Team:UM Macau/Education
Education & Public Engagement
Overview
In order to expand the influence of our project to the society, we did different social works for people in different age. For the students, we held a high school talk in local school, introducing our project and related biology knowledge to them. In addition, teams in Anti-Biofilm Community made an ABC handbook, where each team introduced some synthetic biology knowledge in an easy-understood and interesting way. Taking advantage of the convenience of internet, we set up UM_Macau social media account including social account in WeChat and Instagram, where we updated the latest progress of our project and send post weekly to introduce synthetic biology knowledge. For our stakeholder, we visited staffs in Chimelong Ocean Kingdom and Ocean Park Hong Kong, got to know more about the real situation and the difficulties they are facing with, as well as their feedbacks on our project. These activities not only deepened the connection of our project to the society, the feedbacks we got also improved our project, which benefited both of us in a meaningful way.
As the Macau epidemic improves, we offered a high school talk at the local high school, Sam Yuk High School, one of Macau’s best high schools. We give this presentation on 'Microbes in Life' with the goal of increasing the awareness of microbes in teenagers. Firstly, we introduced the iGEM concept and showed them what synthetic biology is. Then we showed them the 'BREAC' project of our team and later presented the 'Microbes in Life' topic in three aspects: gut, food, and water. In the end, by asking some opening questions, we did a little brainstorm to build the interest of the students in our topic. And what they were answering surprised us a great deal. One of the students who shows a keen interest in biology is extremely involved in every question. We hope that we inspired these students to be more interested in biology and join the next generation of iGEMers like us.
On the WeChat public platform, we have created an official account. The key role is to develop an open channel for the publication of the UM iGEM2020 project, surveys of questionnaires, popular synthetic biology science and knowledge about our projects. You can get our latest news by subscribing to our page, and individuals can also post and connect with us on this platform, creating a free, interactive platform.
On this platform, we first introduced iGEM and our team. Followed by opening a questionnaire survey, the primary aim is to understand the biofilm awareness of people; then to promote more biofilm information. We have scientific papers on aquarium biofilm, synthetic biology, gene editing technology for CRISPR, etc. In addition, our team 's latest information will be included in weekly updates. Including the ABC (Anti-Biofilm Community), this community was established with WHU_China_iGEM, UM_Macau_iGEM, DUT_China_iGEM, THU_China_iGEM, SUST_China_iGEM and high school team HKHCY_iGEM. Activities of the Outreach Department, such as Ocean Park interviews, high school talks and CCIC meetings, are also posted for viewing on this public platform. In addition, we helped other university teams to advertise, questionnaires promotions,and collect photos of biofilms that can be seen in everyday life.(see detail in footer)
Moreover, in order to promote the future application of our project, the online questionnaire was created to collect public's opinions. We created a questionnaire to introduce biofilm and our project. Surveying the understanding of biofilm in individuals and collecting feedbacks from individuals for our project. Two different platforms, Google and Tencent questionnaire platforms, were released with our questionnaires. Through online questionnaire surveys, at the beginning, everyone was not sure what biofilm was. After introducing our project, biofilm, and the knowledge of synthetic biology. We then initiated an activity with teams from other universities called "Finding Biofilm in Daily Life".
After two to three months of publishing scientific articles, the public was able to identify biofilm in daily life. This official WeChat account is considered a good way of publishing education. Most individuals, after our questionnaire, generally support our project. The issues and suggestions presented are a great contribution to the future progress of our project.
figure 1
figure 2
The responses show that most individuals do not know what biofilm is, and even more than half of them have never seen it.
figure 3
figure 4
It is worth knowing that most people are willing to use our products in their fish tanks.
figure 5
figure 6
People are also very concerned about the potential safety hazards and environmental issues of our projects, and these issues will also be included in our design considerations.
In order to understand more on the actual condition of biofilms, we (UM iGEMers) decided to visit the Chimelong Ocean Kingdom located in Hengqin, Zhuhai, People's Republic of China.
One of the workers responsible for aquarium cleaning, Mr. East, toured us around and presented his cleaning work routine. He said: "Due to the rapid growth of biofilm, cleaning has become one of the most difficult job to do." Mr. East followed by explaining that biofilms are generally removed by scraping-off with a brush. Moreover, for biofilms that attach tightly on rough surfaces. Cleaners will have to put on extra time and effort to fully remove them. As you can see, this method is very time and manpower consuming.
In order to understand more on the actual condition of biofilms, we (UM iGEMers) decided to visit the Chimelong Ocean Kingdom located in Hengqin, Zhuhai, People's Republic of China.
One of the workers responsible for aquarium cleaning, Mr. East, toured us around and presented his cleaning work routine. He said: "Due to the rapid growth of biofilm, cleaning has become one of the most difficult job to do." Mr. East followed by explaining that biofilms are generally removed by scraping-off with a brush. Moreover, for biofilms that attach tightly on rough surfaces. Cleaners will have to put on extra time and effort to fully remove them. As you can see, this method is very time and manpower consuming.
We continued by asking what are some of the difficulties associated with aquarium cleaning. Mr. East explained that apart from consuming manpower and material resources. Underwater cleaning itself is a work that requires good physical fitness. Water pressure increases as the water volume of the large fish tank increases. Staying under a high-water pressure environment for a long period of time could be a burden on human body. As for small fish tanks, the crevices and corners are difficult to reach and clean. Therefore, causing another struggle in biofilm removal.
Cleaners are required to be more cautious when dealing with corals. Not all biofilm can be completely removed if the force is too weak. But the coral will also be damaged by using too much force. Besides coral, jellyfishes are extremely sensitive to bubbles. Some air bubbles are generated when the divers dive into the water. Since jellyfishes are not able to eject air bubbles from the inside of their bodies. It could die from absorbing too much air bubbles. In addition, cleaners might be injured by other aquatic creatures in the tanks. Such as shark attacks, venomous jellyfish, or coral poisoning...etc. These are all the reasons that increase the difficulty of biofilm cleaning.
“Although biofilm cleaning is a tough work, we will not neglect the importance of biofilm removal. Biofilms will accumulate rapidly if they are not cleaned properly. Besides in affecting the appearance of show tanks, algae growth can also benefit from the development of biofilm. Together, they can reduce the quality of water and impact the overall health of marine species. This is what we try best to avoid, with all the aquariums around the world as well.” Mr. East pointed out the importance of cleaning biofilm.
Once we have introduced our project idea, Mr. East raised some concerns. “Can the engineered bacteria be used in both seawater and freshwater environment? After completing their general cleaning process, where will the bacteria go? Will they die naturally or will it be recycled again?” These questions motivated us to develop a better design. Therefore, we went back to the laboratory to do more tests. By following Mr. East’s concerns, we figured out a solution to improve.
In order to make our cleaning bacteria survive better in different environment, we will not introduce new stains to break the balance. We would choose the most common bacteria living in the environment. So that our engineered bacteria can survive in the aquarium tank better and will not break the balance of the natural environment. For recycling, we engineered our bacteria to have a magnetic mechanism. After the bacteria finished its cleaning purpose, it will follow the water flow toward the filter, and the magnet we have placed near the filter will trap them, which will be easily recycled by the divers.
We have a deeper understanding of how important it is to clean biofilm for our stakeholders through the visit to the Chimelong Ocean Kingdom. Furthermore, we figured out how they deal with biofilms at the current level. We also received some important feedbacks from our stakeholders, enabling our project to improve better. Last but not least, it allowed us to build a solid base for our project’s development.
Photo with Chimelong Ocean Kingdom staffs, left 2 is Mr. East, left 4 to 6 is UM_Macau iGEMers.
The cleaner is scraping biofilm with his little brush.
After visiting the Chimelong Ocean Kingdom, we get to know what is the actual need from the staffs. In order to get more professional feedback from the stakeholders, we organized an online meeting with Dr. Zhang Ying, the laboratory manager in environmental laboratory of Ocean Park Hong Kong.
After we introduced our project BREAC to them, Dr. Zhang showed great interest in our project. “This project is very inspiring since all aquarium in the world have to utilize great amount of manpower and material resources for cleaning. If your project launch, stakeholders around the world would like to try your cleaning method.”
In addition to encouragement, we also got a very significant feedback. Dr. Zhang asked if our engineered bacteria can distinguish “good biofilm” or “bad biofilm”. “Not all the biofilm in aquarium are those we want to clean, actually there is some ‘good biofilm’ we want to keep. For example, there is always a biofilter in each aquarium tank, converting toxic substance into innocuous, without which the toxic substance accumulating in the water would be harmful to the animals and plants.” Dr. Zhang pointed out the importance of biofilter.
Knowing that the biofilter is located in the dark area, we come up with an idea to design a light-inducible system to improve our bacteria. When the bacteria are in bright place, the expression of adhesive protein and degradative protein can be activated, and bacteria can do their cleaning job. Once they reach the dark place, the expression won’t be activated, which can protect the biofilm on biofilter from being degraded.
Through the interview of Ocean Park Hong Kong, we got more professional feedback from the staffs working in Ocean Park Laboratory. After the improvement of light inducible system, our project can better meet the needs of stakeholders, thus serve them better.
This is the screenshot of the online meeting. The upper one on the left is one of the representatives of UM_Macau iGEM team. The lower one on the left is the primary PI Prof. Leo. The right-hand side is Dr. Zhang and her research assistant.