Human Practice

iGEM UT-Tokyo

Outreach

What comes to people's mind when they hear the word, 'Synthetic biology'? Many people don't know what it is, or have an ambiguous image that it is something dangerous. This situation is not good for synthetic biology at all, because the applications and possibilities of this field are generally undermined, rendering application difficult, already made a struggle by the current laws.

As a group related to synthetic biology, we, the team UT-Tokyo think it is important to approach the society and explain synthetic biology to improve this situation.

Introducing an interest in synthetic biology to children will be effective for these ends, for it is children that will shape the future of synthetic biology. So, we hosted a communication room at our college carnival.

At the same time, we wanted to gain understanding from adults, who provide public opinion currently. We think the media is the best way to explain to many people at once.

WORKSHOP ＠ May festival '11/05/28,29

In May 28th and 29th, we hosted the communication room at the University of Tokyo's official festival. This festival, called May Festival, is one of the most popular college festival in Japan, and proud that visitors of the festival is more than 100,000 every year. We made use of this fantastic situation to present what is Synthetic Biology, iGEM and what our team did. We produced our team character, to draw attention of people. Isn't this characterized E.coli so cute? We had expected that this casual character may introduce many people to our room. and yes, though we didn't know whether it was thanks to our character or not, we had a large variety of people, from youth to elderly, from baby to past igemer.

To explain what we did, we used our previous poster and modeling system, which was easy to see and understand. We explained the basic knowledge of bioengineering. To make sure that visitors could understand according to their knowledge, we used two pamphlets. One, we explained DNA, Cloning, Gene therapy, GM foods and iPS cell , and the other, E.coli, Plasmid, Bioengineering and iGEM.

Also, we conducted the intersting experiment with the children. 'LET'S EXTRACT YOUR DNA' was it. People can extract their DNA through their oral mucosa, so all they have to do was spilt their saliva. We aimed to entertain children, however, in the end, many adults also got excited.

We are sure that through this event, many people got interested in synthetic biology !

Media

• SPA (Volume '11/06/14)

At the May Festival, we had an interview with SPA, one of the most famous general-interest magazine in Japan.They had planned to make feature articles about 'Astonishing researches'. Our team leader explained our team project. This article also appeared at the mixi-news. Since mixi is the largest SNS among twenties in Japan, this interview must be read by many Japanese young people.

>> http://nikkan-spa.jp/10034

• G2 (Volume '11/Sep)

We had an interview with G2. The magazine which takes non fiction stories, took our project.

>>http://g2.kodansha.co.jp/8079/8114/8115/8116.html

• Experimental Medicine (Volume '12/Feb)

Experimental Medicine(実験医学), the magazine whose aim is to unite molecule-biology and medicine, plans to carry our opinion in their opinion corner. Our interview is scheduled to appear on 2012.Feb volume. Please wait and see !

>>http://www.yodosha.co.jp/jikkenigaku/opinion/