Team:Aachen/Education
Science Communication
Energize, encourage, educate - science for everyone
Our goal is to energize all scientists that create phenomenal processes to tackle various problems humanity faces, like the sustainable and efficient production of pharmaceuticals and chemicals. We want to energize every person interested in synthetic biology to learn more about the science of our project and the general questions, mysteries, and ethical concerns coming along with it.
We strongly feel that synthetic biology is often inaccessible to people from all kinds of other backgrounds and yet is nowadays more important than ever before.
We wanted to change that. It is especially important to convey the science behind our project and provide a starting point to learn about synthetic biology to every person independent of their level of knowledge.
With our concept “Science for everyone” we actively engaged in discourse about all the sides of SynBio and the chances, challenges, and responsibilities it brings to us as humans. We organized different events for newcomers, prospective, and established scientists as well as for anyone without a scientific background, and brought them closer to understanding synthetic biology and our novel ideas. In return, we also learned a lot from people all over the world. In summary, we achieved an interesting discussion with people from three different continents not only about opinions and the impact of science but also about how we can communicate and understand each other in a respectful manner.
Our projects aiming at providing "Science for everyone":
Click on the light boxes. They will take you to the respective subsection. We strongly feel that synthetic biology is often inaccessible to people from all kinds of other backgrounds and yet is nowadays more important than ever before.
We wanted to change that. It is especially important to convey the science behind our project and provide a starting point to learn about synthetic biology to every person independent of their level of knowledge.
With our concept “Science for everyone” we actively engaged in discourse about all the sides of SynBio and the chances, challenges, and responsibilities it brings to us as humans. We organized different events for newcomers, prospective, and established scientists as well as for anyone without a scientific background, and brought them closer to understanding synthetic biology and our novel ideas. In return, we also learned a lot from people all over the world. In summary, we achieved an interesting discussion with people from three different continents not only about opinions and the impact of science but also about how we can communicate and understand each other in a respectful manner.
Our projects aiming at providing "Science for everyone":
- Science Communication for the broad public
- Podcast with iGEM Darmstadt
- Interview at Hochschulradio Aachen
- Gene Education Video with iGEM Maastricht
- Muggle Journal
- Science Communication for scientific newcomers
- Presentation for pupils from Uzbekistan
- Presentation for pupils from Costa Rica
- Meeting with pupils from Shanghai, Chengdu and Chongqing
- Science Communication for prospective scientists
- Science Communication for established scientists
Science for everyone
Science Communication for the broad public
Podcast with iGEM Darmstadt
We had the chance to participate in the podcast ‘Genomenal’ of the iGEM Team Darmstadt and made three episodes together with them. In these episodes, we talked about our two projects and the iGEM competition itself.
The podcast aimed to inform everybody without a scientific background about biotechnology and synthetic biology. In order to reach as many people as possible the podcast is published on the popular streaming platform Spotify. Normally two members of the iGEM team of Darmstadt talk about different topics of synthetic biology, explaining basic concepts and answering various questions.
In these three special episodes, a member of our team was invited to talk about their iGEM experience. We shared funny stories of situations we found ourselves in during the competition. Additionally, we talked about our Human Practices and Science Communication projects. In between the project presentations, we also attempted to explain the scientific wording to make the podcast accessible to everyone.
You can listen to the three episodes we participated in on the right. However, unfortunately, they are only available in German.
The podcast aimed to inform everybody without a scientific background about biotechnology and synthetic biology. In order to reach as many people as possible the podcast is published on the popular streaming platform Spotify. Normally two members of the iGEM team of Darmstadt talk about different topics of synthetic biology, explaining basic concepts and answering various questions.
In these three special episodes, a member of our team was invited to talk about their iGEM experience. We shared funny stories of situations we found ourselves in during the competition. Additionally, we talked about our Human Practices and Science Communication projects. In between the project presentations, we also attempted to explain the scientific wording to make the podcast accessible to everyone.
You can listen to the three episodes we participated in on the right. However, unfortunately, they are only available in German.
Interview at Hochschulradio Aachen
We were live at the radio station of our university, the RWTH Aachen. Being interviewed was provided us the chance to get closer to students of our university. We gave everybody an understanding of our project and synthetic biology. It was an unusual situation. After all, the task was to explain our project in an easy understanding way, because the broad public, as well as students from other fields, could listen to the interview. By illustrating the applications of our system, we showed how each one of us benefits from M.A.R.S. Our project aroused their interest so much that immediately at the end of the interview, we arranged another session that will take place after the Giant Jamboree to report about the final results.
Unfortunately, the Interview is only available in German but you can listen to it here:
Unfortunately, the Interview is only available in German but you can listen to it here:
Gene Education Video with iGEM Maastricht
Educating the broad public about biological topics is extremely important. Especially topics which are harsh to get into are easier to grasp if someone, who is profound in that field of study explains it. Therefore, team Maastricht offered us to do a featured video on their YouTube channel “Geneducation”. The content of “Geneducation“ consists of explaining iGEM project ideas as well as elementary biological topics for a broad audience. In order to gain more public interest in M.A.R.S. we decided to present the idea of our bioreactor.
Therefore, we gave a short introduction about ATP and biological energy on a basic level in the first half of the video, so we could put across the importance of our project idea for people of non-biological background.
See the resulting video here:
Therefore, we gave a short introduction about ATP and biological energy on a basic level in the first half of the video, so we could put across the importance of our project idea for people of non-biological background.
See the resulting video here:
Muggle Journal
Additionally to the article for iGEM MSP-Maastricht’s Proceedings Journal we created a second article for the MSP Proceedings “Muggle” Journal. The article did not focus on our laboratory work's technical details and method, but rather it presented our concept
and implementation ideas. The target audience is explicitly the broad public, without a background in synthetic biology.
The edited journal is available here.
The edited journal is available here.
Science Communication for scientific newcomers
Presentation for pupils from Uzbekistan
Educating people of various backgrounds, especially spreading the knowledge to people with low access to the scientific world is one of the aspects we wanted to focus on.
Learning the list of participated countries in iGEM, we noticed that such regions as Central Asia or Africa are poorly informed of what iGEM is and how students could battle the ongoing global problems by coming up with their innovative ideas.
Uzbekistan is a country of particular interest for us. Learning more about climate change at school, the problem of the Aral Sea was always mentioned. We wanted to focus on Uzbek students and
help them open their potential and enhance the research competence. Creating projects to solve the problem of the Aral Sea and to level up the innovation level in that region in general, iGEM is the
right springboard for that.
The cooperation with the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany in Uzbekistan (Tashkent), Goethe Institute Tashkent, the German Academic Exchange Service, and the World Association of Youth in Uzbekistan gave us a platform to show our impact on a sustainable future world and to motivate young Uzbek students to run more such projects, to build connections internationally and maybe even step up as the first iGEM team from Uzbekistan.
The meeting lasted for about two hours. In this time, we explained what iGEM is, showed the potential of Biotechnology based on the example of one of our team member’s research project in the field
of cancer stem cells, highlighted the importance of the participation in various research competitions worldwide, and explained the science behind our project. Later we had a discussion round and
could answer all the questions not only concerning our idea but also about what personal skills are required for such projects; how to raise money to finance the idea; the comparison of a student
life between Uzbekistan and Germany as well as the importance of improvement of intercultural competence.
Lastly, we got a lot of positive feedback from the participants and a huge appreciation from the above-mentioned organizations.
“No country can really develop unless its citizens are educated”, - Nelson Mandela.
See the invitation to our presentation here.
Learning the list of participated countries in iGEM, we noticed that such regions as Central Asia or Africa are poorly informed of what iGEM is and how students could battle the ongoing global problems by coming up with their innovative ideas.
Uzbekistan is a country of particular interest for us. Learning more about climate change at school, the problem of the Aral Sea was always mentioned. We wanted to focus on Uzbek students and
help them open their potential and enhance the research competence. Creating projects to solve the problem of the Aral Sea and to level up the innovation level in that region in general, iGEM is the
right springboard for that.The cooperation with the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany in Uzbekistan (Tashkent), Goethe Institute Tashkent, the German Academic Exchange Service, and the World Association of Youth in Uzbekistan gave us a platform to show our impact on a sustainable future world and to motivate young Uzbek students to run more such projects, to build connections internationally and maybe even step up as the first iGEM team from Uzbekistan.
The meeting lasted for about two hours. In this time, we explained what iGEM is, showed the potential of Biotechnology based on the example of one of our team member’s research project in the field
of cancer stem cells, highlighted the importance of the participation in various research competitions worldwide, and explained the science behind our project. Later we had a discussion round and
could answer all the questions not only concerning our idea but also about what personal skills are required for such projects; how to raise money to finance the idea; the comparison of a student
life between Uzbekistan and Germany as well as the importance of improvement of intercultural competence.Lastly, we got a lot of positive feedback from the participants and a huge appreciation from the above-mentioned organizations.
“No country can really develop unless its citizens are educated”, - Nelson Mandela.
See the invitation to our presentation here.
Presentation for pupils from Costa Rica
We met around 30 pupils of a Costa Rican school. In this meeting, we wanted to spread the idea of biotechnology and iGEM, as well as our project. The students were very interested in the structure of our team and how it works together with the competition. We explained the importance of relying on each other and that everybody should give their best to fulfill together the tasks of the team. Especially we pointed out that every single team member has its own exceptional abilities and that everybody can contribute to such a project. Through the interdisciplinary nature of our team, we could show that no matter what you study, you can be part of an iGEM team.
Apart from that, we presented the importance of the molecule ATP, which was only known as a molecule in metabolic pathways. Connected to our project and the idea of it, we were able to illustrate that it can be used in many industrial processes.
Meeting with pupils from Shanghai, Chengdu and Chongqing
As science plays an exceedingly important role in our life, public engagement with young scientists across the globe is, therefore, of great importance. Thus, we are interested in discussing the role
of synthetic biology and science in general with our international peers.China – a country with a rising status as a global scientific power. iGEM helped us strengthen the connection between the science students from Aachen and pupils from Chinese schools. We are thankful to “Zentralstelle für das Auslandsschulwesen in China” to organize this event with 47 students from megapolises like Shanghai, Chengdu, and Chongqing. We could build an academic culture that values science as the power to shift our future for a more sustainable and environmentally friendly world. In our Zoom-meeting sessions with different countries, the discussion about the importance of biotechnology and synthetic biology and the role of young scientists on a global stage could also deliver the idea of social responsibility to Chinese pupils, who may once become future science leaders.
After we introduced the potential of iGEM competition and explained our project, we discussed how to build a new iGEM team, the importance of using our opportunities to talk with others on an international level, and how to enhance the global dialogue between youth, especially in times of coronavirus pandemic.
Science Communication for prospective scientists
Science Guide 2020 of btS Aachen
The btS, which is short for “biotechnologische Studenteninitiative” (biotechnological student initiative), is a Life Science student initiative from Germany. Once a year the Aachen group of btS publishes a science guide. It introduces local scientific groups and their work to interested people from the field of biology and biotechnology. For this year’s edition, we wrote an article about the iGEM competition and the history of Teams from Aachen participating in it. By doing so, we introduced iGEM to committed young scientists.
English version of the text:
The "international Genetically Engineered Machines" Competition, iGEM Competition for short, is an international student competition in the field of synthetic biology. It has its roots in a course held at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2003, which aimed to make biological systems usable in a context other than the natural one. This same goal is still the focus of the annual competition, which now attracts more than 350 teams from over 40 countries. Since 2014, one of them is a team from RWTH Aachen University, which is supported by Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Wiechert, Prof. Dr. Ulrich Schwaneberg and Prof. Dr. Lars Blank.
The members of the participating teams are mainly students of life sciences and biotechnology. However, students of other natural sciences or engineering disciplines are also among the participants. In this interdisciplinary environment, the teams have about one semester to develop a project idea and implement it in the laboratory. The results are documented on the team's own website during the semester and presented to the other teams and the expert jury at final presentations in Boston at the end of October each year.
In addition to the actual work on the project, the teams have to cooperate with other teams, organize meetings, do public relations work, and take care of the organization for the daily laboratory routine, ordering laboratory utensils and raising funds. Furthermore, the theoretical modeling of the project as well as the creation of a hardware appropriate to the project is desired. The Aachen teams have mastered all these challenges with flying colors so far, which has already earned them several nominations, prizes and a gold medal every year.
English version of the text:
The "international Genetically Engineered Machines" Competition, iGEM Competition for short, is an international student competition in the field of synthetic biology. It has its roots in a course held at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2003, which aimed to make biological systems usable in a context other than the natural one. This same goal is still the focus of the annual competition, which now attracts more than 350 teams from over 40 countries. Since 2014, one of them is a team from RWTH Aachen University, which is supported by Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Wiechert, Prof. Dr. Ulrich Schwaneberg and Prof. Dr. Lars Blank.
The members of the participating teams are mainly students of life sciences and biotechnology. However, students of other natural sciences or engineering disciplines are also among the participants. In this interdisciplinary environment, the teams have about one semester to develop a project idea and implement it in the laboratory. The results are documented on the team's own website during the semester and presented to the other teams and the expert jury at final presentations in Boston at the end of October each year.
In addition to the actual work on the project, the teams have to cooperate with other teams, organize meetings, do public relations work, and take care of the organization for the daily laboratory routine, ordering laboratory utensils and raising funds. Furthermore, the theoretical modeling of the project as well as the creation of a hardware appropriate to the project is desired. The Aachen teams have mastered all these challenges with flying colors so far, which has already earned them several nominations, prizes and a gold medal every year.
Information text for freshman students
Every autumn, the student council for Life Sciences publishes an information brochure for the freshman students starting their studies in Biology or Biotechnology at RWTH Aachen University.
As it is very important for us as an iGEM team to spread awareness about the possibilities synthetic biology offers, we gladly accepted their invitation for writing a short article about the iGEM
competition in general and our team in particular. Their goal here was to introduce student initiatives to the freshmen so that they learn where they can get involved during their studies.
For us, this meant to have the chance to introduce iGEM to freshmen students who will hopefully continue the work of iGEM Aachen in the future.
Unfortunately, the introductory event for the new students will not take place this year due to the corona-pandemic. Therefore, the brochure will not be printed this year but made available online
via the platform RWTHmoodle. Our text can be found there in the section "Erstikrams" (German for "stuff for freshmen") in the pdf document "Vorstellung der Eigeninitiativen" which means "presentation of the initiatives".
English version of the text:
Since 2014, the iGEM Team Aachen participates in the "international Genetically Engineered Machine" competition, in short iGEM competition. This is an international student competition in synthetic biology, in which interdisciplinary teams from all over the world work for one semester on self-chosen projects. The goal of these projects is to solve medical, industrial or environmental problems by using biological systems outside their natural context.
The results of the projects are presented to the other teams and a scientific jury at the final event, the Giant Jamboree, at the end of October each year. With the support of Prof. Blank, Prof. Schwaneberg and Prof. Wiechert, the iGEM team from Aachen has won a gold medal every year so far. For this purpose, besides the development and execution of the project idea, other aspects such as public relations, meetings with other teams and expert discussions have to be organized. In addition, the teams themselves are responsible for documenting the work and raising the necessary funds. Please visit our website igem.rwth-aachen.de to learn more about us and the competition.
Around December each year the current Aachen iGEM team recruits a new one. We would be happy if you would join us soon.
English version of the text:
Since 2014, the iGEM Team Aachen participates in the "international Genetically Engineered Machine" competition, in short iGEM competition. This is an international student competition in synthetic biology, in which interdisciplinary teams from all over the world work for one semester on self-chosen projects. The goal of these projects is to solve medical, industrial or environmental problems by using biological systems outside their natural context.
The results of the projects are presented to the other teams and a scientific jury at the final event, the Giant Jamboree, at the end of October each year. With the support of Prof. Blank, Prof. Schwaneberg and Prof. Wiechert, the iGEM team from Aachen has won a gold medal every year so far. For this purpose, besides the development and execution of the project idea, other aspects such as public relations, meetings with other teams and expert discussions have to be organized. In addition, the teams themselves are responsible for documenting the work and raising the necessary funds. Please visit our website igem.rwth-aachen.de to learn more about us and the competition.
Around December each year the current Aachen iGEM team recruits a new one. We would be happy if you would join us soon.
Science Communication for established scientists
German magazine BIOspektrum
The journal BIOspektrum, which is the publication organ of the Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (GBM), the Association for General and Applied Microbiology (VAAM), the Society for
Genetics (GfG), and the German Society for Experimental and Clinical Pharmacology and Toxicology (DGPT), reaches around 15,000 readers through a wide range of information. The publication of an
article about us and our project enabled us to gain a significant range of information about iGEM and synthetic biology.
English version of the text:
A good breakfast provides us with the necessary energy in the morning - likewise most small molecular machines need a source of energy to work adequately. The universal energy source adenosine triphosphate (ATP) is an important cofactor in this respect, and with its high energy phosphate bonds provides the necessary driving force for enzymatic conversion reactions. In cells of living organisms, regeneration takes place via various metabolic pathways. However, when exporting conversion reactions into an isolated and product-oriented process, the said regeneration via cell-internal metabolic pathways is currently both uneconomical and ineffective. Nevertheless, we have chosen this enzyme system because this approach offers immense advantages: The work with immobilized enzymes not only allows a more targeted reaction process through high-purity product yield, selective enantiomeric purity and hardly any side reactions, but also an environmentally friendly process approach: Our goal is to overcome the above mentioned hurdles and to establish an innovative method for the synthetic recycling of ATP with M.A.R.S., the magnetic ATP recycling system. With the support of Lars Blank, Ulrich Schwaneberg and Wolfgang Wiechert as well as their teams from the RWTH Aachen University and the Forschungszentrum Jülich, the team is creating an artificial power plant in the form of a protocell, which is modelled on the mitochondrium, in a bottom-up approach. This chassis generates a proton gradient across its membrane by means of the inwardly directed, light-driven proton pump Bacteriorhodopsin, so that the ATP synthase, which is also installed, can use this gradient for the synthesis of ATP. The binding of the chassis to magnetic particles by means of linker peptides allows reuse by magnetic separation in a specially created reactor. iGEM relies on extensive collaborations with other iGEM teams and experts in the field to ensure a broad social and professional exchange despite - or perhaps because of - corona.
English version of the text:
A good breakfast provides us with the necessary energy in the morning - likewise most small molecular machines need a source of energy to work adequately. The universal energy source adenosine triphosphate (ATP) is an important cofactor in this respect, and with its high energy phosphate bonds provides the necessary driving force for enzymatic conversion reactions. In cells of living organisms, regeneration takes place via various metabolic pathways. However, when exporting conversion reactions into an isolated and product-oriented process, the said regeneration via cell-internal metabolic pathways is currently both uneconomical and ineffective. Nevertheless, we have chosen this enzyme system because this approach offers immense advantages: The work with immobilized enzymes not only allows a more targeted reaction process through high-purity product yield, selective enantiomeric purity and hardly any side reactions, but also an environmentally friendly process approach: Our goal is to overcome the above mentioned hurdles and to establish an innovative method for the synthetic recycling of ATP with M.A.R.S., the magnetic ATP recycling system. With the support of Lars Blank, Ulrich Schwaneberg and Wolfgang Wiechert as well as their teams from the RWTH Aachen University and the Forschungszentrum Jülich, the team is creating an artificial power plant in the form of a protocell, which is modelled on the mitochondrium, in a bottom-up approach. This chassis generates a proton gradient across its membrane by means of the inwardly directed, light-driven proton pump Bacteriorhodopsin, so that the ATP synthase, which is also installed, can use this gradient for the synthesis of ATP. The binding of the chassis to magnetic particles by means of linker peptides allows reuse by magnetic separation in a specially created reactor. iGEM relies on extensive collaborations with other iGEM teams and experts in the field to ensure a broad social and professional exchange despite - or perhaps because of - corona.