Team:HUST-China/HumanPractice

Part I : Team Visit to a Copper Smeltery

Industry sewage, a complex of heavy metal ions, contaminants of organics, will
become decomposed and source of diseases if left untreated. With the advancement
of industrialization in China, the sewage discharge also witnesses a rising trend, from
42.84 billion tons in 2001 to 67.96 billion tons in 2014, with an annual increase of approximately
1.89 billion tons on average. Sewage treatment, aims for producing a disposable effluent without causing
harm to the surrounding environment and preventing from pollution, has become a matter of concern for both
the government and the public.

In order to get a more comprehensive understanding of the process and technology of sewage treatment, on July 28th, 2014, iGEM HUST-China team visited Daye nonferrous metal corporation, a copper smeltery 80 kilometers away from our Huazhong Univerisity of Science & techonology (HUST). This copper production factory is one of the top 5 copper production enterprises in China.

HUST-China Team members Jinjing Wang, Ziang Zhang, Lei Yin and Ruihao Li, together with instructor Dr.Zhan entered this copper smeltery with permission.

Our team briefly introduced iGEM competition and our project to the factory. And Mrs. Yi, a technical expert of this factory, explained to us the facility distribution in this smeltery and then brought us to visit the whole factory.

Blister Copper, which is extracted from copper mine in smelting furnace, contains 98.5% copper. It is the raw material of electrolytic copper production. While the final electrolytic copper product contains 99.99% copper in it.

The electrolytic copper production is processed in the huge copper electrolytic tank fulfilled with copper electrolytic solution. Copper enriches onto the negative plate from positive plate and forms the electrolytic copper final product. The electrolytic solution contains sulphuric acid and copper sulfate. We took some samples of electrolytic solution from the electrolytic tank.

The waste water from the smeltery is finely treated in a water purification station. We also visited this station after visiting the core production zone. There are 2 steps of precipitation in this station. The waste water is treated here and then can be released to environment under checkpoint Q.C. standard.

The waste water containing copper was neutralized with calcarea and the insoluble neutralization product enriched onto the bottom of the precipitation pool, while the supernatant is believed to be safe for environmental release. The precipitation was collected and used for copper retrieve. We separately took samples of the neutralization solution and supernatant from the entry and the precipitation pool.

After the visiting, we sub-packaged the samples taken from the smeltery into test tubes, stored in -20℃, and used these samples for further analysis and biological water treatment tests.

We found that currently, the most widely used method of sewage treatment in China is Sedimentation and Filterability of Sludge. This traditional method, though has the advantage of low cost, wastes so much time and needs a large area for multilevel sedimentation treatments. However, since the development of biological technology, new methods and devices, such as bio-rotation containers and membrane bioreactors, have appeared. Because they have the benefits of effectively overcoming the limitations associated with poor settling of sludge in conventional activated sludge processes and no importing secondary chemical contamination, we are sure that they will be put into use universally in sewage treatment plants in the future.

Part II: The human practice survey of our project

Introduction

China is a country that facing the problem of water resource shortage. There are 2800 billion cubic meters fresh water in China, which is 6% of the whole fresh water on earth. However, the average water resource per capita is only 2200 cubic meters, which is the 1/4 of the world standard and 1/5 of the US standard. China is one of the 13 countries that are most lack of water resource in the world.

If we take off the water resource that is hard to use, for example, flood and underground water in the remote area, the usable fresh water resource in China will reduce to 1100 billion cubic meters and the average water resource per capita will come to only 900 cubic meters. At the mean time, the distribution of fresh water resource in China is obviously disproportion. At the end of 20st century, in 600 cities of China, 400 cities have faced the problem of fresh water shortage and 110 cities in them were even in serious water shortage condition. The total shortage quantity in the whole country reached 6 billion.

According to monitoring data, the underground water in most cities in China was in certain kind of contamination, and the pollution is becoming more and more serious. This not only affected the usage of water resource, but also enhanced the problem of water resource shortage. Meanwhile, it also seriously threatened the safety of drinking water and public health.

[ Water quality index and its classification ]

The water quality index means the specific limit and requirement to the highest acceptable concentration or quantity of contaminants in all kinds of polluted water including daily life water, agricultural water and manufactory using water, etc. It is the specific measure of the contamination degree of water.

The classification of water quality index:

Survey and Result Analysis

Our survey was performed online:http://www.sojump.com/report/3693936.aspx?qc= and 148 effective questionary result samples were received.

1. Please select your gender.

A. Male
B. Female

2. Where does the main kind of waste water come from in your home?

A. Baths taken, showers, teeth brushings and hand/ face washing
B. Clothes washing, vegetable/fruit washing and dishwashing
C. Toilet flushes
D. Manufactory using water
E. Others

The result shows that in daily life, the main kind of waste water come from baths taken and kitchen.

3. Where does waste water from your home go?

A. Go through the sewer to sewage treatment plant
B. Go through the sewer to rivers
C. Wherever I like
D. Others

4. Do you think wastewater treatment very important?

A. Yes, very important
B. Not so important
C. Not important at all
D. I don’t care

5. Do you think wastewater has a great effect on our environment?

A. Yes, I do
B. No, the effect is not so great
C. I don’t care

6. According to your knowledge, how are the water resources per capita in China?

A. Equal to the world average level
B. Above the world average level
C. Below the world average level
D. I don’t know

7. Will you pay attention to the quality of water (e.g. color, sweetness)?

A. Yes, very important to me
B. Yes, always
C. Yes, sometimes
D. No, never

8. According to your knowledge, what’s the most appropriate pH for drinking water?

A. 6.5-7.5
B. 6-8
C. 6.5-8.5
D. 6.5-8

9. Are you satisfied with the water quality in your daily life?

A. Yes, I am
B. Not so satisfied
C. No, I am not
D. Very unsatisfied

10. Does the wastewater near the place you live stink?

A. Yes, stink terribly
B. There’s smell but not very terrible
C. No, not at all

11. According to your knowledge, has local government taken any actions to deal with local wastewater?

A. Yes, it has
B. No, it hasn’t
C. I don’t know

12. If the water condition can be improved if you add some money for the treatment, are you willing to pay for that?

A. Yes, if it really helps
B. Yes, if the payment is not very high
C. No, I don’t have money for that
D. No, I don’t want to pay for changing the current water condition

According to the survey, main sources of sewage in over 80% of families are from bath, kitchen and toilet. Sewage goes to sewage treatment plant through sewer, to rivers through sewer and to wherever they like are 56.76%, 27% and 10.14% of the families, respectively.

As for respondents’ attitude towards sewage treatment 88.51% people show their willingness for paying to improve current treatment method; 71.62% believe proper treatment is very important, 26.35% think it not so important and the rest think it not important at all or don’t care; 79.73% of the respondents think sewage has a great influence on our environment, while 15.54% don’t agree, and 4.73% don’t care at all.

As for people’s attitude towards water, 16.22% of people say the quality of water are very important to them, and people always, sometimes, and never pay attention to the quality of water are 32.43%, 43.24% and 8.11%, respectively; and people who are satisfied, not very satisfied, not satisfied at all and don’t care are 15.54%, 66.22%, 2.7% and 15.54%, respectively; 77.03% people report that sewage near the place they live stinks more or less.

When asked about some basic knowledge about water, 82.43% of respondents give a correct answer to the comparison between water resources per capita in China and the world average level; however only 16.2% people know that the proper pH value of standard drinking water ranges from 6.5 to 8.5.

As for the government’s role in treating sewage, 10.81% say they know the government has taken some actions; while others don’t agree or don’t know about government’s action.

From the statistics, most people feel it a duty for them to contribute to the water treatment. This means that there really exits obvious problems in the quality of water in our daily life. However, the result also shows that people have a very good understanding of their living environment and they are willing to be involved in the environment protection business. This survey collected some information and made people think more about the waste water treatment issue.

Further Discussion

In China, the water resource issue is becoming the most serious problem that we have to face. For more than 600 cities in China, two thirds are lack of daily life water, and 100 cities are even in serious shortage of water resource, including Beijing, Tianjin etc. There is no doubt that saving and protecting water resource from pollution is the most important issue to our society and government. The effect of this procedure depends on the citizens' awareness of water resource protection and government policy popularization should be the key point in the whole procedure. By public media propagation, we can let citizens familiar with the way to save water. The modern scientific treatment method of waste water, for example, our rotation bioreactor of waste water treatment, we believe that this is the only way to make everyone in our society to be involved in the protection to our living environment.

Part 3：Interviewing a VP in bioethics

On 10th Oct ,Our research team interviewed a professor of bioethics ethics teacher Ruipeng Lei who has served as a researcher of bioethics project for many years and has rich experience on the issue of security of synthetic biology projects, and she gave opinions in some aspects about the safety issues of pilot project. The following is an interview with professor Lei.

Synthesizing a new engineering bacteria by synthetic means which can not be produced in the natural environment, as a means of protection to the environment, is a very useful attempt, but in such a study, the safety issue is a very big concern. For this project, first you need a clear understanding of the physical and chemical properties of engineered bacteria, in the early study,we may be concerned more about this project to develop bacteria to reach a certain function, such as the degradation of fluoride and copper, etc. But when we are ready to put this experiment into use in real industrial environment, we can not just consider a functional engineering bacteria, but also consider whether the engineered bacteria in water will cause new pollution. These should be considered in experimental stage, otherwise operational impact on the environment will be irreversible.

First, the security issue can not be speculated which must have solid evidence. We need to have a complete evidence to prove such engineering bacteria is non-toxic for scientific research must be evidence based. Recent years, in the field of bioethics, it has a great change,for strategic technology assessment, including safety assessment. In the past it is a presumption of innocence strategy, that means in previous studies as long as there is no conclusive evidence of its harmness it can be put into the environment, and the effects are irreversible. But now we turned to the presumption of guilty strategy. There must be conclusive evidence that the object of their study is safe, which requires the experimental session should be fully considered the impact on the environment. Thus this approach can ensure more reliability and safety research.

Second, to take responsibility for their own science and ethics roles, ensuring its own security and operating experiments meticulously and carefully must be at the top of priority list for researchers. Only after ensuring the safety of their lives they can continue to benefit more people with science and technology. Secondly, you need to note the experimental aspects of the design, simulate environment in the experimental stage for a simulated environment as far as possible, and do experiments in a simulated environment to discover the possibility of such impacts on the environment caused by bacteria quickly and efficiently. Finally, in the process of the project out of the actual lab environment, the entire process needs to be carefully monitored, sustained attented, made a detailed observation records, because it is likely that this project bacteria don't influence environmental in a short time, but after a very long time it will have feedback on the environment, which requires laboratory personnel to establish an effective mechanism for long-term observation to maintain the security of the entire project.

Ruipeng Lei, Associate Professor, PhD, born in June 1973, has taught at the Department of Philosophy in 2001, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, and a PhD professional direction for bioethics; 2003.8-2004.7 went to Harvard University in collaborative research; as research ethics researcher professor Lei involved in life philosophy of science (including medical philosophy), bioethics; she participated in and was responsible for coordinating the organization two Sino-German and Sino-US cooperation projects; currently she is undertaking a Harvard University collaborative research project " Ethical Review of Research That Might Harm Non-participants in China"; another two Harvard international collaborative research projects under preparation, namely: "Study of the Effect of an Innovative Method of Token Compensation on Willingness to Participate in Experimentation with Human Subjects "," Studies of Estimation of Risk and Benefit and Determination the Ethically-Required Risk-Benefit Ratio in Health Research Involving Human Subjects "; also participated in some of the Ford Foundation project and Harvard / Fudan University Research Ethics Seminar project, undertook interpreting work.

Part 4: Assisting HZAU to hold the CCic

'CCiC', or the Central China iGEMers' Consortium, is an institution that has existed long before it's name. The iGEM teams of WHU, HUST and HZAU have a tradition of close collaboration, visiting each other every few weeks or so, discussing problems and sometimes having lunch together. It’s only natural if a title is given to the contents. In this year, the event is held in HZAU, and it is likely to happen in HUST next year.

We assisted HZAU to finished some of the work in the early stage and participated in the big event as well.

We were presenting our project to the audience.

Part 5: Attending the meeting-up held by NCTU

We participated in International Genetically Engineered Machine Conference at National Chiao Tung University from August 3rd to 7th 2014.

The happy moments during the conference.

Part 6:Designing a fascinating game

To have more people know about the great fun in synthetic biology and get interested, we designed a fly-chess game. We intended to have it on our wiki and interact with you online while some problems occurred, so we decided to replace the online game with a face-to-face one. We have already introduce this game to many students in our school.

Rules of the Game
S. start
A. The first kind of pollutant, Cu²⁺, you are poisoned and should go back 3 lattices. You must be repaired in the lab to continue gaming.
B. The second kind of pollutant, Cu⁺, you are poisoned and should go back 3 lattices. You must be repaired in the lab to continue gaming.
C. The third kind of pollutant, CN^-, you are poisoned and should go back 3 lattices. You must be repaired in the lab to continue gaming.
F. Freezing environment, you should stop for a round.
H. Gene which can help you defend cold conditions.
G. Target gene, get it and equip it in the lab，and you can become clear away pollutant.
L. Lab, which can repair your body and equip you with target gene.
X. Throw the dice, if the point is more than 3, go forward for 2 lattices. If not, go back for 2 lattices.
P. Protection cover which can defend a bacteriophage or amoeba for one time.
STOP. Stop for a round.
1/2. Speed half for a round.
3. Go forward for 3 lattices.
-2. Go back for 2 lattices.
If there is no label on the lattices, it just means you don’t need to do anything.

Antibiotics, which can destroy the structure of the cell, you should go back to the start place to restart game.

Stream, go forward for 3 lattices.

Phage, which can attack you, speed half for three rounds.

Amoebae, it can phagocytose your cilia, destroy the structure of cell. Your speed becomes half and you must be repaired in the lab to continue gaming.

Tips：
1. The game is for 2-4 people to play.
2. The goal is to equip yourself with target gene and clear away pollutants.
3. If you meet intersections, you can decide the way you will go forward yourself.
4. When clearing up pollutants in your hometown, you should go counterclockwise.
5. The speed can’t be halved twice. If you get twice, you will die and return to the start.
6. You can equip yourself with target genes just by passing the lab.