Team:MIT/HumanPractices
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We are passionate about sharing the emergent advances and exciting research in the field of synthetic biology with young minds! On August 12, 2012, we taught a course on Synthetic Biology to local Boston middle-school students through the MIT Educational Studies Program. Our fun course included introducing the central dogma and basic molecular biology background information, cool circuit parts and simple molecular biology design tools, and interesting new applications of the research. Through our engaging course, we hope to have inspired these young minds to learn more about the field and to join us as members of the synthetic biology community someday! | We are passionate about sharing the emergent advances and exciting research in the field of synthetic biology with young minds! On August 12, 2012, we taught a course on Synthetic Biology to local Boston middle-school students through the MIT Educational Studies Program. Our fun course included introducing the central dogma and basic molecular biology background information, cool circuit parts and simple molecular biology design tools, and interesting new applications of the research. Through our engaging course, we hope to have inspired these young minds to learn more about the field and to join us as members of the synthetic biology community someday! |
Revision as of 19:28, 3 October 2012
We are passionate about sharing the emergent advances and exciting research in the field of synthetic biology with young minds! On August 12, 2012, we taught a course on Synthetic Biology to local Boston middle-school students through the MIT Educational Studies Program. Our fun course included introducing the central dogma and basic molecular biology background information, cool circuit parts and simple molecular biology design tools, and interesting new applications of the research. Through our engaging course, we hope to have inspired these young minds to learn more about the field and to join us as members of the synthetic biology community someday!
International Outreach Projects
Internationalization Project of Synthetic Biology
The Internationalization Project of Synthetic Biology (IPSB) is a collaborative project between MIT and Tel-Aviv University (TAU) that aims to introduce synthetic biology to Palestinians, promote it in Israel, and create a network of understanding Palestinian and Israeli leaders. It aims to do so by bringing together gifted Palestinian and Israeli high school students for three years, and teaching them the principles of bioengineering and bio-entrepreneurship. At the end of the third year, the students would present their technical project in iGEM’s high school contest, along with a business plan for commercializing it in iGEM;s entrepreneurial contest. Logistics of the program include sending MIT students would be sent to Tel-Aviv in the summer to teach the students, and TAU instructors would take over supervision throughout the academic year. The pilot program will run for one year (June 2013-June 2014), and hopefully a Palestinian-Israeli iGEM college team will be created in the future.Biosafety Research
Our iGEM team has been considering the safety implications of synthetic biology research, with one member becoming directly involved in MIT’s Program on Emerging Technologies (PoET). His work was done under the supervision of professor Kenneth Oye, an MIT professor affiliated with both MIT’s political science department and Engineering Systems Division (ESD). This work was presented in a poster on one of the Synthetic Biology Engineering Research Center’s (SynBERC) retreats, and produced a literature review about the methods used to assess the competitiveness of engineered organisms should they be released to the outer environment. The review provided background knowledge for Oye’s group when organizing the conference “Beyond Containment: Assessing, Testing, and Demonstrating Safety On Release of Synbio Devices and Chassis,” which took place in the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington DC, and was attended by members of government, academia, and industry.Wellesley
We collaborated with the Wellesley HCI team as beta-testers of their software! Check out their wiki. We got to play with Wellesley's touch screen MoClo planner software, on a large PixelSense-style screen (a.k.a. the old, pre-tablet Microsoft Surface). MoClo planner makes the plasmid-building process easier by integrating research tools, computer aided design, and construction planning under one application. Having experienced plasmid construction firsthand this summer, the MIT iGEM team wholeheartedly supports any efforts to make the task simpler.
SOMEONE ADD SOME PICTURES HERESeveral members of our team also tested SynBio Search, Wellesley's semantic search website for synthetic biologists.
In addition to testing their software, we also helped the Wellesley team by hosting Wellesley observers in our team meetings. Through observing our team in action, the Wellesley team improved their understanding of what sorts of tools synthetic biologists need, and what challenges they face that can be solved by software.