Team:Dundee/HumanPractice/PublicEngagement

Café Scientifique is a worldwide initiative event which makes science and current research more accessible to the public. During this event scientists present their research in an approachable manner which gives the public a unique opportunity to engage with the people behind the white coats, and discourages from believing in media myths while seeking the expert’s opinion.

We took part in Café Science Dundee, and presented our project to the public at the Dundee Science Centre. With synthetic biology being such a ground breaking new field, it is of great importance to introduce it in a positive light and to encourage the understanding of its positive power.

The foundation of our project lies in the heart of the local community and hence it was a great opportunity to showcase synthetic biology as a feasible solution to the closure of Clatto Reservoir and other local sites. We used the opportunity as a means to encourage the public to ask questions, give them an insight into what we do, and also to involve them in saving our local reservoirs.

2013 is the first year in which the UK has had a team enter the iGEM High School division. We hope that this will encourage more schools to join in and get as excited about the possibilities of synthetic biology as we are. As a result, we took on the job of encouraging local schools to get involved.

The University of Dundee works closely with Grove Academy, a high school in Broughty Ferry (near Dundee), to promote science in schools. We visited Grove Academy in a bid to educate students about the capabilities of microorganisms, how they work and why they are used. The students really enjoyed the experience and were very excited to use a microscope and to see microorganisms they had only heard about/seen in books before. We may even have our first Scottish High School iGEM team!

In 2011, the University of Dundee introduced a new improved curriculum for the College of Life Sciences. Within this curriculum, an opportunity was presented to involve students in a practical laboratory exercise similar to iGEM.

In this practical, students would design and engineer their own constructs using BioBricks from The Registry of Standard Biological Parts. The main objective of such an exercise is to encourage students to think independently and give them confidence in their laboratory skills.

This year, the iGEM-styled practical had its first run and encountered many problems throughout the semester. One of the main concerns was the high costs of running the operation which affected the cloning stage. There was also a significant problem with the use of the iGEM vector plasmid pSB1C3, which proved tricky to work with. For cost reasons associated with running the practical, the pSB1C3 plasmid could not be gel extracted or phosphatase treated resulting in the original insert, rhodopsin, re-ligating back into the vector at high frequency.

To overcome this, we have engineered a small insert that contains SpeI and XbaI sites creating an “empty” vector that would allow students use either traditional cloning or the 3A assembly method if desired. This means that our vector does not need to be purified and the chances of re-cloning the original insert are much lower ensuring a smoother and cheaper run of the iGEM practical.

This practical exercise is a great way to encourage students to explore the field of synthetic biology. We also presented our iGEM project to all of the current undergraduate students, emphasising the great experience we have had and how advantageous doing a summer project can be to your future career in science.

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We wanted to ensure that the general public fully understood what our project was tackling and how we intended to go about it. We realised that the research so far was aimed at an audience with a scientific background and that we had nothing which would allow the public an insight into synthetic biology. That was when we came up with the idea of creating a comic book for both the local community and for other iGEM teams. We have found that it has been a big hit for all ages and disciplines and allowed for a greater understanding across a wider range of people.

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Video Game

There is something about the uniquely interactive and immersive nature of games that makes them a powerful tool for learning and engagement. This year, the team collaborated with a group of game design students studying at the University of Abertay, Dundee to bring some comedy and entertainment from the ToxiMop bacteria in the form of a flash game. Although the game does not represent any of the real physical actions of the ToxiMop, it was created to bring some entertainment to younger audiences and some respite from serious talk for the older. Please, have a go!

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