Partnership

This year, we developed long-term relationship with iGEM team NJU-China and participated in each other’s project in an all-around manner, from preliminary exploration of synthetic biology to step-by-step perfect out project. Apart from biological design, our partnership covered a wide range of aspects, including human practice, science communication, bioethics, biosafety, etc. In our cooperation, we enriched our evolving project by exchanging ideas and providing feedback in pursuit of a win-win result.

Voice of Life

In May 16^th, as a co-organizer, we attended the online meeting Voice of Life, initiated by Nangjing University and we had preliminary communication with NJU-China before meeting. The theme of meeting is introduction of the synthetic biology and we had a eyes-opening journey of synthetic biology with prestigious professors and scholars on different fields. We had further understanding of the virus, exosome used in the synthetic biology through the face-to-face talk with Prof. Zhong Jiang from Fudan University and Prof. Chen Xi from Nanjing University, and learned how does synthetic biology integrated with bioformatics, molecular biology and other fields from Prof. Chen Ming’ talking.

In the meeting, we introduced the background related to our topic and conveyed our ever-lasting concerns about tumor treatment when choosing topic. NJU-China’s project arose our great interests when they were giving introduction of their exosome therapy that targets lung cancer. This was the first time we heard about exosome therapy and we provided NJU-China with some advice on interviewing professors, doctors and medical specialists to take the safety of exosome therapy into consideration, because the potential risk of the gene therapy was of our mutual concern.

Figure 1. Screenshot of Voice of Life.

East Meetup

We further made some detailed design when we both participated in the East China iGEM Meetup in July. We had a better understanding of each other’s topic in the meeting and were amazed to find that we shared a lot in common as we realized our idea. We were working on tackle with the examination of breast cancer with targeted engineering magnetosome as contrast agent, while NJU-China focused on making use of the exosome to deliver siRNA to target lung cancer cells. We intersected with the intriguing idea of using the bilayer membranes enclosing effective molecules as intermediate carrier towards tumors. Although one is for detection, the other is for therapy, we both needed to find appropriate biomarker in the tumor microenvironment and made efforts in dealing with safety problem.

Based on the design above, we elaborately made plan of partnership in each other’s project. Because our end products both were medicine, we got a suggestion from NJU-China that we should refer to some important regulations and laws concerning medicine registration and authorization. It was the critical part in entrepreneurship. They told us to highlight the standards and provisions of CFDA (China Food and Drug Administration), especially look into the specific classification of our product.

Safety Concerns

During our regular discussion, we both found it necessary to hear from the inner voices of the public when trying to fill the gap between the lab and the public. We co-organized an on-scene investigation in Nanjing University in the Club Day. We collected some controversial topic in biosafety and bioethics in gene engineering and participants gave their opinions by putting up stickers behind these topics (weeping face represents disapproval and smiling face represents approval, including the one later drawn). Through this activity, we learned that the majority of university students took positive attitudes towards emerging genetic biotechnology on the field of synthetic biology, for example, microbial cell factories, minimal genome, microbial therapy, etc. Efforts also should be made to elucidate the potential risks and minimize them according to the advice from other students. It was our responsibility to explain to the public what we were doing and why we ensured the biosafety, as young researchers.

Figure 2. Safety concerns activity.

Out of the concerns of the safety of genetic therapy, NJU-China contacted Genescript Biotechnology Company in Nanjing to initiate an academic saloon about biosafety. In the open dialogues with expert in medicine and molecular biology, we updated our understanding of some cutting-edge biotechnologies, including CRISPR gene editing, RNA interference, stem cell therapy, etc. We not only talked about their indispensable role in biology research, but also faced the limitations and challenges of their possible risk and tried to find solutions in the future. We also raised some questions we faced in our project to the experts, for example, whether to directly use the microbial products as contrast agent or to endow the bacteria inside tumors with the ability to produce magnetosomes. We finally chose the first one according to the concerns of biosafety and technological limitations.

Figure 3. Meetup in Genescript.

Industrialization Plan

After elaborate design and evaluation, we both guaranteed the safety and effects in our product and decided to promoting our industrialization plan. In order to construct an upstream system of our product, we had a discussion with NJU-China and hoped to get some advice on building a versatile imaging targeted system. We accordingly contacted Genechem, a company specialized in tumor targeted medicine, with NJU-China. We consulted the preliminary work for selecting target biomarkers in the conversation with Genechem. We also visited the company and get informed of the cost and basic process of the industrialization of medicine.

Final Troubleshooting

On October, both of us progressed smoothly and at the phased-out period. We had an online meeting to discuss the progressions at this stage from all aspects. In the experiment of verification of the specific combination of targeted magnetosome and HER2-positive breast cancer, NJU-China advised us to add extra parallel experiment on the blank control to characterize the specificity. In addition, we exchanged our experience in modeling, human practice and helped troubleshoot some detailed problems in each other’s project. We also learned a lot from their modeling work of predicting the stability of their medicine and thought about if we could make some complements in our project. In the end, we concluded the common places both of our projects and were amazed to find that integration of both projects could be the best combination of diagnosis and adjuvant therapy. This led to our further cooperation on the field of precision medicine.

Figure 4. Final troubleshooting meetup in October.

Further Cooperation

In November, we would help with simulated Q&A part on Giant Jamboree to adjust ourselves to the scene. After iGEM, joint efforts would still be continued on the establish of a cancer treatment system with alternatives targets as inputs. We would make some adjustment and revision in our current project and strived for the integration of our magnetosome-based MRI and NJU-China’s exosome therapy.

Team:ZJU-China/Partnership