Summary

Since March 2012, in order to broadcast the synthetic biology and IGEM, we have arranged or taken part in various committee, activity and interesting competition, such as holding bio-model competition，participating the IGEM workshop of southern district of china, helping freshmen be familiar with our project and experiment or sharing our awkward problems and experience with some colleges.

IGEM Teach-in

IGEM is not popular in SCUT before 2012, which may result from the background of bioscience and bioengineering. In order to appeal more students and join us, so we arranged a teach-in at the end of 2012. Before the Teach-in, we have visited every dormitory of the student of school of bioscience and bioengineering to introduce what is iGEM, invited them to attend Teach-in and provided them an application form in which we could get the information about the their interest and potential of synthetic biology. During teach-in, the Asian gold medalist in the 2012 iGEM have made a presentation about synthetic biology and iGEM and shared what they have done in BGI.

Figure 1. Over one hundred students of SCUT attended the IGEM-SCUT teach-in and attended the interview to establish SCUT IGEM team.

Figure 2. Zhang Junjie was gaving a lecture about IGEM and synthetic biology

Bio-model competition & IGEM Workshop

Bio-model competition
Time lapse, iGEM was always there. We have cooperated with bioengineering class to arrange a biological model competition which aimed to cultivate the biology interest of student and increase the knowledge of synthetic biology. The theme of this contest was to construct bio-part model, such as double helix, endoplasmic reticulum or mitochondria, with diverse fruit and we have attracted 10 teams to join us. IGEM representative team used several kinds of fruit to construct an MAPK pathway, an endogenous signal pathway in S.cerevisiae, showing Figure 3. It is worthy to emphasize that MAPK is the pathway activated by heterologous GPCRs, Odr-10, which we prefer to express in yeast. Finally, Our model was precise and professional so that we got the champion in the game. So this time, we didn’t only advertise the international competition, iGEM, but also make them clear what we were doing and cultivate the biology interest.

Figure 3. IGEM representative team have made a Bio-Model of MAPK pathway of yeast

IGEM Workshop
On May 26th 2013, SCUT iGEM team attended the Workshop of southern district of China, arranged by Shenzhen-BGI IGEM team. There were 7 teams to attend the conference, include SCUT, BGI, SYSU, SUSTC and so on. Participants introduced their project and latest development, in the meantime, shared the experience and hardships we were facing. Through the communication, each team received great help and understood iGEM in detail, so as to urge us to work harder for project.

Figure 4. We have attended the workshop of southern district of china, arranged by Shenzhen-BGI IGEM team.

Figure 5.Wang Yicong was introducing project of SCUT_13 IGEM team.

Openday for the freshmen

At the beginning of the semester, Setp 11th 2013, the freshmen of School of bioscience and bioengineering were invited to visit the laboratory. Most of these students have some microbiological principals, but they have never done some complexly experiment.

Figure 6. Liao Xihao have made an introduction about SCUT-IGEM project to freshmen.

Our teamers have made an introduction about SCUT-IGEM project and shown some demonstrative experiment for them, such as, extracting plasmid, picking a single colony and something else. We aimed for providing a visual cognition of the synthetic biology, and meanwhile searching some talents who were interested in biological synthesis for the iGEM next year.

Figure 7. Kuang junqi explained the odorant sensing part in detail for freshmen.

Cooperation with SYSU

SYSU, originally known as Guangdong University, is located in Guangzhou of Guangdong Province where SCUT is the same as. For geographical relationship, it is reasonable that SCUT and SYSU help each other and communicate frequently. This year, Xihao helps SYSU IGEM team to express the Bax inhibitor, an apoptosis protein. Through this way, our team established a friendly relationship with SYSU team, and we communicate with each other about our progress and some awkward problems, which provide both of us more ways and more effective and original idea to do better in the routine experiment.