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Policy & Practices
Poster Session at Tokyo University
We participated in a poster session held at Tokyo University on May 18th. iGEM teams from all over Japan
gathered at this event and introduced their project to the visitors. Not only students and professors at the university, but also people without any scientific background came and listened to our projects. After introducing our projects, we asked visitors for feedbacks to make our projects better. Our main purpose of this event was to make people know what iGEM is, and change the negative thinking of synthetic biology, which people usually have.
The Projects
To introduce our projects to the visitors, we made a poster for each project. We tried our best to make it easy for people from any background to understand by using figures. Besides posters for our projects, we also made an introduction of iGEM to get more people know about it.
Here are the five projects that we introduced at the poster session: solar battery, treatment for pollen allergy, lie detector, E. coli Bank, and fertilizer.
| • Solar Battery | |
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Solar energy is one of the alternative sources of energy widely used in the world. In this project, we made a solar battery by using photosynthetic bacteria and current generating bacteria to generate power. Wherever sunlight shines, electricity can be generated by this solar battery. It has been invented in some institutes, but the low efficiency and inconvenient hardware still tend to be a problem. Therefore, we tried to improve the efficiency of existing bacteria-using solar battery to make it practical. |
| • Treatment for Pollen Allergy | |
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In Japan, it is said that one in five people suffers from pollen allergy. More than twenty million people have this symptom and the number is increasing every year. In order to cure this, we thought of using E. coli in immunotherapy. Immunotherapy is one of the recently developed treatment which can completely cure the allergy symptom. You put the allergen into the body from very small amount, and by gradually increasing it, you can suppress the body′s excess allergic reaction. However, there are several defects in this treatment. You have to go to the hospital for treatment many times, and it takes three to five years for a complete recovery. By using E. coli, we tried to invent a faster and easier immunotherapy. |
| • Lie Detector | |
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In this project, we tried to make a lie detector by using E. coli. By putting Na+ channel in the flagellum motor, E. coli reacts with the sodium ion included in the liar′s sweat and starts running. If the E. coli moves, it touches lysozyme and the outer membrane dissolves. Then, ATP inside the E. coli will come out and reacts with luciferase to glow. |
| • Bank E.coli | |
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We thought of making E. coli act as a bank by taking things in and out. We had two scenarios for this theme: • Exchanging things between Bank E. coli and Consumer E. coli • Taking things in and out by a group of Bank E. coli Other than these stories, recreating the bursting of the bubble economy with E. coli was also in the plan. |
| • Fertilizer | |
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Microelement fertilizer is very important to the growth of crop. However, more than 70% of the fertilizer is unused in soil. Phosphorus included in the fertilizer becomes insoluble by binding with metals, such as aluminum and calcium. Since plants cannot absorb these immobilized phosphorus, the phosphorus accumulates in soil. To solve this problem, we decided to use E. coli to degrade the immobilized phosphorus into phosphoric acid which plants can absorb. After producing phosphoric acid, E. coli stores it in its body in a polymeric form. By collecting these E. coli and extracting the polymer, we can retrieve the phosphorus left in soil. |
Results
After introducing what iGEM is and our projects to the visitors, they gave us many advices and opinions. We prepared blue and yellow Post-it, and asked them to write their opinions down on it. Good points were written on yellow Post-it, and bad points or suggestions were written on blue Post-it. We reflected the feedback and comments from the visitors to make our projects better (The comments that visitors gave for each project are listed in Table 1) We thank all the visitors for cooperating us in this poster session.
Many visitors, especially people without any scientific background, had negative thinking of E. coli at first. However, by introducing the properties of E. coli, they changed their mind. On the Post-it, there were many opinions saying that they were looking forward to new inventions using E. coli. We can say that our goal, which is letting people know and changing the negative thinking of synthetic biology, has been achieved.
Click here too see visitors' opinions
