Team:British Columbia/HP

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  • Beetle Epidemic
  • Monoterpene Production
  • Synthase Structure
• Human practices
  • Mentorship
  • Synthetic Biology Gone Wild
  • Public Perceptions
• Acknowledgements

Human Practice Approaches

Our rubrics for Mentoring Young Scientists can be downloaded: File:Ubcigem2011mentoringyoungscientists.pdf Or found on this CommunityBricks page.

Our short discourse "Synthetic Biology in the Open: Pipe dream or the next giant leap for mankind?" can be downloaded: File:Ubcigem2011syntheticbiologyintheopen.pdf Or found on this CommunityBricks page.

Mentoring Young Scientists - (Outreach at Science World on September 20, 2011)

The UBC iGEM 2011 team collaborated with Science World and Future Leaders in Science to deliver a synthetic biology workshop to select high school students and potentially foster the creation of a high school British Columbia iGEM team!

We are thankful to Dr. Catherine Anderson, Program Manager of Future Science Leaders for the opportunity to take part in this innovative program!

We introduced synthetic biology and iGEM to the high school students and guided them through a plasmid activity aimed at solving a real world problem by creating a plasmid with appropriate parts. Our workshop outline can be found at the wiki for iGEM outreach.

Check out our clip of "A Day in the Life... of an iGEMer" and lab safety:

The idea behind the “Day in the Life” video was to provide a sneak peek for Young Scientists to see what a lab looks like, where we do research and all the exciting things go on.

We incorporated safety considerations such as:

1. Always have proper footwear (ie. bare feet is UNEXCEPTABLE and flip flops aren’t good either)
2. Wear long pants
3. Have long hair tied back
4. No food or drink in the lab (fuel up before you head in!)
5. Wear a lab coat
6. Always work with someone else in the lab, never work alone.
7. Wear gloves (for sanitary high-fives)
8. Use a proper lab notebook to keep a record of your lab work
9. and many other things that can be spotted in the video...

We wanted to show off the beautiful Michael Smith building where we not only do research, but have meetings (sometimes long ones as in the video), connect with other scientists, hang out, laugh (and cry) and get lost in the hallways...

There were also some extra Science-y tidbits thrown in there which have very little to do with our project (ahem, liquid nitrogen? It is just too cool to leave out).

Raising Awareness of iGEM and Synthetic Biology - (UBC Orientation on September 6, 2011)

Imagine UBC is the University's orientation and transition program for undergraduate students. 5,000 first-year students, along with upper-year students, and the greater UBC community, are invited to The Main Event, a showcase of campus life with over 200 informative resource booths! We gave strawberry DNA extraction demos and asked students what they thought synthetic biology meant!

A DIY quick protocol: mash up strawberries, mix thoroughly with salt and soap water, filter through a coffee filter or cheesecloth and aliquot the liquid filtrate into microcentrifuge tubes. Carefully add ethanol on top of the water layer, rotate gently and see the DNA precipitate out into the ethanol layer (the shimmery bubbly stuff). I think I see a double helix!

What IS synthetic biology?

To help convey what iGEM and synthetic biology is to the community, our team has started an iGEM Dictionary on the outreach wiki. We will be organizing an activity at the Americas Regional Jamboree to fill up this dictionary with the help of all attending iGEM teams! So please keep an eye out for us and visit our poster!

In addition, we have created a list of synthetic biology quick links found here.

One of the UBC iGEM team's goals is to probe public understanding of synthetic biology and in particular see if it changes over the years. Is the presence of your iGEM team changing public knowledge and perception of synthetic biology?

In 2010, we asked hundreds of students for their definition of synthetic biology and produced this word cloud based on the frequency of keywords:

In 2011, we again asked hundreds of students for their definition of synthetic biology and produced a second word cloud:

It looks like the same keywords keep popping up: Biology, Making, Creating, Man-Made, Synthetic, Fake, Artificial, DNA, life. But it makes you wonder what these terms mean to the individual. What does making and creating man-made synthetic fake artificial DNA biology life mean personally, socially, ethically, environmentally, politically and economically? Check out this xtranormal video inspired by the answers we got from hundreds of undergraduates!

Human Practices Reflections and Future Directions

I, Laura, think back to the Spring when our team first formed and I excitedly volunteered to lead the Human Practices pillar. I was brimming with passion, ideas and naivety. It has been interesting to compare my expectations and objectives for the summer to what we have actually achieved and what objectives we have fulfilled.

It is a mixture of satisfaction and disappointment on my part. I had high hopes for all the things I would accomplish and then the summer months flashed by to this point of a nearly frozen wiki. That isn’t to say that I don’t have great pride for what we have done and where our initiatives will lead us apart from iGEM. The unfinished objectives are not failures, they are pre-formed possibilities for next year’s team!

It was important for us to invest our time into something sustainable and accessible. With regards to sustainability, we have had some keen responses from Future Science Leaders interested in being involved with our 2012 iGEM project (whatever that may be) or to start a team of their own. We wish to continue fostering relationship with these kids and be available for potential mentoring opportunities. In terms of accessibility, we have been trying to contribute to the Outreach page as much as possible and will continue to do so after the wiki freeze and even after Regionals. We aspire for our work to be accessible and replicable we found the Outreach Page to be the perfect portal.

In all, it was a good time. I definitely laughed a lot, I also cried a bit, and I worked with some amazing people. I can honestly say that this experience has changed me and I won’t ever be the same. I am looking forward to another epic year for British Columbia iGEM team in 2012!!