Team:PYMS GZ China/Medal

Medal Criteria

Bronze

Competition Deliverables
1. Team Wiki: We completed our team wiki with all standard pages required by iGEM.
2. Team Poster: We created our poster.
3. Presentation Video: We created our presentation video on our topic.
4. Project Promotion Video: Our Project Promotion video was created and it is posted on the iGEM website.
5. Judging Form: We completed and submitted the judging form.
Attributions
1. We have accurately attributed the work everyone did in our team and what was done by others outside of our team. We also thanked those that guided us in our project.
Project Description
1. We have described how and why we chose our iGEM project.
Contributions
1. We documented troubleshooting for our project. We provided a method for future teams to solve the issue of not being able to create a band with the necessary base pairs. We also provided a way for teams to fix the possible problem of low effectiveness in virus packaging.

Silver

Engineering Success
1. We achieved engineering success through following the engineering design cycle. Based on feedback and knowledge we gained during the duration of the competition, we redesigned and improved our project. Our team created new parts: BBa_K3683000, BBa_K3683001, and BBa_K3683002.
Collaboration
1. In October, our team attended a Zoom call with the CCA iGEM team. Here, we discussed our different projects and practiced presenting, in addition to getting feedback about our presentation and tips about the Jamboree. We also collaborated with other iGEM teams (Brno_Czech_Republic, Edinburgh, iGEM Athens) to translate our book into other languages and reach a wider audience. In addition, we collaborated with CSMU_Taiwan and NCKU_Tainan by creating an infographic about mental health during COVID-19 for their Facebook page.
Human Practices
1. We reflected on the ethical impact of our project. We also thought of how our project will better society.
Proposed Implementation
1. We described our project’s implication in the real world, identified our target users, and indicated how we would introduce our project into the real world. We also addressed points of improvement by increasing biosecurity measures such as a kill switch. We brainstormed alternative materials that could allow our assay platform to be widely accessible. In addition, we identified future challenges our general assay platform may face if used on different viruses.

Gold

Integrated Human Practices
1. We talked to virologists and infectious disease experts about our project. These conversations directed our project towards creating a pseudovirus general assay platform to test the infectivity of different strains of SARS-CoV-2. Please visit our Integrated Human Practices page.
Science Communication
1. We created a synthetic biology matching game and distributed it to local elementary schools in our area, familiarizing students with synthetic biology at a young age. We also created a Diversity and Inclusion Plan for the Latinx Community in STEM. Additionally, we made a podcast called Boss Women in STEM and talked to famous and successful women scientists. We also made a coloring book (Jaya VS COVID-19) to spread information about COVID-19 to children. Please look at the Science Communications page for all of the details.
Proof of Concept
1. We proved that our general assay system works as expected. Please look at the Proof of Concept page for details.
Modeling
1. We hypothesized that the removal of 19 amino acids from c-terminal can improve viral production titer. Using PCR based mutagenesis, we subsequently genetically engineered a truncated S protein “S1254” which removed these 19 amino acids. We proved that this synthetic biology approach can improve viral titer production by a factor of over 10 fold. Please look at our Modeling page for details.