Team:FAFU-CHINA/Human Practices
Overview
The world is diverse and material, living in a rapidly changing era of mankind, whether we can get along with nature harmoniously is very important, and the energy problem is always with us. When we study the experiment of "efficient utilization of cellulose into ethanol" in the laboratory, we realize that only by integrating the experimental results and products with social development, can we further improve all aspects of the experiment to meet the needs of people, and such experiments can also make more contributions to human beings.
Human practice is an important part of iGEM, and we actively strive to integrate our projects with energy demand, environmental security and sustainable development goals. Therefore, we visited relevant enterprises and laboratories, learned from experts and entrepreneurs in relevant fields, cooperated with other teams, popularized biosynthesis knowledge and energy knowledge to senior high school students in some regions of China, and developed questionnaires to study the views of new energy practitioners, university educators and cellulose researchers on cellulose conversion to ethanol Recognizing the importance of experimental innovation and social practice, we also got valuable suggestions to improve our project.
About US
We are HP staff of the iGEM team of Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University. In order to better understand the relationship between the experimental project and social practice, we randomly surveyed more than 500 ordinary people. The results are as follows:
- The international genetic engineering machine competition is becoming more and more global, and synthetic biology is becoming more and more popular.
- The survey data found that young people between the ages of 18 and 25 were more interested in synthetic biology, more than 3% of people expressed concern about energy supply, and more than 4% of people said that synthetic biology could effectively address such problems.
- Most ordinary people have an one-hole view of cellulose, but more than 4x5 people say that the burning of cellulose has a serious impact on the environment and resist burning it in natural conditions.
- More than 4x5 people are full of bright hopes for cellulose in solving the energy problems of the future.
Conclusion
- he tension between energy supply and demand has risen to globalization, and ordinary people are very worried about it. There is an urgent need to find a substance that can produce a large amount of energy in a short period of time.
- Cellulose can be seen everywhere in human daily life, and the public is willing to accept the elements of this new energy.
- Cellulose is bound to have a broad market in the energy market in the future.
Intergrated Human Practices
Director.Huachaung Wu
Shanghai Zhongke New Life Biotechnology Co., LTD. Director of R&d Department.
On March 15, 2020, we had an online communication. He introduced the opportunities and challenges of synthetic biology research in today, such as the expression screening of high-throughput genes, which requires a lot of manpower and frequent manual operation errors. Research process multiple high-throughput processing site to produce a large number of experimental data, the data is difficult for the induction and collation, let us to have a deeper understanding of synthetic biology. At the same time, he recommend the xiamen university professor yan xm's lecture for us, on September 23, 2020, professor yan xm is her research of life science, biological medicine, energy, materials, and other fields are introduced for us of the development of bio-energy in today's society, she hope we can do more research of enterprise, to better promote the commercial development of the experimental project in the future.
Prof. Bin Liu
Phd，Director of Bioenergy Research Institute of Fujian agriculture and Forestry University.
Engaged in biomass energy, fermentation seaweed, energy grass and agricultural and forestry residues methanogenic bacteria structure and function, molecular nutrition research.
His suggestion:
- Consider the best harvest time.
- It is suggested that Beauveria bassiana should be used to replace the complex enzyme expression system
At his suggestion, we learned about the research history of cellulose fermentation ethanol at home and abroad, and we also found that the future work of the experiment will need to consider the problems of low cost and suitable for commercialization, at the same time, we found our own compound enzyme system.
Prof. Zhanxi Lin
The inventor of JunCao technology is known as the JunCao’s father of the world.Executive Deputy Director,Chief Scientist and researcher of the National Fungi and Grass Engineering and Technology Research Center.
His advice:
- It is suggested that we select the fungus grass with the model of "Lvzhou No.1", because this type of fungus grass can obtain higher yield of cellulose.
- The feasibility of producing ethanol by cellulose fermentation was analyzed. According to his experience, cellulose can relieve the global energy supply and demand to a certain extent, and plays an important role in biofuel. Meanwhile, he also introduced us to other teachers and enterprises studying bio-energy.
- Teacher Lin explained that fungus grass can also grow in harsh environment, which has a significant effect on solving the economic problems in poor areas. We find that this coincides with our experiment, which is to realize industrialization and partially solve the economic and energy problems in backward areas. This promotes the international cooperation of our experiment in the future, so that we can constantly improve our experiment, so as to achieve the cooperation between interests and environment and the high efficiency of economy.
Prof.Zhang Xingtan
Strait Joint Research Institute, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University
Research Direction:
- Improve genome assembly through new technologies such as Pacbio, Bionano and 10X Genomics;
- Develop new software to accurately identify functional genomic structural variations.
In the interview, after learning about our project and modeling plan, Mr. Zhang suggested that based on the existing modeling literature on similar recombinases, we should conduct simulation design and score evaluation of the required composite enzymes, and the one with the highest score should be the best choice. Because he thinks there are two major difficulties in modeling at this time: the time cycle and the modeling challenge. We listened to his advice with an open mind. After consulting a large number of literatures and doing preliminary experiments, we adopted I-Tasser to carry out two methods of ab initio prediction and step-by-step homologous modeling, designed and simulated the compound enzymes, scored and evaluated them, and finally selected the optimal modeling results, and achieved successful modeling.
Factory
On October 17, 2020, we visited And investigated Fuzhou Xinda Knitting Co., LTD., Fujian Province. Under the introduction of Ms. Liu, chairman of the company, we learned that Xinda knitting Co., Ltd. is a large private enterprise with cellulose as the main raw material and household textile products as the leader. When we visited the workshop, we learned that this company would cooperate with 13 surrounding companies to recycle the surplus cloth and paper tube and hand them over to the upstream company for reprocessing, so as to save resources and effectively reduce environmental pollution. When asked about specific recycling and processing measures, she recommended Fujian Yongrong Jinjiang Co., Ltd. to us, because this company is specialized in solving the problem of paper core recycling.
At the recommendation of Ms. Liu, we immediately went to Fujian Yongrong Jinjiang Co., Ltd. and interviewed the company's senior partner and vice President of technology, Fu Chongxian. In the interview, we learned that their company focuses on recycling waste materials and paper tubes for the reuse of cellulose and other substances. They can recycle 2,000 tons of paper tubes and more than 4,000 tons of cloth each year, which reduces energy waste, but Fu said the process is currently limited, has little room for upgrading and requires a lot of energy, such as coal, to be recycled. Factory fuel combustion accounts for about 95 percent of factory emissions and up to 99 percent of sulfur dioxide emissions. After we explained our experiment to Fu, he said that if the experiment could achieve industrialization, he would consider our project and promote factory reform and social environment harmony.
On October 20, we interviewed Chen Jianping from Langxi County, Anhui Province online. Originally an ordinary farmer, he is now a professional "straw broker". In the interview, we learned that he was responsible for the surrounding two towns. More than 150 farmers abandon the straw in the field and sell it to nearby biomass energy enterprises. They can recycle 20,000 mu of straw every year to promote the comprehensive utilization of straw. This method also completely solves the problem of pollution caused by straw burning in many areas. After hearing his introduction, we have a more long-term plan for our experiment. In the future, we can promote the integrated fermentation technology of ethanol production to biomass energy companies, apply it to agricultural production and environmental protection, and solve social problems with the results of the laboratory.