Introduction

NCTU Formosa team did a lot of work on Human Practices, endeavoring to get people in other areas to know the great power of Synthetic Biology. We held a Bio-camp for high school students and did iGEM Cooperation throughout the country. We even tried to do Surveys from high school students, netizens around the world and professors from National Chiao Tung University and made L-shaped folders to voice to the world. And the most important one, we created a Facebook Page for those interested in Biosynthetic Biology who can now follow up our works.

　Details

　Bio-camp

　Schedule for our Bio-camp

　Day 2

At the second day of the camp, and we prepared a lecture for introducing the future development of synthetic biology; today we were aimed to let the students know some basic knowledge as well as the competition methods of iGEM and how we did the experiments.

We did our best to introduce many contents in easy way. However, Mr. Tsai captured the students’ attention by his humorous speech, so that he turned the abstract and hard molecular biology concept in an easy way. Moreover, students were also took their notes hardly. At the end, they could totally get into the profound of the synthetic biology. Miss. Zhong introduced many interesting applications of synthetic biology and amazed the students. They also contributed some interesting ideas during the Q&A time.

We answer students’ questions anytime anywhere and helped them catch the core concepts of the synthetic biology.

Overall, we first introduced the development of the synthetic biology, and then introduce the origin, the competition and where the iGEM competition is held.

And we talked about some basic biobricks to yield our target proteins, and introduced the functions and properties of the enzymes that were usually used.

In order to let students have more complete structure of experiment, we design a recycle illustration to represent the relations of each step, and introduced each experiments contents and necessities by simple words. To let students clearly understand the concepts and methods of the synthetic biology, we edited some basic introduction and easy examples into the handouts. So they could not only understand the course easily but also do exercises right away to test themselves whether they really understood what we had taught in the class. Because most of them were Senior 2 students and part of them were Senior 3 students, their background knowledge are different. As a result, we needed to let Senior 2 understand but not too easy for Senior 3. And it was also a challenge for us to edit the handouts. Finally, we chose some examples like the regulator mechanism of the lactose, the fluorescence mark of the protein, etc. These were all questions we wanted to test themselves, and we hoped them could learn a lot from the courses.

　Day 4

On the fourth day of biotech-camp, we have special arrangements. A half-day experimental course for students to experience the experimental techniques which our team used frequently: culture bacteria, get plasmid, electrophoresis, etc.

Then we explained the steps and principle of experiment by PowerPoint clearly .To increase the familiarity of experimental operation, and prevented accidents happened. After the experiment began, we set the iGEM team members in each group so that they can avoid to make the mistakes during the experiment and they more understand the experimental technique by our members help.

The E.coli we prepare for them had been transplanted red fluorescent protein gene, and it is beautiful red at the beginning. But when we added the solution II which is need for taking the plasmid out of the bacteria, the color changed suddenly into bright yellow. What’s more, when we added the solution III, it changed form yellow into colorless. This significant color change phenomenon made the student surprised and to give rise to their curiosity on iGEM, finally, aroused their passion on the experiment.

　Day 6

Today we had a trip to visit the supreme academic organization in Taiwan. Our destination is the Genomics Research Center, Academia Sinica. We invited two professors to go with us, and hoped them to answer the questions if we can’t figure it out by ourselves. Genomics Research Center also generously provided us the opportunity to visit their lab and they explained how the equipment works in detail. And we also explored the cutting-edge technologies of genomics by their lecturer’s speech.

　Day 6

In the last day of the camp, we held a competition to test the learning achievement of students. In order to know whether the knowledge that each group members learn in these days had keep in their mind, we design some question of genetic engineering to make students use their brains. And then we invited Mr. Tsai who is very energetic and humorous to host the competition. First, they should listen to the question and write the answer onto the whiteboard which we had given participants in each group. Second, they should show the answer to everyone. Last, we according to the creativity and feasibility of the answer to give scores, just like just like a real iGEM competition, so the students experience personally the presence of competition. Due to the special charm of the host the atmosphere is tense and exciting. This competition between the group is difficult to decide who will win or who will lose. The points between each team were very close, so every students effort to recall the lessons learned knowledge, were hoping to win glory for the team. I believe the knowledge and experience they have learned in this six-day camp was precious. And they’ll never forget this memorable trip.

　iGEM Cooperation

(developing)

　Popularization on Campus

We made a short film introducing iGEM , hoping that we can promote this interesting, brain-storming competition to everybody. We described iGEM as an once-in-a-lifetime experience, that anybody with a big heart & strong mind can participate in it. We play this film in the student diner at lunch time, so people can relax and see this film like they’re seeing a movie.

After seeing the short film above, some students told us that they want to know more about iGEM. So we made another film sharing our experience about doing experiments, trial-and-error learning, joining the iGEM final competition in MIT, and other feelings that words couldn’t definitely express. We’re glad that many students in different fields told us that they’re willing to join iGEM 2013. We believe they can surely add a great diversity of ideas to iGEM!

　Popular Science Creation

Department of Biological Science and Technology and Department of Communication and Technology cooperate to make a Brief introduction to synthesis biology.

With the skill of CT and knowledge of DBT, we make a video with four simple question and following answer.

We hope this short interview can help general public understand the Application and technique, influence of synthesis biology. Also we wish this video can decrease Irrational fear of Genetically modified creature, and build the positive concept.

This short interview will put on the popular science website – KEBOWEN, sharing with the internet to the whole Chinese area.

　Surveys

(developing)

　L-shaped Folders

We make colorful double-sided-l-shaped folders, which are designed by De-Jung Tseng. We hope that everyone who get our folders can have a deep impression on NCTU iGEM team as well as our experimental topic------ E. coline, and experimental purpose------ Solved the problem of energy crisis and air pollution , life would be better by applying our project

Our designed ideas are below:

On the front side shows a blackboard sketched with our ideas of producing biosynthetis isobutanol to make life better. For the left part, we illustrate the pathway that indicates how cellulose is metabolited to isobutanol by constructing the enzymes, while for the right part shows two major method to increase the production of biosynthetic isobutanol , tempreature control system and zinc finger utilization. The enzymes are indicated as the robots with their specific zinc finger shown in the triangle sign. The temperature control system is illustrated as the traffic light between IlvD and KivD.

On the back side strictly shows the synthesis and application of isobutanol produced by our project , Eco.Fuel Ecoline. With the production line of Eco.Fuel , isobutanol would be easily accessible and so that could be widely used to replace gasoline that leads to air pollution.