Team:OUC-China/Human Practices
Bronze
1. Project inspiration and description
Riboswitch is RNA-based regulatory tool that specifically modulates the expression of a gene or operon. It holds great potential as regulatory element in various applications (e.g. bioenergetics, biofuels, therapy, bioremediation and biochemical engineering). However, by referencing the project of Paris_Bettencourt in 2005 and other study about riboswitch, we found that it can’t be regarded as a modular device. The three problems below make the riboswitch quite hard to design and employ to the application.
○First, due to the context-dependent performance of riboswitch, its structure is easily damaged by the GOI, leading to the failure of responsive to ligand, so it can’t be a plug and play device.
○Second, existing riboswitch only has simple response curve. It’s restricted by the limited dynamic range and cannot achieve multi-level regulation. So riboswitch function is expected to enhance.
○Third, because the ligand of riboswitch is often hard to degrade in the experimental culture system, it often makes the system away from your prediction. So it’s not easily toggle between the on and off state.
Inspired by past literature and iGEM projects, we know that it's time to make modular riboswitch. This year, we proposed a principle to make modular riboswitch-”RiboLego”. Through our approach, riboswitch can be considered as a modular device whose function is enhanced and varied. So this project is a useful application of synthetic biology.
For more details, see the Project Inspiration and Description page.
Silver
1. Attach importance to bio-safety
1. Create many tools derived from the project
1.1 RiboFold
This year, OUC-China proposed a approach to design modular riboswitch rationally. However, when we tried to explain our projects to more people, we found that it’s difficult to fully understand, especially for some amateurish people. In order to let more people understand the principles of biology in an interesting and effective way, we are creating a game - meticulously. The game aims to allow users to build more riboswitches by adding sequence of expression platform while keeping the structure of the riboswitch intact. It will offer you the aptamer region of riboswitch and four buttons which respectively represent four bases. By continuously clicking the buttons, users can add the bases and complemented the expression platform of riboswitch. At the same time, the changed structure of riboswitch will appear on the screen. We believe that our game will offers the users an opportunity to randomly change the structure of riboswitch and construct more riboswitches. They can understand that the structure of riboswitch is so fragile that can easily influenced by the its sequence. And by playing our game, more people can understand our project very well! We will continue to improve it in order to achieve the best presentation effect!
1.2 Comic book
Ocean University of China published a comic book on synthetic biology in 2017. In 2018, the E. coli SPACESHIP comic book series began to cooperate on the iGEM official website and achieved high praise. This year, OUC-China continued the style of last year and added the new content. We have draw three more chapters, respectively including Riboswitch, Quorum Sensing and Safety.More foreign teams are willing to help us diversify the language of the comic book. At the same time, we cooperate with many domestic and foreign teams, and we are very honored that they are willing to use our comic book to promote the science of synthetic biology. It is worth mentioning that these teams also give us some good feedback about the effects of comic book E.coli SPACESHIP. we hope everyone to actively participate in science popularization, achieving the purpose of improving the depth and breadth of science popularization, strengthening the inheritance of synthetic biology.
For more details, see the Public Engagement page.
1.4 VR&Mini-lab: the real life of lab
During reaching out to the communities, we found that many people were interested in microbial and molecular experiments but had no chance to come in the biological lab. iGEM encouraged us to spread synthetic biology to the public by developing new tools. It’s also our responsibility to get more people to experience lab life. With reference to the results of the questionnaire and use VR technology, a great synthetic biology laboratory was built! It’s a golden opportunity for amateurish people to get in touch with laboratory. We have carried on the sharing and the propaganda in the school, has obtained the extremely high praise! We look forward to sharing with you on site this collection of many of our passion and wisdom of VR creation! And expect some feedback. We also recorded a video about VR and it will tell you something about our great idea! We also recorded a video about VR and it will tell you something about our great idea!
For more details, see the Software page.
1.5 Experiment manual
Invited by our teachers in Experiments Center, we edited an experimental manual including some basic microbiological operations and molecular operations independently. Our teacher wants to set up an experiment course with this experiment manual. We hope that our experimental operations will provide a reference to other students. We are very willing to share to realize the inheritance of iGEM.
For more details and get the PDF, see the Experimental manual.
