th and 15th of September, EPFL held an open house on campus to celebrate the school's 50th anniversary. The visitors could visit stands, attend talks and participate in workshops.

Our contribution

As an iGEM team, we presented our project to the public. It was an amazing experience for us as we learned to adapt our speech according to the person's knowledge in biology. Overall, we had very good feedback. The people were interested in our project, as it targets a specific problem: grapevine diseases. They understood how our solution could be applicable in the field and many suggested we turned our project into a startup.