Education
Cheng-He Confucian Academic Center
"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." ~Albert Einstein
Cheng-He Confucian Academic Center is a religious education center devoted to education in the I-Kuan Tao, a Chinese salvationist religion in Taiwan. Chances to learn about science are quite rare in that setting. However, we wished to break the gap between science and religion, helping students in a religious education center to overcome the limitations of the study location and have the opportunity to learn science. Thus, we shared our idea with Cheng-He Confucian Academic Center and were offered a chance to introduce science to the children.
We were fully aware that it’s impossible to grasp lots of scientific knowledge in one class, especially in a situation where they have little contact with science. Thus, we designed the lessons with hand-on activities, trying to spark children’s interest about science in a fun and interactive way.
Spatially, we decided to let the children sit around us instead of sitting on chairs as we wanted them to feel relaxed and free. In our lesson plan, as the children we taught were from 4 years old to 14 years old, we decided to carry out the lesson in a story-telling way with small games and also hands-on activities.
We started the lesson with an introduction to genes, as they are an important part of the human body and also the basis of synthetic biology. We introduced DNA by explaining the structure and how it plays its roles in the human body. To disseminate the knowledge in an easy to understand way, we described it as a blueprint of the human body with a structure like a ladder. We explained the complementary pairing of the four nitrogenous bases. To consolidate this concept, they constructed their own DNA using adhesive tape and straws of four different colors. The adhesive tape represented the backbone of DNA and each color straw represented a nitrogenous base, so they had to combine them in the right way based on the complementarity rule.
We also introduced the concept of genotype and phenotype and how dominant and recessive genes influenced human phenotypes. We tried to explain to them in a more interactive way using the analogy of the dominant gene as an elder brother with the recessive gene as a younger brother. The elder brother who is more aggressive always bullies the younger brother, which results in expression of only the dominant gene most of the time. As most of them had siblings, they could easily understand and remember this concept.
We also introduced gel electrophoresis by describing it as a camera for genes that can show the differences between genes. When teaching them how DNA migrates towards the positive electrode, we used an analogy that larger strands DNA were bulky so they run slower while smaller strands could run faster. Lastly, we explained the concept of BioBricks in a simple manner by asking them to draw a dinosaur based on the features we provided. They chose their favorite features, and arranged them in the ‘plasmid’ we had prepared, so that the ‘plasmid’ would ‘express’ the features of the dinosaur they wanted!
We found the lecture a huge success as they showed great interest in science, kept asking questions during the lesson, and could clearly remember the contents we taught when we asked questions at the end. We were impressed by their enthusiasm as it demonstrated that our attempt was right and effective.
However, we knew that only one three-hour lesson was definitely not enough for enduring understanding and to get a taste for science, so we went there a second time.
We shared a knowledge of viruses during the second lesson. We introduced the structure of different viruses, followed by a hands-on activity of making a model of a bacteriophage. As with the children’s storybook, we discussed the characteristic of viruses, transmission routes and also ways to prevent dengue infection. We also emphasized the importance of practicing good hygiene.
Through this meaningful event, we successfully reached out to a younger community to share our passion about biology and inspire them to step into the world of science. We hope that this inspiration would be passed on to more and more people by our efforts.
Detection of Dengue Virus
To overcome the huge challenge of dengue fever, we want to develop a novel detection device. A transmembrane protein, C-type lectin domain family 5 member A (CLEC5A), usually found on macrophages and dendritic cells, is a critical receptor for the dengue virus infection. When CLEC5A interacts with the envelope protein (E protein) of dengue virus, it can lead to downstream transduction and cytokine storm, causing the high mortality of DSS. This inspired us to consider whether the binding of CLEC5A and E protein could be utilized to detect dengue virus.
However, CLEC5A is a large transmembrane protein, making it both difficult to induce overexpression and also difficult to purify. Therefore, we chose several parts of CLEC5A which we speculate will interact with the E protein to design short peptides of about 1.3 kDa, which serve as a detection reagent instead of full-length CLEC5A.
We used Rosetta simulation to check whether the peptides can interact with E protein or not. We also produced an E protein from the bl046 strain of dengue virus using E.coli, so we can test the interaction.
