Team:NCTU Formosa/human practice

　They introduced many common insect-capturing tools to us, such as adhesive tool for catching moths and flies, also Full-net pheromone insect-capturing tools, etc. In addition, they also provided many treasured comments and advices for us to improve our project and device. This led a deeper consideration of our future testings and the problems we might encounter with the potential use of our device.

　We appreciate Sunnymorning organic farm with huge gratitude, for they are willing to help us out on testing our device, along with capturing our target female moths, which is a very critical portion of our project, and also letting us evaluate the number of female moths needed in order to test the basic effects of our PBAN. We gained a lot afte cooperation with Sunnymorning. First of all, we began overwhelming with our project and with the process during capture. Second, we were got the advices and enthusiasm from farmer. Most importantly, we took a great leap forward and had accomplished some of the most significant progress in our project!

Discussion about Ecological Equilibrium Problem of Our Project：
　Since ecological equilibrium might become the main issue that we will face in our project, Dr. Tzeng mentioned a fundamental question of why human kept on farming. Dr. Tzeng highlighted the importance of human survival, which is a special view point. Although farming is harmful to our environment, we should not regard the destruction of environment as a problem. Instead, we have to keep planting crop in order to produce enough food to survive.

Experience Sharing of Dengue Fever Prevention and Control：
　Dr. Tzeng shared the interesting experience of his presentation about Dengue fever Prevention and introduced the two main kinds of Dengue fever mosquito media. One is Aedes albopictus and the other is aedes aegypti.

　　　　　　　　

Fig.1-2-1 Entrance of NCHU university.

Fig.1-2-2 Dr. Tzeng's Lab of Entomology.

Explained the Real Function of the Mosquito's PBAN：
　 The mosquito's PBAN is for developing wings. When the PBAN regulates hormones to induce cell apoptosis, the dead cells of wings will help the maturation of wings. This is another function of PBAN we learned.

A Glimpse at the Mosquito Breeding Cage and Insect Light Trap ：
　We took a look at Culex pipiens molestus (the underground house mosquito) breeding cage, and also learned the behavior of many kinds of mosquito. This mosquito breeding cage inspired us many new ideas about our insects testing box. In fact, we consulted the same concept of mosquito breeding cage to test our PBAN effect simply.

　　

Fig.1-2-3 This was the testing box which was filled with mosquitos.

Fig.1-2-4 The box has a special design which allows us inserting hands to touch the mosquitos.

Further Discussion about Our Project：

Fig.1-2-5 further discussion and experience exchanging with each other.

　Dr. Tzeng have enthusiasm on discussing our project. To prevent any problem from happening, Dr. Tzeng and we inspected all the probability which may cause our project failed such as PBAN degradation in insects’ intestine (whether we have to use little thuricide to cause some holes on insects’ intestine to make it absorb our PBAN easily) and the restriction of our project (we have to capture the first “female” insect in our device, and proves that our project can actually work.). In the discussing process, we again encounters another problems, and obtain many suggestions from Dr. Tzeng as well. We hoped we can overcome all the problems, and improve our project.

　In briefly conclusion, our team and Dr. Tzeng had deep discussion in this visit. Not only experience sharing but also project inspection that made us learn so much and obtains many new ideas which let us realize how to make use of our project to achieve the best result.

More photos here: Google Drive

　In order to test the efficiency of our insect capturing device, we also went to Eighteen Peaks Mountain near our school. We put several bottles with sugar solution and the blue bulbs to attract the insect. One night over, we caught full of insects and moths. It's a great success.

Due to privacy concerns, we were not granted this information. However, our team member Rachel, who proposed to the alumni association and met with the CEO, was invited to an alumni dinner meeting. She was given a five minute timeslot onstage to explain the iGEM competition, the workings of our team, and how we need their support. This immediately drew the interest of the many successful entrepreneurs who graduated from NCTU. We successfully raised five hundred thousand NT dollars that night, right at the venue.

We also received emails showing giving encouragement and support to our team from many alumni who went on to tell more alumni who were not present about iGEM and us. It is this spirit of always helping out one of our own that established NCTU’s excellence. We cannot be more thankful to their help. There are also several other corporations that we are still communicating with. The whole experience really allowed us to get in touch with the real world and society.

Fig.2-3-2 After the presentation, we invite the students of MDHS to visit our laboratory.

As for our presenting section, we successfully caught their eyes with our creative project－Operation Debug, which is to attract pests in the farm with PBAN. After our amazing presentation, we believed they not only learned more knowledge about synthetic biology but also impressed by the future development potential of this field.

Because some high school students are pretty curious about our laboratory, so we guided them to pay a visit to lab at the end of this event. We introduce the equipment we usually use in the process of DNA synthesis.

More photos here: Google Drive

　　After we visited the green market, we knew that pest plague is surely a big problem for them, especially for those who grow fruits and vegetables.

In the end, we came to few conclusions :

I. Analysis

After a whole day of investigation, we listed 4 main problems required to be solved before our device hits the market:
1. Cost
　　Pest traps are actually pretty low at price on the market. If we still use acrylic material, the entire device might not be as economical as we had predicted. Farmers suggested us switching to another kind of material such as PET or PP that are easier to make this device more competitive on the market.
2. Technical Training
　　The working theory of our device is similar to pheromone traps.However, not every farmer has related experience. It’s necessary to simplify the steps to operate device.
3. Safety of Genetically Modified Products
　　Although we are not growing GMO, some farmers still can’t hold a positive attitude toward our device since they reluctant to touch anything about gene modifying technique. So it’s not for sure whether our device would be accepted by the market in the future.
4. Efficiency
　　Wonderful as the idea may seem, our device still has to be more powerful than other pest traps on the market.

II. Achievements

　　One of the farmers indicated willingness to provide us with the targeted insects. Also many welcome us to test our device efficiency on their farmlands. For them, as long as our device does not contain any hazard pesticide or harm the environment, our project would be another good choice for them to solve pest plague.

More photos here: Google Drive