Team:NCTU Formosa/human practice

　They introduced many common insects-capturing tools to us, like: fly and insect catching adhesive tool: All-net, pheromone insects-capturing tools……,etc and also provided many treasured comments and advice about our project and device, which let us have deeper consideration to our future testing and the problem of the practicality of our device.

　We are very appreciated to Sunnymorning organic farm who is willing to let us test our device at any time or area and helps us capturing our target female moths, which let us own enough number of female moths to test the basic effect of our PBAN in NCTU. This cooperation let us enjoy our project in capturing insects, and also we were happy to know the farmer’s enthusiasm about our project. Most importantly, this cooperation had made the most progress to our project！

The Art of Insect Rearing for Them：
　Dr. Tzeng told us insect rearing is not only a branch of knowledge, but a kind of art. For example, when malaria was a pandemic disease all over the world, some related research had difficulty in obvious progression, because Anopheles gambiae had not been reared successfully at that time. However, since a researcher from United Kingdom had success in rearing Anopheles gambiae in lab, the malaria disease had been completely researched, and the health life of human had been improved. This concept raised a great inspiration for how to do the research of our project.

Suggestion of Our Harmful Insects--Bactrocera dorsalis：
　Dr. Tzeng told us the bactrocera dorsalis is a serious problem for Taiwanese agriculture, which causes 17 billions dollars of loss every year. Our government had used many methods ( like：air drop many non-fertility bactrocera dorsalis to the farm ), trying to solve this problem, but finally failed. Dr. Tzeng suggested Bactrocera dorsalis as the target harmful insect of our project to solve the main problem of Taiwanese agricultural insects damage.

Discussion about Ecological Equilibrium Problem of Our Project：
　As for the ecological equilibrium problem of our project, Dr. Tzeng thought fundamental we human farm in the area, having caused harm to nature. If you persist in the ecological equilibrium problem, then you have to ask yourself why you do farming and cause harm to the environment？Dr. Tzeng gave us a special view point, highlighting in the beginning, we human who do farming to survive have caused harm to the environment, so we should mot inspect the ecological equilibrium problem of capturing insects.

Experience Sharing of Dengue Fever Prevention and Control：
　Dr. Tzeng shared the interesting experience of his presentation about Dengue Fever Prevention and Control at many town offices and also introduced there are two kinds of dengue fever vector mosquito, one is Aedes albopictus outdoors and the other is aedes aegypti indoors. We not only learned simple knowledge of dengue fever but also realized the feeling of helping people with professional knowledge.

　　　　　　　　

fig.5-1-1 That is the entrance of NCHU university.

fig.5-1-2 This is the laboratory of Dr. Tzeng.

Explanation of the Real Function of Mosquito PBAN：
　In fact, the mosquito PBAN is activated during spreading wings when the mosquito emerges from its pupa. Initially, the mosquito wings are all living cells and when its PBAN regulates some hormones to make some cells apoptosis, just leaving few cells alive on its bone of wings, it finally forms transparent wings. This explanation about mosquito PBAN gave us a deeper realization about PBAN.

Take a Look at Their Mosquito Breeding Cage and Insect Light Trap ：
　Dr. Tzeng let us take a look at Culex pipiens molestus (the underground house mosquito) breeding cage, and also introduced the behavior of many kinds of mosquito. This mosquito breeding cage inspired us many new ideas about our insects testing box. In fact, we mimicked the same concept of mosquito breeding cage to test our PBAN effect simply.

　　

fig.5-1-3 This was the testing box which was filled with mosquitos.

fig.5-1-4 The box has a special design which allows us inserting hands to touch the mosquitos.

Further Discussion about our project：

fig.5-1-5

　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 like PBAN degeadation 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 actually our project work. ). In the discussing process, we inspected many problems again, and also get many suggestion from Dr. Tzeng. We hoped we can overcome all the problems, and improve our project.

Advantages Discussion of Our Device：
　Referring to our project, we use PBAN to make the harmful insects produce pheromone for us to help us attract many same kinds of insects. Dr. Tzeng was very interested in our project, and thought compared to the common use (Pheromone Trap & Pesticide ) in the market, our main idea have no dug resistance problem ( PBAN is insects’ physiologically natural substance ) and have no worry about the problem of running off our PBAN ( PBAN can be mass produced from our E.coli. ). It is a very user-friendly、eco-friendly and perfect project.

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

More photos here: Google Drive

　In one summer night , our crazy insect catcher went to a farm which is far from our school because this farm has our target moth. We want to catch those moth to be our experiments. The farm owner not only provided us to catch the moth but also tell us how modern farm catch the moth. They use the blue to attract the insect and those insects came close to the device. Device has the little fan on it , so the moths close to the device would be sweep into the device. We will put those idea into our device make our device more efficient and more creative. After two hours , we catch many moth we want and learn more about how farmer catch the pest.

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.5-2-4 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

fig.5-2-7
Chewing over the agenda

Although we had encountered many problems at the beginning, we were extremely grateful that all the difficulties could be overcome with the assistance from our instructors and the team members of the NCTU_Formosa (2013).

We were more than delighted to see the iGEM 2014 turned out to be a wonderful and successful conference in that the whole meeting went smoothly, and more details and trivialities could be well taken care of throughout each individual section.

fig.5-2-9 Presentation of our device.jpg

As a warm-up Asian Jamboree, the Conference set up a stage for each team to present their projects and posters for exchanging research ideas, sharing experiences, or acknowledging difficulties that all delegates have encountered.

fig.5-2-11 Discussion of our project

fig.5-2-10 Discussion of our device

We were not only grateful to acquire all the feedbacks and advices on our project, but were also deeply intrigued and impressed by the projects carried out by the other teams. Their endeavors and methods were indeed very inspiring that have helped us to generate more research ideas, and to raise the possibilities for collaborations with other teams.

fig.5-2-13 Taiwanese banquet

fig.5-2-12 social event

In addition to the scientific sections, we also arranged several social events, including a welcome party, one-day trip in Taipei, and a roadside banquet as the farewell party. We believed the traditional Taiwanese cuisines and unique foods of night markets might be the most effective vehicle to make friends and strengthen our relationships with the delegates from abroad. Despite being exhausted in planning and hosting all these events, we hoped that all delegates felt entertained and welcomed.

fig.5-2-14 one-day trip in National Palace Museum

fig.5-2-15 one-day trip in Cihu

Thanks to all the members of the iGEM, the Conference not only provided us with the opportunity to promote our project, but also created a valuable experience or ‘collective memory’ that may bind all iGEMers together in the forthcoming years.

　　After we visited the green market, we know 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 acquire to make this device more competitive on the market.
2. Technical training
　　The working theory of our device is similar to that of pheromone trap, 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 it’s relevant to 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.

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. </p>

More photos here: Google Drive