Team:UNICAMP-EMSE Brazil/Human Practices/DNA workshop/kits

Human Practices: The DNA Workshop kits

Proposal

The main objective of the DNA Workshop is to disseminate Genetic Engineering and Synthetic Biology in a simple way. A school teacher should present our Genetic Engineering Video Class to students, give a short reviewe about the theme and after, promote discussion and encourage the students to solve important problems using the knowledge they acquired in Video Class. The students are then separated in several groups and each group will receive an envelope containing the DNA Workshop kit.

The parts we created are very simple, you can reproduce our method by using our suggestions of problems, genes, promoters and hosts, printing the cards and using some colored cardstock! You can find below the complete description of the kits contents used by our team in DNA Workshop (and is shown in the documentary video):

Proposed problems

Each group received a kit containing a problem they must solve using the DNA Workshop parts. The objective is to create a very simple version of a "BioBrick" to be inserted into a host. In our DNA Workshop, we proposed the following three problems:

1. " DIABETES

• Glucose is the main energy source of the organism, however its excess can cause a variety of health complications!
• Diabetes is a disease characterized by an abnormal increase of sugar, or glucose, content in the blood. Patients suffering from diabetes may have problems with insulin production (the protein responsible for taking the glucose out of the blood and enable their entrance in the cells), or may produce an inefficient insulin, among many others reasons.
• For the treatment of diabetes, the patient receives insulin injections in addition to a special diet and physical exercises. The diabetes still has no cure!

NOW IS YOUR TURN!

• Your mission is to project and build up a genetic system (containing PROMOTER, GENE and HOST) that may be able to CURE or treat the DIABETES in an efficient way!! "

2. " HAEMOPHILIA A

• The hemophilia is a hereditary disease that induces a delay in blood coagulation. The reason for this anomaly is caused by a deficiency in the “clotting factor” production. Hemophilic patients may suffer from severe hemorrhages, therefore they must be very carefully to not injury themselves with cuts, bruises and other lesions.
• The treatment of Hemophilia A is made by administration of clotting factors to the patient. Unfortunately, there is still no cure for hemophilia A!

NOW IS YOUR TURN!

• Your mission is to project and build up a genetic system (containing PROMOTER, GENE and HOST) that may be able to CURE or treat the HEMOPHILIA A in an efficient way!! "

2. " OIL SPILL

• Petroleum is a natural oily substance used for several purposes like fuels, plastics, solvents, oils, lubricants among many others. As it is the main raw material for a wide variety of very important products to man’s life, petroleum has been increasingly removed from nature. However, due to transportations issues cause by the large distance between its source and its final destination, many environmental problems have been caused, like OIL SPILL.
• When the oil is in contact with the ocean it causes the contamination of the water which lead to a wide spread damage, like the death of fish and corals. The petroleum can also contaminate the soil, leading the polluted area unproductive and toxic.

NOW IS YOUR TURN!

• Your mission is to project and build up a genetic system (containing PROMOTER, GENE and HOST) that may be able to DECONTAMINATE, CLEAN or CHANGE the oil from CONTAMINATED AREAS!! "

Proposed Parts

1. Hosts

Each kit contained a set of possible hosts, organisms which would receive the genetic system. The objective of offering many possible hosts was show to the students that they can change genetic material of whatever organism, from virus and bacteria to an animal such as a fish. Additionally they could create a logical reasoning connecting the host to the aimed effect.

You can find out some host suggestions (which we applied in DNA Workshop):

Host options

Virus	Bacteria	Fish	Lettuce leave
Yoghurt bacteria	Yeast (ferment)	Yakult Lactobacillus	Algae

2. Promoters

Each kit contained a set of promoters from which the students must choose one to bind upstream to the gene. The promoters were labeled as Weak, Medium and Strong promoters. The students were instructed that the promoter force is related to the intensity of its associated genes transcription.

You can find out some host suggestions (which we applied in DNA Workshop):

Promoter options

Weak promoter (in portuguese: "Promotor Fraco")

Medium promoter (in portuguese: "Promotor Médio")

Strong promoter (in portuguese: "Promotor Forte")

3. Genes

Each kit contained a set of genes from which the students must choose one to bind downstrean to the promoter. Each given problem (Diabetes, Haemophilia and Oil Spill) have its own set of genes. Most of the genes were fictitious, with the main purpose of stimulate the creative ability of the students to create solutions.

You can find below some gene suggestions for each problem (which we applied in DNA Workshop) and pictures of the parts:

• The DNA Workshop genes for Diabetes kit were:

1. Insulin degradation gene (portuguese: "Gene de degradação de insulina")
2. Insulin gene (portuguese: "Gene da insulina")
3. Insulin production induction gene (portuguese: "Gene de indução de produção de insulina")
4. Sugar deletion in blood gene (portuguese: "Gene de eliminação do açúcar no sangue"

• The DNA Workshop genes for Haemophilia kit were:

1. Coagulation factor releasing gene (portuguese: "Gene de liberação de fator de coagulação")
2. Prevent bleeding gene (portuguese: "Gene que impede hemorragias")
3. Coagulation factor gene (portuguese: "Gene de fator de coagulação")
4. Coagulation factor accumulation gene (portuguese: "Gene de acumulação de fator de coagulação")

• The DNA Workshop genes for Oil Spill kit were:

1. Gene of petroleum accumulation (portuguese: "Gene de acumulação de petróleo" )
2. Gene of petroleum degradation (portuguese: "Gene de degradação de petróleo")
3. Gene of petroleum to natural gas conversion (portuguese: "Gene de conversão de petróleo em gás natural")

You can find below the photos of genes we applied in DNA Workshop:

Gene options

Genes used in Diabetes problem kit

Genes used in the Haemophilia kit

Genes used in the Oil Spill problem kit

To school teachers

To propagate the DNA Workshop in your school, you may present our Genetic Engineering video class to your students. This video is available in youtube (see HERE). After the video, you should give to the students a short class to review the new concepts, since it is very difficult to memorize so many new information in one time. The repetition of the information in a small class is very usefull to fix the concepts in the audience. After doing that, you should give to each group of students a DNA workshop kit (you can create it using our suggestions of problems, genes, promoters and hosts, printing the cards and cuting some colored cardstock) and stimulate them to use the knowledge they acquired about genetic engineering and synthetic biology to solve the given problem by creating a new genetic system. To create a funny environment we decided to award the students. In the end, all groups were awarded, because we believe that everyone won with the knowledge acquisition! You can watch how we applied this method in our Documentary video: https://2011.igem.org/Team:UNICAMP-EMSE_Brazil/Human_Practices/DNA_workshop#Documentary_Video_about_DNA_Workshop_application

The picture below represents the expected result of this procedure: