Team:Nanjing-China/Achievements
Achievements
Achievements of Nanjing-China during 2020's iGEM
Based on the medal criteria
This year is bound to be an unusual year, yet we tried our best to make our iGEM project on track as usual.
Despite the exceptional COVID-19 crisis, we still made many breakthroughs in the process of our project, and it was a
real pleasure to us when we finally saw a series of satisfying outcomes. Here are some of our achievements listed
according to the medal criteria, and the hyperlinks attached will lead to the webpages that prove our efforts.
- Competition DeliverablesWe have completed wiki，poster，presentation video, promotion video and judging form that need to be submitted for the competition.
- A team full of friendly and responsible person, many people who gave us great support…… Thank you to all of you!
- To help develop new flame retardant materials，our team put forward a new concept - "novel organic-inorganic biosynthetic materials". With the help of synthetic biological methods, we propose to replace the traditional chemical synthesis method by engineering bacteria production. For one thing, the contamination problem in the production process of fire-retardant materials could be tackled. For another, combining with organic macromolecules could maintain its excellent fire-retardant ability and achieve additional stable physical and chemical properties. Moreover, it can perform the original functions of biological macromolecules, expanding its wearability, adding fluorescence, and eventually achieve a brandnew breakthrough in material properties.
- This year we have added new documentation to two existing parts: part1 BBa_K3022002 and part2 BBa_K3264000. We also have a potential research effort for the future team, including the improvement of +36GFP plasmid, the construction of +36GFP and spidroin fusion protrin particles and the improvement of spidroin. Hoping that future teams will achieve bigger success!
- Through our human practice, we came up with an idea that we could combine Spidroin and polyP. Then we verified the function of sp,sp1,sp2 but got a bad result. Then we tried to figure it out through interviewing and researching. After that, we improved two parts . Finally, we successfully purified the +36GFP-spidroin fusion protein and combined to polyP.
- We have cooperated with other teams: Fudan, NJU China, ZJU China to host a virtual meetup called “Voice of Life：interview with researches” on hopin platform in order to get improvement from each other and enhance communication. It was a wonderful practice!
- With a strong sense of social responsibility, we investigated the global fire data, interviewed Gesanghua Paint Company, Leqi Textile, and interviewed our supervisor Wei Wei and Professor Peng Zheng to get the idea of the project. These social practice proved that our project can make a difference to the world and have great potential!
- We carefully envision what scenario would be seen and who would benefit if our project could be implemented.A great many of experiment scientists can utilize it to refine the chemical property of target proteins.The majority of manufacturers can produce novel fireproof materials by biosynthesis. A large number of basic theoretical researchers can apply our idea to the research to develop better modeling methods.The majority of medical workers can learn from our ideas and obtain artificial with better properties organs and other medical devices. In all, our project has a wide market,and we strive to make these a reality.
- Human practices not only offer us a chance to see the meaning of our project, but also serve as a guide that keep us in the right direction. The interviews with Professor Yi Cao, Professor Ye Tian and Leqi textile gave us useful information and great inspirationfor the project. According to their suggestions and guidance, we carried out our experiment smoothly.
- Several new changes have been added into previous parts, accompanied with brand new characteristics. We improved Part:BBa_E0040 and submitted a new Part:BBa_K3341003, which is proved succes.The new plasmid +36GFP was supercharged, which means that it got a lot of positive charge so it can bind to polyP very well.Please visit our part page to know more. We also provide a brief introduction in the title's hyperlink.
- Using the docking method, we find the binding patterns between polyP and target proteins, and the content of secondary structures provides us with extra information about binding. Finally the molecular dynamics give us a direct proof of our initial hypothesis that multiple proteins could bind to a single polyP.
- Thanks to NAU-China iGEM team, we share a close relationship with each other throughout the year. During our project we keep in contact with each other and help each other in many aspects. Both teams benefit a great lot!
- During the enrollment season, we also seized the opportunity to ignite high school students’ interest in synthetic biology. On Little Blue Whale platform, which is Nanjing University undergraduate admissions platform, we launched a preaching activity called “Leading the Destiny of Life” and simultaneously broadcast lively on other public platforms. This activity received thousands of clicks and efficiently promoted synthetic biology to high school students and other audience. With a joyful and pleasant atmosphere, we brought students interesting knowledge and broadened their view into iGEM and synthetic biology.