Policy & Practice

Introduction

Policy&Practice is one of the most important activities for iGEM. It's a great opportunity to let the local people or local school know about what iGEM is and the meaning of iGEM's work. And it's also important to get some advice to optimize the existing ideas from the expert who concerned with synthetic biology. Through the activities, we also can make a lot of great communities and relationships.

Participation in the Genetics Society of Japan

In order to introduce about details and progress of our project to the experts of synthetic biology, we participated in the Genetics Society of Japan, which was held in Nagahama Institute of Bio-Science and Technology. Genetics Society of Japan is a society that aims to encourage research on genetics and spread the knowledge. Many other Japanese teams (e.g. KYOTO or UT-TOKYO) participated in this society, and we discussed about each projects. And we also learned about the development of rational and efficient gene construction methods, and the importance of modeling.

Poster session in open campus

In Gifu University, towards the local high school students and citizens, open campus is held in August every year. At this time, in order to get to know a lot of people about this project and principles of iGEM, we gave a presentation by using poster. Most of the participants were interested in that content, and listened to our explanation enthusiastically. Thus we succeeded to spread the knowledge of synthetic biology and life sciences to the general public.

Life Science Seminar for high school students

Education for high school students is important in the terms of development of future science technology. Therefore we conducted a seminar on iGEM and life science for students at the Toho high school and Meito high school. Through this activity, we could tell them the depth and fun of biology.

left:Toho highschool  right:Meito highschool

Collaboration work with other teams

Needless to say, in research, cooperation with others is essential. This is also true in iGEM activity. By working together with other teams, we can proceed our study smoother. We seek an practical application example of circular mRNA. As a result, we decided to plan the large-scale synthesis of metallothionein which is a project tool of Nagahama Institute of Bio-Science and Technology of this year, Metallothionein is a metal adsorbed protein, and it can restore soil pollution which is caused by heavy metals. We have deepened exchanges with Nagahama. So they accepted this. Thus we made it possible to success the collaboration of this project. We describe about the experimental results using the metallothionein in "PROJECT".

left:Nagahama  right:UT-Tokyo

Artist viewpoint

Today, in terms of building unique biological design, synthetic biology has a connection with the arts. Especially in the iGEM project, we compete the most creative design which is based on the E. coli, engineers and artists should build a close relationship. So we had a relationship with Chiaki Ishizuka who belongs to Institute of Advanced Media Arts and Sciences. Thus we made it possible to increase the imagination of the design for the process of biotechnology. And we exchange the opinions and images about ethical issues and safety for synthetic biology critically.

Collaborator: Chiaki Ishizuka