Human Practice

UT-Tokyo team set 2 goals for Human Practice in this year;

1. To make better circumstances of Japanese teams’ experiments and management

2. To familiarize Synthetic Biology more in general public

The motivations of these goals are as follows;

1.In the present condition, some Japanese teams do not have enough support from universities orcompanies and it directly links to the quality of projects. In order to develop Japanese teams’projects, we thought it is necessary to make circumstances in which Japanese teams can have more support.

2.In Japan, the word, ‘synthetic biology’, ‘genetic transformation’ is not broadly accepted with favorand not understood fully. For future development of synthetic biology, we thought it is important toeducate general public.

In order to achieve these goals, we did the following;

1.Foundation of iGEM-JapanUT-Tokyo founded iGEM-Japan with other seven Japanese teams (HokkaidoU_Japan, Tokyo-Tech,TMU-Tokyo, Tokyo-NoKoGen, KAIT-Japan, Osaka, Kyoto) and cooperated each other. As the result, weare offered a lot of reagents for free from Promega Corporation and also aided by IKEDA SCIENTIFICCo., Ltd. These results were great help for us. We think it led to make the basement where iGEM isbroadly accepted as the number of companies supporting us increased

2-1. Educational Activity for general publicIn order to familiarize synthetic biology and iGEM to general public, UT-Tokyo joined many eventsand did poster sessions or presentations. For example, we explained about our projects andsynthetic biology in school festivals at the University of Tokyo, and spoke on the future of syntheticbiology in Career Discovery Seminar, which was held by Leave a Nest Co., Ltd.

2-2. Educational Activity for high school studentsIt is also important to educate high school students, So, we joined Science Castle, which was the poster session of scientific research by high school students. We also supported Fuji MetropolitanHigh School in 2 ways; we helped their self study twice a month and instructed students whoparticipated in a scientific competition as mentors.

2-3. Feedback from experts for educational activityIn order to confirm the quality of our human practice, we tried to have the opportunity to be givenadvice from experts. We joined Japanese Society for Cell Synthesis Research and we were provided withsome useful feedbacks such as what kind of explanation is easier to understand.

2-4.“E.clock Simulator” is a simulation game which is helpful to understand multicellular analog clock.

Players can create and simulate oscillation waves by using cells which emit signaling molecules. Through this game, the player can learn basic knowledge of signaling molecules and quorum sensing. This game is also usable as a tutorial for modeling of oscillator. At the beginning of the game, players can run the oscillation waves by dropping signaling molecules on the cells that have constructions related to quorum sensing. Running this simulation, the players will learn about ideas of oscillator. But as you know, this game does not realize ‘clock’. If it is clock, it has to overcome two problems; it need to move in one direction and it must not have autonomic oscillation because the number of a clock hand must be one. In order to make multicellular analogue clock, we made effort developing from this simple oscillation. If you want to know more detail, please enjoy our Multicellular Analogue Clock page!

The game is also implemented with an action game. In the action game, you can assign cells which emit signaling molecules to kill bad bacterias. The action game is designed so that you not only to enjoy the game but also to learn how the clock works.

Collaborations

1.iGEM-Japan

Agent Support from Promega

Last year, UT-Tokyo got large support from Promega, a famous agent company. This year,considering the circumstances that Japanese teams tend to get little support from universities orcompanies, Promega offered their reagents to iGEM-Japan teams.

Sharing Information/iGEM-Japan Meeting held by TMU-Tokyo

We promoted more interaction among Japanese teams in this year. For example, we shared eachteams’ project via internet and meeting thankfully held by TMU-Tokyo. Through pointing out eachteam’s problem of project, we developed the quality of our projects.

Skype conference with NTU-Best

In spring, we also did skype conference with NTU-BEST, a team of National Taiwan University. Thetwo teams introduced their projects each other and it was very good opportunity to get a feedbackfrom others. We also shared information about management, and after that we often helped each other.

Others

In addition, we answered some questions from other teams. For example, TU/Eindhoven has anproject on “Synthetic Facts”. In this project, They were going to make the database to checkwhether every question for the synthetic biology made by ordinary people who do not havespecialized background is right.We cooperated with them by making the examples of some“facts”. Also we helped Purdue University’s human practice.

To simulate the cell-cell communication system, we developed a delayed differential equation model. The equation used in the model are followings. The variables are described in the following table.

Acknowledgements & Sponsors

We would like to thank the following laboratories and organizations, other iGEM2013 teams forunderstanding of our activities and offering generous supports

Laboratories

Watanabe Laboratory, Graduate School of cultural studies, University of Tokyo, did safety controlwhen we carried out experiments. They also provided us with a laboratory, various equipment andadvice when we did experiments during the summer vacation.Ota Laboratory and Wakamoto Laboratory, Graduate Schools of culture studies, university of Tokyooffered laboratories and equipment when we practiced experiment at the beginning of our project in spring.

Companies

Leave a Nest Co., Ltd. nvited us to events, Science Castle and Career Discovery Seminar, whichwe attended as a part of Human Practice. They also introduced the projects of iGEM to variouscompanies. Thanks to the introduction, the companies have offered favorable answers and thesewere great help to us.

Promega Corporation offered a lot of reagents, kits and competent cells to iGEM-Japan teams.

IKEDA SCIENTIFIC Co., Ltd. decided to aid iGEM-Japan, which will help more interaction among Japanese teams.

COSMO BIO Co., LTD also aided us in this year. We thank they have helped iGEM teams every year

Other iGEM2013 team

Uppsala and Tokyo_Tech gave us biobrick parts.

Thank you for all of the supports! Without them we can’t complete our projects