Team:WHU-China/Awards
We’re proud to apply for this award, because our innovative modelling work has tightly integrated with wet lab work this year, and will guide our project in phase II. Quorum sensing kinetic models involve the simulation of las and rhl systems to instruct us how to select appropriate quorum quenching enzymes, and a model of biofilms is developed in collaboration with Anti-Biofilm Community. The gro language is harnessed to thoroughly investigate the spatial distribution when quorum quenching happens, in a visualized and vivid way. An inflammation model is developed to partly answer our doubts about dose effect and cytokine storm. Ancestral proteins reconstitution is the most interesting work. From a perspective of molecular evolution, we reconstructed several ‘promiscuous’ ancestral enzymes based on lactonase AiiA and acylase PvdQ. Combining ancestral sequences with structural biology methods, their engineered versions were generated. Next year, we will construct Quenching Module using these engineered ancestral enzymes. Though several attempts didn’t lead to success, we still document how we deal with the relationships between wet lab and dry lab, and wish this inspiring to future iGEM teams.
On the basis of collaborative ideas of iGEM, we developed ‘a collaborative manuscript for engineered probiotic start-ups’, and shared it with China Synthetic Biotic Delta (our partnership with Tongji-China and UCAS-China). In the business plan, we survey the policy preferences in three major biotechnology cities in China, Beijing, Shanghai and Wuhan, thoroughly discuss the entrepreneurship prospect of engineered probiotic start-ups as well as our project, and propose a business mode to turn ‘The Negotiator’ from a theory to a commercially feasible product. Special thanks to Prof. Liu Tiangang, Prof. Yang Daichang, Dr. Ma Zhaotang and the 7th Conference of China iGEMer Community for offering us beneficial inspirations and instructions on entrepreneurship.
Education is an important component of iGEM, and we’re delighted to promote the ideas of synthetic biology to the public, especially the topics related to our project. Social media platforms are recognized one of the key parts of our Human Practices activities. This year, three social media platforms of WHU-China were developed, including WeChat, Weibo and Bilibili, to provide distinct target audiences with correspondingly modified education materials. The related topics involved nosocomial infections, engineered probiotics, cell-free expression renaissance, etc. In addition, we delivered a public lecture to students in Wuhan University, who showed strong interests in iGEM and synthetic biology. Cooperating with a local artist, we created a Chinese/English science comic named ‘Ventilator-Associated Pneumonia’, which was later compiled into ‘A Handbook of Anti-Biofilm Community’. The brochures were designed by Anti-Biofilm Communtiy (a partnership run by us, composed of six iGEM teams), and we envisioned these brochures could have positive impacts on the public.
Integrated Human Practices demand for a deliberative route to accomplish a practical synthetic biology project, comprehensively considering the interactions with different stakeholders. Our project is advancing from theory to practice, motivated by experts in synthetic biology, immunology, critical care, biomedical engineering and business, in different stages. In the stage of Necessity, Prof. Liu Tiangang unraveled the severity of nosocomial infections and firmed our minds to develop ‘The Negotiator’. In the stage of Feasibility, Prof. Zhang Qiuping and Prof. Zhang Xiaolian optimized our design of Sensing Module; Prof. Peng Zhiyong appreciated our project and confirmed the dose pattern; Prof. Chen Pu offered us suggestions on organ-simulating chips. In the stage of Applicability, Prof. Yang Daichang and Dr. Ma Zhaotang helped us in producing commercially feasible products. Overall, we anticipate the example of our Integrated Human Practices work is highly applicable and worth sharing for future iGEM teams.
Inclusivity is a significant appeal for all iGEM participants, to highlight the inclusive social values when implementing their projects. We’re confident that we follow the demands of inclusivity throughout this season. To start with, all student members in the team were asked to interview their family members with different occupations, to get a better understanding of nosocomial infections and ordinary people’s daily lives under COVID-19 pandemic. Importantly, to collect information about the public cognition of nosocomial infections and engineered probiotics, two integrated questionnaires were distributed online and offline. Subsequent analysis inspired us to design and implement other Human Practices work, directly giving birth to our popular science comic ‘Ventilator-Associated Pneumonia’. In addition, we’re fully engaged in the social media campaign #FindBiofilms led by UM_Macau, for understanding the public cognition of this common while unnoticed biological concept.
Two hardwares are designed in our project this year. The first hardware is a DIY co-culture experiment platform with detailed documentations, including an operation protocol, a list of purchasable components, two teaching videos and our experimental results of co-culturing Escherichia coli Nissle 1917 and Pseudomonas aeruginosa PAO1. The platform is developed to demonstrate the function of Quenching Module, with delicate designs to simplify sampling and subsequent measurements. The second hardware is a microfluidic chip, together with its fixture. We contacted a specialized chip company, emulatebio, to discuss the feasibility of using organ-simulating chips to circumvent the use of animal models, and wished to develop such a chip with outside helps. In addition, we documented how to manufacture the chip fixture by 3D printing.
A toolbox of chemotaxis experiments: Seven human chemokines (the page of ‘BBa_K2957001: CXCL8/IL8’ is built by iGEM19_MIT, the rest parts are uploaded by us) are included in this part collection, with detailed background documentations and flow-cytometry data provided. Chemotaxis is a fascinating phenomenon inside human body, and relevant mechanisms have not been fully elucidated yet. It’s believed that synthetic biology facilitates the concept transformation in biological research, from ‘observe to understand life’ to ‘build to understand life’. Thus we want to bravely explore and utilize the chemotaxis by well-designed experiments to promote relevant understanding. The results generated by Transwell tests coupled with flow cytometry analysis are highly quantitative, and we envision future efforts to characterize these parts by other immune cell lines and to enlarge this part collection by adding more chemokines as well, whereby advancing mammalian synthetic biology in iGEM or immune-associated projects like ours.
