Overview

Our team, Taida NTU, has been involved in outreaching synthetic biology and human practice so far. Be specific, we introduced bioengineering, biotech and iGEM competition to high school students, undergraduate medical students and doctors in. To spread the understanding of synthetic biology more efficiently, we established a blog sharing some news, reviews and our works. We also collaborated and discussed with other team in Taiwan and the US. Additionally, we surveyed the students’ and doctors’ interest in utilizing synthetic biology in medical routine and research. All these activities are summarized below:

Goal

To outreach the concept of what synthetic biology is, and the understanding of how people apply synthetic biology to improve lives, and the awareness of all these advances’ physicochemical, medical and socio-ethical implications.

How We Did It

Activity 1

During this summer, we shared our ideas and the iGEM competition to college and high school students who expressed interest in bioengineering and basic molecular biology. Several symposiums were held by Department of Life Science, Medicine, and Dentistry in NTU respectively where we gave a brief introduction of synthetic biology, its effects and implications, and presented some posters and PowerPoint about our design to the students. All the members could learn about the basic concepts of synthetic biology and could discuss their point of view to each other and to our team. Some of them mentioned their worries about utilizing synthetic biology in illegal use and some controversial implications, such as bio-weapon development, bioterrorism, GM food, and application of stem cells, etc. The students also spoke of potential risks including unwanted spreading and multiplication of transgenic microorganisms, environmental protection, and long-term side effect on human body which could not be detected in early stages.

SAY SOMETHING!!

Activity 2

We also invited some of our classmates and other medical students of different grades to visit the lab, showing them how to perform some technique and the systems we designed. Moreover, students from different departments and fields were invited to participate our meetings as well, offering us different points of view and suggestion. We received many perceptive questions about our project and how we get the balance between research and clerkship in hospital.

SAY SOMETHING!!

Knowing that there’s a 3-year-long summer-student program for senior high school students in Taiwan, “Biological Programs for Selected Senior High School Students in Academia Sinica”, we’re planning to partner with some of their classes which start after mid-October and to provide some introduction to iGEM program and synthetic biology since most of our groups were the members before. (http://proj1.sinica.edu.tw/~hispj/index.html)