Team:ECUST China/Awards
1. Competition Deliverable
We have completed all competition deliverables, including wiki, poster, presentation video, project promotion video, and judging form.
2. Attributions
We have taken down detailed attributions faithfully. (link to Attributions)
3. Project Description
Our story begins with a suffering spring and then we searched for more. Do you want to know the part behind our project? (link to Description)
4. Contributions
We have made the shell of D-E-detector through 3D printing, and the relevant design details can be seen on our hardware page. More details about contributions are in the link (Contribution).
1. Engineering Success
We have successfully assembled DNA Walker and qualitatively verified its detection capability. We have also successfully carried out E-CRISPR experiments and verified the shearing of EC_lineG. We have already created parts for the ssDNA we used in the project. More details in Parts and Experiment.
2. Collaborations
Collaborations were an important part of our work, which promotes the continuous improvement of our projects. We collaborated with ZJUT_China, NEU_China, Jiangnan_China, JACOXH_China to promote each other's projects, and communicated the competition experiences and arrangements. We also took part in CCIC and ECiM to learn from others and show our project. More details in Collaboration.
3. Human Practices
We have organized and participated in colorful human practices activities and gained lots of ideas. Through various human practices, we moved our project forward.
4. Proposed Implementation
We draw the target before we shoot the arrow, so we are very clear where our target is. What we want to do is a POCT nucleic acid detection equipment, in order to carry out nucleic acid detection of people in the community use. And D-E-tector plus is designed for detection of mutates in laboratory. See Implementation for more details.
1. Integrated Human Practices
Our Human Practices runs through the project, not only promote the project but also influence the world! Read our Human for more information.
2. Project modeling
We have done a lot of modeling work to share the burden of the experiment and guide the experiment to be carried out more reasonably. Read our Model for more information.
3. Proof of concept
We have completed the qualitative verification of two main experimental parts and obtained most of the hardware, which shows that our design is feasible in principle. If there is enough time to optimize the experimental conditions, our project will be transformed into the expected results. Read our Proof_Of_Concept for more information.
4. Science Communication
We use online and offline ways to promote our publicity and education, which will benefit the development of synthetic biology. Read our Education for more information.
1. Education:
We chose to fight the coronavirus in this special season, which gives us a better understanding of the responsibility of biology researchers. In addition to completing our project, we hope to popularize some biological knowledge about the SARS-CoV-2 for people. Our questionnaire tells us that people lack an understanding of the detection principle, so we have produced popular science videos and tweets to help more people understand what nucleic acid testing and antibody testing are. We also entered the classroom to help primary and secondary school students understand synthetic biology. From this point of view, we degraded and simplified the knowledge about the coronavirus to make it understandable for people that have little command of biology. It is the best education to let science come into life, especially in the face of practical problems.
2. Hardware
Our hardware is very cool! A succinct and practical shell, which perfectly integrates digital microfluidic devices and an electrochemical workstation makes D-E-Tector a true POCT device. D-E-tector can detect nucleic acid signals and output visual electrical signals. The whole process relies on digital microfluidic and electrochemical workstations. Although the two are not from our work, we have skillfully combined them.
3. Integrated Human Practices
We take pride in keeping Human Practices work throughout the project. At the beginning of the project, we defined our project objectives through literature surveys, questionnaire surveys, professor consultation, and professional interviews. We also identify the market for nucleic acid testing through commercial investigations. During the operation of the project, we constantly collect opinions from experts and professors, so as to improve the design of our project and also improve the way we carry out other work. We also publish the results of the project on the public platform in the form of promotion videos and articles, so that more people can know about our project and we can also learn something from their suggestions. We have HP activities in every running part of the project in order to get timely feedback from the outside world as well as showing our latest work.
4. Model
The modeling part corresponds to the main plan of the project, divided into three modules:
1. Design and construction of the 3D printing model of the shell of the microfluidic device;
2. E-CRISPR module data processing and result analysis;
3. DNA Walker module reaction kinetic model and assembly optimization model.
The division of the model is clear, connecting the past and the next.
The 3D printing model of the shell of the microfluidic device shows that the modeling work is not a simple mathematical structure but an attribute of abstract and concrete parallelism. At present, the shell has been printed out, and the actual object is in good agreement with our idea.
In the DNA Walker part, the modeling work did not use obscure high-level deep theories, but used the knowledge learned in middle school to abstract and simplify the process, which has good plasticity and received good results. For experimental design, the model has reference and guiding significance. Based on the currently constructed model, it can be further optimized and improved, and there is room for upgrade.