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Team:UT-Tokyo/CTCD/Content/Humanpractice
From 2014.igem.org
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This year, we set 2 goals in human practice and have made efforts to realize following goals.
1.Spreading iGEM in general public.
2.Activating iGEM in Japan.
We set these 2 goals because we want to remove prejudice against gene recombination and synthetic biology, and familiarize people with synthetic biology. By doing these, we think that people can understand synthetic biology better.
We also expect undergraduate students, who will lead next generation of biology, to improve their skills by activating iGEM in Japan.
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Contents |
"EcoLightsOut"
We have developed an Android app. to introduce our project. This is a puzzle game which uses the counting system we created. In the project, the state of E. coli is changed by stimulus of signal molecules. In the game, players can stimulate the E. coli by touching it. E. coli are displayed in 3x3 or 5x5 grid shape. When you touch an E. coli in the game, the colors of the E. coli and four adjacent ones are changed. This behavior is analogy of diffusion of signal molecules. The goal is to turn all E. coli green.
Synthetic biology is not well-known and thought to be unfamiliar to ordinary people. To introduce synthetic biology into public, an easy entrance such as playing game is effective. We hope that players will get interested in synthetic biology by enjoying this game.
You can download this game from Google Play.
Lectures to general public
School festivals
The university of Tokyo has two school festivals per year. The May festival is held in May and the Komaba festival was held in November.We explained iGEM and synthetic biology briefly and introduce our project to audience. We invited other iGEM teams in Japan to May festival. We offered precious opportunities that Japanese iGEM teams meet through May festivals.
Techno-Edge
Techno-Edge is the event which the department of technology of university of Tokyo held. The purpose of this event was to appeal department of technology to junior high or high school students.Many laboratories and academic circles such as Robotech took part in this event. iGEM UT-Tokyo also participated in it to appeal synthetic biology.
Not only high school and junior high, but also primary school students came to our booth and were interested in our explanation.
Presentation
This year, iGEM Nagahama invited us to the genetics society of Japan, and we participated in it. We made an oral presentation workshop of synthetic biology and took part in poster session. There were many iGEM teams, and we could advertise iGEM in academic world. Moreover, specialists gave advice to us, and we were inspired by professors of synthetic biology.
We also joined in Japanese Society for Cell Synthesis Research.
A cram school
We held a seminar in which we explained synthetic biology and iGEM for high school students at a cram school in Komaba.
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Collaborations
We collaborated on modeling with Nagahama.
Their project aimed cadmium collection using Escherichia coli which has positive chemotaxis for aspartic acid, then we constructed simplified model of chemotaxis and simulated behavior of E. coli by using probability and random function.
Their wiki explained the result of modeling.(→link) We constructed all equations in their simulation including the equation that determines E. coli to choose going straight or turning in probability, and explained equations to them.The figure describing the result of simulation is also made by UT-Tokyo. All code for modeling is here.(→link)
Ethics and regulation
We thought to confirm whether our project meets ethics, but ethics is very vague, so we decided to research about ethics.
iGEM Japan
iGEM Japan is an organization which was founded last year for iGEM teams in Japan to cooperate each other.
In March, iGEM Kyoto held iGEM-Japan West meeting. In this meeting, we shared each team's project and advised each other. This meeting was very useful because we could find our idea's weak point.
In August, iGEM TMU-Tokyo held iGEM-Japan East meeting, and we made presentations about our projects and criticized each other. Thanks to these meetings, we developed quality of our projects.
