Team:iBowu-China/Education
Public Engagement and Education
Our goals
Our preliminary research reveal that a significant number of people develop cancer due to an unhealthy lifestyle, while most patients who face great difficulty treating cancer are diagnosed at an advanced stage, manifesting that the public’s awareness of cancer still needs to be strengthened. Encouraging the general public to take actions that address cancer risks, thus, becomes one of our goals in this section.
Through our interviews with patients, we recognized that many do not possess enough research skills to find the optimal therapy for their condition. Based on the stories that patients have shared, mindset is a crucial issue to whoever is newly diagnosed with cancer. They go through an exceptionally tough process digesting the news of their diagnosis and getting ready to live with cancer for the remainder of their lives. Moreover, treating cancer is extraordinarily costly, and most families suffer significant financial burdens. Hence, we expect our public engagement and education section to support patients mentally, financially, and informationally.
Disease has always been one of our greatest enemies, and synthetic biology is thus far the most powerful ammunition. The more research we do, the more responsible we feel toward the human race. Envisioning synthetic biology as one of the essential bases of future technological advancements, we figured that people should all get to know it, especially the youngsters, who take charge of the future. Therefore, our last goal in the public engagement and education area is to inform people of synthetic biology and arouse their interest in this area.
Public survey
Prior to all the public education activities, we conducted an anonymous online public survey about people's lifestyles and their correlation with cancer risks.
Aim:
To gather information about the population's knowledge regarding lifestyle and cancer to ensure that our team's educational activities are exactly what the public needs.
Distribution:
The survey was distributed via social media, mostly WeChat – an online social platform widely used in China.
Content:
The survey includes 13 questions in total. Six of which are about the person's daily lifestyles, while the rest are related to their knowledge of cancer and how they prevent it daily.
Respondents:
We collected 119 responses in total, 86% of which are from females. The age ranges from 15 to 64 years old.
Potential bias:
It should be noted that not all answers are mandatory, and the answers result from the person's self-evaluation. Self-evaluation poses a bias and potential error in which the answer might not be entirely accurate. Furthermore, because many of the survey participants were female, there is likely a gender bias in some questions.
Results:
Most people sleep late and wake up early, which is relatively unhealthy than the ideal sleep schedule. The desired amount of sleep per night is 8 to 10 hours, but only 23% of our respondents manage to do this. 40% of people have an average of 7 hours of sleep per night.
78% of people do not smoke or drink, which means that they live relatively healthy lifestyles compared to those who either smoke or drink. This may imply that they are less prone to cancer.
About half (44%) of the participants do not receive health care checks annually, while over 65% of participants are above 40 years old, belonging to the high-risk group. This means that the public is still not satisfactorily aware of the importance of taking annual physical health checks.
The most common risk factors known to the public are family history (known by 85% of participants), environmental influences (known by 81% of participants), and tobacco (known by 71% of participants). On the other hand, the least known factors include high blood pressure, cholesterol levels, and virus or bacterial infections, which are easy to spot but also prone to be neglected and left untreated.
As technology advances today, people also seek knowledge on the internet. Over half (57%) of participants obtained information about cancer through online resources compared to 28% of participants who obtain information through books. We can see that most people are aware of cancer as people are leading healthy lifestyles such that 72% of participants exercise regularly to prevent cancer from developing.
The most common cancer treatment known to the public is surgery (87%), while biological therapy is least known about with 38%. 55% of participants have heard of the targeted therapy and support it, while 18% of participants have heard of it and doubt it.
A great majority of the public, a stunning 90%, considers success rate the most 7important factor to consider when choosing a cancer treatment. While other factors, such as side effects, cost, duration, the popularity of the treatment, are all considered.
Conclusions:
1.The public is aware of the most common risk factors, though they are oblivious to other equally important but less known ones.
2. Even though people all have more or less learned about cancer, the prevention measures they take are still insufficient.
3. Speaking of cancer treatments, most people only know about surgery, radiation therapy, and chemotherapy. The newer treatments, such as targeted therapy, biological therapy, and immunotherapy, are seldom considered.
Thus, our public education will mainly focus on:
1. Informing people of the less-known risk factors which they also need to keep an eye on;
2. Convincing people of the significance of taking preventative measures, such as doing regular body checks and living healthfully.
Fundraising and Selling Syn-bio Merchandise
Fund-raisinig
Goals: To help cancer families who have been suffering financially & to introduce synthetic biology to students of various ages.
Knowing that treating cancer is extraordinarily costly, we decided to aid the cancer families suffering financially and see if this community is receiving the help they truly need. It turned out that this community, though big in scale, is barely paid attention to on charity platforms, where their appeals for help receive minimal responses. Thus, we decided to host a fundraising activity to relieve the financial burden of cancer families and, meanwhile, increase its publicity.
Since the amount of money we could predictably raise is limited, we selected only three families to deliver our funds. These three families all have the breadwinners sick with cancer, and thus the other family members are severely impacted.
In the fall of 2016, Xiao Rong, a single mother, was diagnosed with "left central lung cancer". Although still in elementary school, her only child has fully taken on the responsibility of looking after his mother.
Single mother, Ms. Su, 42 years of age, was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in May 2019. The son is 17, while the grandmother has already been doing her best by collecting bottles and waste paper to make money.
Liang, 53, who lives in Daimyo, Hebei province, was diagnosed with lung cancer in October 2019. His daughter would have to quit college and his son middle school should they undertake their father's treatment.
Syn-bio merchandise
To popularize synthetic biology, we decided to produce our own syn-bio-related merchandise and sell them during our fundraising activity to raise money. We hoped that this would spark the interest of children and teenagers so that they would like to know more about synthetic biology because of our designs. Specifically, we made ten different kinds of key chains as well as a notebook with black-and-white illustrations, where users can color in.
We have crafted key chains of DNA, chromosome, red blood cells, dust particle, and magnetic protein crystals beating cancer cell.
In the notebook, there are illustrations of chromosomal structure, cell structure, chemical base pairs, and many more.
To ensure that buyers know what the key chains and pictures are about, we gave explicit explanations during every sale. We are glad to see that most people who paused to look at our merchandise actually bought some after listening to an introduction to our project, iGEM, and of the meaning behind our designs. It shows that it is not just the merchandise but also our willingness to share our project design and emphasize the fact that this charity sale was done for iGEM, an international biology engineering competition that piqued people's interest and allowed us to explain synthetic biology and our project.
Charity Sales
The First Sale
Location: Keystone Academy, Beijing, China
Date: 19th of September, 2020, Saturday
Audience: High School Students
Goal: Introducing synthetic biology and iGEM to high school students
The charity sale was held along the synthetic biology fair at Keystone Academy. Even though our merchandise was not as diverse at the time, many students gathered to listen to our project. We gained experience with this event and figured out how to introduce ourselves and synthetic biology in plain and simple words, making sure that our explanations were clear and engaging. It greatly facilitated the next charity sales we participated in.
Students who came to listen are mostly in high school, who are especially interested in synthetic biology as they have been readily engaging themselves in the process of exploring new academic fields. Playing our part in the Keystone Academy syn-bio fair, we contributed to popularizing synthetic biology and iGEM among students.
The Second Sale
Location: Shine Hills, Beijing
Date: 26th of September, 2020, Saturday
Audience: People in the neighborhood, mostly grown-ups, young children, and the elderly
Goal: Raising funds + communicating with the passersby about our project and their thoughts
Shine Hills is an outdoor shopping mall. Participating in a charity sale there, we presented our project entirely to the public. People who came up to check on our stall were drawn by either the merchandise or the poster explaining our experiment. Even though there was not always that big of a crowd, every single person who stopped by listening to us explain our project all the way through and asked questions on the parts that appealed to their interest.
Parents who brought small kids paid attention to the fact that we were raising funds for charity. They were thus able to educate their children that it is good to lend help to those in adversity.
Grown-ups who came alone were especially aware that we are high school students engaging in a sophisticated research project. They asked about our age, our school, our advisors, and the competition we are taking part in. This, presumably, is because they wanted to collect information for their children or engage in pharmaceutical, philanthropy, or education-related jobs. A gentleman who made several inquiries about our project design later gave us a name card. We discovered that he is the Director of the Medical Assistance Development Center in Zhongmin Social Assistance Research Institute.
Several elderly stopped by to read our poster as well. A lady who stayed to listen to our explanations told us that she got attracted by its title: “Curing NSCLC with magnetic protein crystals”, since a very good friend of hers just got diagnosed with advanced-stage lung cancer.
While communicating our project to the public, we also collected a considerable amount of money from this activity. A total of 14 sales were made, among which many people voluntarily paid more than what the cost was for what they bought as a way of showing kindness. A total of 620 RMB was collected by the end of the day.
The Third Sale
Location: The High School Affiliated to Renmin University of China
Date: 27th of September, 2020, Sunday
Audience: High School Students
Goal: Raising funds + introducing synthetic biology and iGEM to high school students
The sale took place during the lunch break. Considering the occasion and the target audience, we decided to grab attention and attract buyers mainly through snacks, as students in a lunch break would be incredibly attentive to food. Unsurprisingly, the sale went pretty well, and the snacks had all been sold out, and the merchandise no less popular. We are additionally pleased to find that some of the students showed great interest in our scientific research project. Many of them took the initiative to ask about the competition we are taking part in and the science behind our experiments.
By the end of the activity, we made 63 sales with a total of 1554RMB.
The Fourth Sale
Location: Shine Hills, Beijing
Date: 11th of September, 2020, Friday
Audience: Small Children + Their Parents
Goal: Raising funds + introducing basic biology to small children
The sale proceeded at a flea market for children. Thus, the great majority of our audience were children and their parents. Passersby were attracted by our merchandise, which looked colorful and eye-catching. As children stopped by to fiddle with the notebooks and key chains, we told them the meaning behind our design, emphasizing making the explanations simple and easily understandable. Most of the children listened to us very attentively and voluntarily interacted to show that they understood our points. On the other hand, the parents were also very cooperative as we were teaching their children synthetic biology; they readily bought our merchandise after hearing the children’s interest.
Together with the purchase made by our families and friends who came along to support, we made 36 sales and a total of 4921RMB by the end of that day.
Welcome to click the link to read the article
:Get the Facts and Breathe Easy on National Lung Cancer Day
4. Where did the money go?
We distributed the fundraising income equally to three families. We made our delivery by collaborating with the Tencent Charity Foundation, one of China's most wide-reaching and trusted charity platforms.
A total of 170 receipts were made, generating 10051.46RMB (1500USD) of income.
Thus, each family received 3351RMB (500USD) from us.
Ximalaya Broadcast Program
As part of our Public Engagement and Education work, we have initiated the Ximalaya Broadcast Project, hoping to disseminate knowledge to the general public. Ximalaya is a well-known Chinese Broadcasting platform with users surpassing 600 million. In March 2013, after the mobile app for Ximalaya was launched, mobile phone users have exceeded 200 million in less than two years, making it the fastest growing and largest online mobile broadcasting platform in China. Through this medium, we reached children, teenagers, adults, and the elderly in the community.
As part of our first album – Biomedical Mix-Mash – we have included episodes on cancer classification, prevention, risk-identification, etc., to increase awareness of cancer risks and the importance of sympathy. We have also collaborated with Team MSP-Maastricht and uploaded a few episodes introducing the iGEM competition and their project on toxic caterpillars in the Netherlands. This is a further display of the different culture inherent within the iGEM community. The issue of caterpillar-induced allergy reaction is rarely heard of in China, so this is a way to share our fascinating projects. There are also very few fully English narrated podcasts on Ximalaya, so this is another way to diversify Ximalaya users' experience while sharing science that will inspire awe and interest. It also introduces a new perspective from the Netherlands and can expand the scope of our thinking as world citizens.
Here are all the episodes to have published, feel free to check them out:
Album: Biomedical Mix-Mash:
Episode 1: Fearing cancer, the fatal killer.
Episode 2: The unknown cancer treatments.
Episode 3: Mastering cancer with speed.
Episode 4: Cancer Prevention.
Episode 5: The relationship between cancer and emotions.
Episode 6: Cancer Classification.
Episode 7: Caring for children with cancer.
Episode 8: CRISPR Technology.
Album: MSP-Maastricht Caterpillars:
Episode 1: Introduction to iGEM and Team MSP
Episode 2: Cells and Organelles
BJ Kids article
On the 1st of August, 2020, National Lung Cancer Day, our team published an article on the WeChat official account of a rather popular magazine called Beijing Kids (BJKids). BJKids is an open public platform that updates information in the city for the international community in Beijing. Taking advantage of the Teen Takeover Period in August, we submitted and published an article on the theme of lung cancer, hoping to inform the general public about the causes, consequences, and prevention measures of lung cancer. By equipping readers with the necessary knowledge, we call upon the readers to establish healthy lifestyles to reduce cancer risk.
Over the two months, the article has received over 1500 likes, over 3200 views, and 400 shares. We hope this article will continue to gain publicity and exercise its utility across the entire population.
Social media sticker set
Beginning the 25th of May, 2020, we brainstormed some ideas for social media stickers representing synthetic biology and our experience in the lab. We thought this would be an excellent way to convey and document the fun yet challenging times we’ve been through together.
In the end, we produced 12 stickers: (1) Slay, (2) Oxygen Depleted, (3) Confused, (4) Tearing up, (5) Call it a day, (6) Nice!, (7) Careful Observation, (8) Mentally Exhausted, (9) Won, (10) Success!, (11) Operating PCR, and (12) Searching the Fridge.
We have uploaded them to the WeChat platform. WeChat is one of the most commonly used communication apps because of its convenience, so we have decided to start here. In the near future, we are also considering other social media platforms like Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, etc. Using our stickers, we hope to provide scientists and aspiring STEM students with a more dynamic communication method. There are a lot of words, thoughts, feelings, and emotions words cannot express fully. We hope those stickers serve as a visual common language for this scientific community.