Team:NJU China/Human Practice

Synthetic biology provides us a novel way to maximally engineer and re-design natural biological systems, thus increasing the well-being of humankind. iGEM, at the same time, is a great promotion of synthetic biology, as it enables students worldwide to share their ideas together. It also offers a platform for us to enjoy the intellectual pleasure of synthetic biology and inspire us to think and to design our systems. Since 2005, iGEM has attracted more and more young people to get involved in this great competition.

China, as well as other parts of the world, has played an active role in the progress of iGEM. Over the past few years, the number of Chinese teams started from a few to more than 50. However, there are still vast areas (altogether 17 provinces, half of all provinces in China) which iGEM hasn’t reached yet. This year, our team, NJU-China, contacted and visited the universities in these unreached provinces to promote and develop iGEM and synthetic biology and to clarify the ethical and safety issues concerning synthetic biology. We travelled 21171 km in total, more than half of the circumference of the earth. The cities and provinces we have reached include Xining (Qinhai), Hohhot (Inner Mongolia), Xian (Shanxi), Shijiazhuang (Hebei), Nanchang (Jiangxi), Changsha (Hunan Provinc), Changchun (Jilin), Dalian (Liaoning) and Kunming (Yunnan). We plan to reach the other eight provinces next year.



In the universities we visited, we organized seminars to promote iGEM and clarify the ethical and safety issues about synthetic biology. During each seminar, our team member first introduced iGEM and synthetic biology to the students. Then we discussed the ethical and the safety issues concerning synthetic biology. The students were actively involved in the seminar and expressed their strong interest in both synthetic biology and iGEM. Apart from that, during the discussion, the students put forward many wonderful arguments. Some of them were in favor of the synthetic biology and they believed that synthetic biology can benefit our lives in the field of food, energy, environment and medicine. However, some else were against it because they thought that we interfered natural world through synthetic biology. After the discussion of the ethical and safety issues, these young students had a new understanding of the synthetic biology.

Through our promotion in these provinces, the students in these provinces expressed their strong desire to participate in the iGEM next year. We believe that the young students in these previously unreached provinces will get actively involved in iGEM and become new members of the whole family of iGEM in the future.

Synthetic biology provides us a novel way to maximally engineer and redesign natural biological systems thus increase the wellbeing of us humankind. iGEM，at the same time, is a great promotion of synthetic biology for it enables students worldwide to share their ideas together. It also offers a platform for us to enjoy the intellectual pleasure of synthetic biology and inspire us to think, as well as to design our systems. To better understand synthetic biology and exchange our ideas with other brilliant iGEMers, our team, NJU-China, established collaboration with several other iGEM teams, including USTC, ZJU, and XMU.



Meet-up with USTC, ZJU, XMU
As tyros in iGEM, we turn to other teams for experience of synthetic biology and iGEM.
17th May, two of us, Gong Fei and Weng Mingxi, went to USTC. We meet USTC iGEMers in their lab and the captain of USTC, Zhang Sitao, generously shared their experience of iGEM with us. Later we talked about our projects for 2013 iGEM.

24th May, Gong Fei and Wei Xiuqing, Niu Yuchen, Dai Yimei went to visit ZJU iGEM team. We both presented our projects to each other. They were designing a detective system by using aptamer which our team member Gong Fei has experience in, so we exchanged some ideas and they also provide us with some advice on our project.



24th June, Gong Fei, Xiong Aoli, Chen Xi and Niu Yuchen from our team, met up with XMU iGEM team members in Xia Men University. After a brief introduction of the member composition of our teams, we both gave a presentation of our 2013 project. Their advisor Wu Xin has participated in the iGEM twice and he has a lot of experience, providing us plenty of valuable advice. We also talked about how to better promote iGEM and synthetic biology in our home universities.