Team:Leiden/Education
<!DOCTYPE html>
Rapidemic
Education & Public Engagement
This period was a true challenge for all iGEM teams eager to share their findings, discoveries, and passion for (synthetic) biology. Indeed, much of the public engagement activities and outreach had to be done from the comfort of our homes. However, where there is a will, there is always a way. Modern means of communication have enabled us to share our project and enthusiasm with a broader audience to shape synthetic biology!
As part of our public engagement program, our team put a lot of effort into sharing our project with the public. We engaged with people eager to learn more about infectious diseases and to understand ongoing research in this area. Throughout these discussions, we also learned to adapt our discourse to the general public and aimed to engage them in discussions around synthetic biology and infectious diseases. Overall, given our project subject was tightly related to the current COVID-19 health challenge, our team integrated this in our public engagement efforts and took part in the ongoing conversations on diagnostics and infectious diseases. On this page, we will discuss the highlights of our public engagement.
Week van de Biologie
One of the first events that our team participated in was the Week van de Biologie (Week of Biology, 25 May-1 June). It is an event that is organized yearly by the Dutch Institute of Biology (NIBI). This year, the revised format enabled the general public, young and old, to participate in (online) events throughout the Netherlands to learn more about the very wide scope of biology. iGEM Leiden organized a drawing competition for kids. We drew our own beatiful drawings of bacteria, viruses, DNA and bacteriophages with fun facts about the pathogens depicted so that children of a very young age could learn about biology while drawing. The kids could print them out, draw them in as they liked, and send them back to us to participate in the competition (Fig. 1). Nine-year-old Aya was the big winner of the competition and won a beautiful Rapidemic prize! It was very fun to work and to get feedback from them in the form of their lovely drawings.
Fig. 1 A glimpse of the beautiful artworks that we received from the kids participating in the competition.
Micronicles
The Micronicles initiative arose from our desire to share our enthusiasm with a live audience. Additionally, we wanted to ensure that our community would understand the essence of our project, of course, always in bite-size and entertaining formats aimed at an audience of adults. Therefore, we picked up our camera, gathered some tools and sent out some emails to experts in the field of microbiology, bacteriology and virology, and synthetic biology. We interviewed them on various technical aspects of their field, extending these to how science is translated in our daily life.
The three-video series takes the viewer from the basics of biology to bacteria and viruses, demystifying DNA and RNA, concept such as antimicrobial resistance and viral infections, and elucidating some concepts that non-scientists may not be familiar with. The simplified explanations in the videos were received with great enthusiasm. Our interactive videos reached a broad audience through Facebook Instagram and Youtube, where some videos were viewed more than 500 times!
In our miniseries 'Micronicles', we cover several elements within (synthetic) biology. Our first lesson starts off quite simple and tackles basic biology! Questions like 'what is DNA?' will be answered and the so-called central dogma of biology will be discussed. Click here to see it on Youtube
For our second lesson, we have invited Dr. Joost van den Brink, who will go into detail about bacteria and discuss topics like bacteria living in extreme conditions and antibiotic resistance. Enjoy! Click here to see it on Youtube
For our second lesson, we have invited Dr. Joost van den Brink, who will go into detail about bacteria and discuss topics like bacteria living in extreme conditions and antibiotic resistance. Enjoy! Click here to see it on Youtube
In this third video, expert on RNA viruses, Dr Marjolein Kikkert, tells us about the structure and the diversity of viruses. She teaches us about outbreaks and shares her point of view on the current pandemic. Click here to see it on Youtube.
Video PCR and Rapidemic
In the midst of the pandemic, the public became very aware of the efforts of researchers in understanding and combatting disease, and appreciative of developments in diagnostics. Many people who had never even seen the structure of virus suddenly became experts in the field, spreading uninformed opinions and "corona testing" became a topic of everyday discussions. As the topic of our project closely associated to the sanitary crisis, we aimed to address certain scientific and medical aspects that the general public is not familiar with, or has only recently been introduced to, such as molecular methods used for diagnosis. Additionally, making the public aware of the existence of such methods also enabled us to introduce the challenge that Rapidemic aims to tackle.
Our team has collaborated with the iGEM team from the Maastricht Science Program (MSP) on an informative video about PCR and how that related to our project, Rapidemic. We wrote a script that was subsequently discussed with the Maastricht team. Both teams then filmed their videos that were combined into a video about this central technique in molecular biology. The collaboration with MSP was a chance to exchange creatively with other teams and work together on a project to engage the public in synthetic biology.
Transcriptome
As an extension of the video collaboration of PCR, our team took part in an intiative started by the Lausanne UNIL iGEM and iGEM Chalmers Götenborg. The Transcriptome blog gathers articles written by university students from around the world. The aim of the project is to provide a platform to share and exchange scientific information and technological news, to simplify and explain controversial topics, and to get the public excited about life sciences. The articles are written in an accessible manner, even for an audience without a scientific background. The article written by our team is about the polymerase chain reaction and its use in the COVID-19 crisis, to diagnose the large infected share of patients. We chose to write about this topic in the hope to make the public better understand molecular diagnostic procedures, how "lack of tests" came to exist, and to be critical of diagnostic promises. The article was translated to Swedish, Japanese, French and Spanish, to make it accessible to a larger audience.
NEMO blog Biotechnologie.nl
Blog writing is a great way to reflect on our own activities while reaching out to and involving audiences from various platforms. Along with the other Dutch iGEM teams, our project was featured on the blog of Biotechnologie.nl, an initiative from the famous NEMO Science museum in Amsterdam. The platform shares advances in the field of biotechnology with a non-scientific audience in an accessible way. Our team wrote a few blog posts about our ongoing project, iGEM and how we were coping with the current sanitary crisis.
You can read them here!
EUSynbioS
Our team also reached out to the EUSynBioS platform for collaboration, as this organization aims to bring together European players in synthetic biology. The European Synthetic Biology Society’s (EUSynbioS) aims to provide a platform for promotion, to bridge players from academia, industry, science communication, and policymaking in synthetic biology and for consolidation of the EU synthetic biology community.
Our team and project were featured on their website, where we discussed our aims and hopes at the early stage of our project. Additionally, they asked us about the role of the collaborations in iGEM and about our opinion and outlook on the development and structure of the field of synthetic biology in the European Union. Our team enjoyed sharing our project while envisioning the possibilities that can arise from the networks that such organizations aim to build.
Click here to read our article featured on EuSynbioS.
Symposium Global Goals
Fig. 2 Invitation to the first symposium on global goals
On the 1st of August, we presented our first iGEM symposium on ‘Global goals’. The aim of this online event was to introduce a very diverse audience to the principles of synthetic biology, illustrated by three exciting applications in this field. With this composition of the symposium, we aimed to show the audience a diverse spectrum of different iGEM projects and to show how science and society can be bridged by tackling global challenges! We also wanted to provide a theme and a setting in which scientists and non-scientists could converse. We invited three iGEM teams from around the world to present their project and some of their outreach.
Our team first provided the audience with a short introduction of essential aspects of biology and principles of synthetic biology, as well as some explanation about the iGEM competition. Three selected iGEM teams were then invited to take the stage and share their project: the problem, their proposed solution, and their plans for the lab (Fig. 2).
The outline of symposium was the following:
- Short intro on SynBio and iGEM by the Leiden team
- The FCB-UANL team from Mexico
- The Aalto-Helsinki team from Finland
- The Rochester team (Team UteRus) from the USA
This team is working on the production of an ecofriendly alternative to fluorosurfactants, currently used in traditional firefighting foams.
They aim to detect the presence of pharmaceuticals in water resources, a great concern worldwide due to their persistence in nature and they are proven to have a significant negative impact on the environment.
The Rochester team shared its work on the detection of biomarkers for endometriosis in menstrual effluent. By making the diagnostic simple, affordable and dependent on a noninvasive biological sample they aim to replace the current standard, laparoscopy
The audience was encouraged to ask questions during each of the sessions and at the end of the symposium. Around 45 people joined the first edition of the symposium! Both iGEMmers and non-iGEMmers from all over the world joined (Fig. 3), eager to learn more about synthetic biology and iGEM!
Symposium Local Goals
In this second edition of the symposium, on the 10th of October, we chose to focus on local goals! Once again, the aim was to illustrate that science is inherent to the progression of society and that can take many different shapes, depending on the socio-cultural and geographical landscape of a region. Therefore, this time teams were invited to share about how their project is addressing a unique, local challenge.
To open the session, our team invited Elsa Fristot who formerly participated in iGEM. She is now working on her own startup Labiome, which initiated after the iGEM competition and is now part of iGEM EPIC.
- The Team UPCH Anticongelantes from Peru
- Team RUM from Puerto Rico
- The Team MSP from the Netherlands
The team from Lima, Peru, shared with the audience how they were working on making local crops resistant against the very cold temperatures that can arise in Peru.
iGEM RUM showed us how they use synthetic biology to clean up remains of heavy metals in the environment around Vieques, where anteriorly an Amercian military base was located.
Team MSP shared with us their efforts in developing an ecofriendly alternative to the harsh pesticides used against the local, invasive and dangerous Oak Processionary Moth larvae.
The two symposia were an incredible learning experience, both for our team and the audience that was present. Through the events, we were able to share about iGEM and show how grand ideas arise from students parttaking in this competition. They also illustrated the scientific but also the societal and entrepreneurial aspects of the program. Additionally, the symposium allowed us to share and learn from other teams about the implementation of their synthetic biology projects. The teams also received questions from the audience, which could help them refine some aspects of their project. While this was already an important learning experience for us, we can imagine that it was even more for an audience that is not familiar with iGEM. Lastly, the presenting teams had been selected and split up in "local" and "global" goals. We thus aimed to provide a non-scientific audience with societally or environmentally relevant science, showing that synthetic biology is not an insulated field, but rather a cross-disciplinary, dynamic platform in science.
Fig. 3 Map of the attendees of the symposia
Lecture at the Natuurwetenschappelijk Gezelschap Leiden
On the 10th of September, our team was invited to give a 30-minute online presentation at the monthly "gathering" of the Natuurwetenschappelijk Gezelschap Leiden (Natural Sciences Society of Leiden). The group of passionate individuals organizes lectures and excursions in the field of natural sciences. We presented iGEM, our team, and our project, both the science and our outreach as well as our recently launched crowdfunding campaign. The event was also an opportunity for us to receive questions and comments on iGEM and on our project from an experienced, scientific audience. It was a very enriching and interesting experience.
Fig. 4 Our team presenting at the monthly Natuurwetenschappelijk Gezelschap Leiden (NGL) event.
Social Media
As it can be challenging to reach a broad audience in lockdown times, our team decided to use our tools at our disposal to connect with the general public. This is why, through our social media channels (@igemleiden Instagram), we have shared fun facts, information and pictures with our community through little quizzes, infographics and fun fact, with the aim to communicate the diversity and versatility of synthetic biology. We also shared information on topics related to our project, addressed to a non-scientific audience, in a fun, easy and entertaining way!
Newsletter
Through our monthly newsletter, our team was able to share with the community and the supporters of our project about our day-to-day activities and our outreach. This way, we were able to communicate the struggles that we encountered during the sanitary crisis, but also the amazing support from the university, our advisors and from the coworking space PLNT, but we also shared our visit to the medical waste plant Zavin, the meetups and collaborations and so much more! Have you read them already? You can read them on our Newsletter page
Boerhaave Museum
Our team came in touch with the education and events team of the Leiden Rijksmuseum Boerhaave. Since our team will likely continue this project in the upcoming year, we have already discussed many ways of collaborating with the museum. Either in January 2021, as part of their current exhibition "Besmet (=Infected)" or during the upcoming Week van de Biologie, our team will be giving a workshop for kids aged 8 to 12 years old. We have discussed doing activities around bacteria as pathogens but also as commensal, beneficial organisms through activities with agar plates and teaching them about viruses and epidemics through a physical quiz as well as on synthetic biology and iGEM. We are looking forward to working with, and learning from, a young and curious audience!