Team:HKUST/Human Practice/Worshop labopenday

From 2010.igem.org

(Difference between revisions)
Line 4: Line 4:
<title>Team: HKUST</title>
<title>Team: HKUST</title>
-
<link href="http://ihome.ust.hk/~lzhu/website/style.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />
+
<link href="style.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />
</head>
</head>
Line 42: Line 42:
<div id="boxes">
<div id="boxes">
-
<div id="box_banner1"><div id="banner_text">Overview</div></div>
+
<div id="box_banner1"><div id="banner_text"><b>Overview</b></div></div>
-
<div id="content"><a href="#1"><em>Staphylococcus aureus</em> is a facultatively anaerobic,  gram-positive coccus which forms large round yellow colonies when grown on agar  plate......</a></div>
+
<div id="content"><a href="https://2010.igem.org/Team:HKUST/Human_Practice">Click here to have general view of our human practice this year !</a></div>
</div>  
</div>  
<div id="boxes">
<div id="boxes">
-
<div id="box_banner2"><div>Workshop <br />& <br /> Lab Open Day </div></div>
+
<div id="box_banner2"><div id="banner_text"><b>Workshop <br />& <br /> Lab Open Day </b></div></div>
-
<div id="content"><a href="#2"><em>Staphylococcus aureus</em> is a facultatively anaerobic,  gram-positive coccus which forms large round yellow colonies when grown on agar  plate......</a></div>
+
<div id="content"><a href="https://2010.igem.org/Team:HKUST/Human_Practice/Worshop_labopenday">A detail description of the main issures in human prectice.</a></div>
</div>  
</div>  
<div id="boxes">
<div id="boxes">
-
<div id="box_banner3"><div id="banner_text">AgrBDCA</div></div>
+
<div id="box_banner3"><div id="banner_text"><b>Memories</b></div></div>
-
<div id="content"><a href="#3"><em>Staphylococcus aureus</em> is a facultatively anaerobic,  gram-positive coccus which forms large round yellow colonies when grown on agar  plate......</a></div>
+
<div id="content"><a href="https://2010.igem.org/Team:HKUST/Human_Practice/Memories">Memorable piture and words from this summer.&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp; XD </a></div>
</div>  
</div>  
-
<div id="boxes">
+
 
-
<div id="box_banner4"><div id="banner_text">PlnABCD</div></div>
+
-
<div id="content"><a href="#1"><em>Staphylococcus aureus</em> is a facultatively anaerobic,  gram-positive coccus which forms large round yellow colonies when grown on agar  plate......</a></div>
+
-
</div>
+
</div>
</div>

Revision as of 14:29, 22 October 2010

Team: HKUST

Synthetic Biology Workshop    

To promote better understanding of synthetic biology by the general public and arouse students' interest to integrate a broad variety of science discipline in their science study, we have organized a summer Synthetic Biology Workshop in July 19-23, 2010 at our university.

This Synthetic Biology Workshop was coordinated by our instructors, Mr. Sun Wong and Dr. King L. Chow, while we all participate as tutors throughout the week. The workshop aims to bring 25 high school students from F.4 to F.6 (equivalent to grade 9-12) to look into the future of biological research using synthetic biology as a platform. These students recommended by their science teachers all came with bright eyes and enthusiastically engaged in the five-day activities. Even though we had two days risking a direct hit by the Typhoon Chanthu, red signal of heavy rain, the determination of the students and tutors was un-deterred. People stayed on and finished a productive learning journey for the tutors and the tutees.

In this five days' workshop, we focus on the exploration of science and engineering and their integration. We have organized daily lectures covering various aspects of synthetic biology, from the introduction of different applications of synthetic biology, concepts of Biobricks, basic molecular biology techniques for plasmid construction, PCR amplification of DNA for the subsequent manipulation, discussion about device and system design, and mathematical modeling using software, etc. Participants have done some direct quantification in a gene expression study. All these topics were accompanied by hand on experimental work dispersed into the daily schedule running from 9:00am to 5:00pm.

There are also two sessions that are worth highlighting.

We have group projects led by students themselves. They started their own "iGEM project by design" and came up with a presentation at the end of a day and a half. We were all surprised to see how quickly our high school students picked up the ideas and gave a number of interesting design proposals within these two days. Their presentations were filled with enthusiasm and proposed topics spanned from using algae to make biofuel, to using bacteria for targeting cancer cells for treatment. We also had a project using fecal bacteria to absorb carbon dioxide to improve the green house effect – it would be a good idea if we can all tolerate the smelly discharges.

The second highlight was a discussion on social ethical impact of biotechnology and synthetic biology. We held this discussion in order to better understand how young people thought about social issues brought by synthetic biology. Students talked passionately about those social concerns in the discussion. They exchanged their ideas and commented on other's opinions. We were glad to know about their rational thoughts on the ethical issues of synthetic biology. We were very surprised that students were in fact more receptive to these new ideas and the applications of synthetic biology. In general, as long as the new development is helping the advancement of our ability to cope with medical problems, environmental issues or energy crisis, students were very supportive to have them further developed.

Exciting time flies, and the workshop that was prepared for a few months ended with a sharing sessions filled with drinks, chips, clicks of the camera and of course good memory of the participants about our enthusiastic group of iGEM team members. Who knows, they may be our future iGEM team member next year!

TOP

Lab Open Day    

In order to let more young people have better understanding of synthetic biology and modern biological research, we opened our iGEM research lab to general public on Sep 18th, 2010. This is also the annual Outreach Day of HKUST, on which more than one thousand high school students and their parents and teachers visited our university campus. Over 200 high school students participated in our lab tour and HKUST iGEMers presented our this year's project ideas. We also shared and discussed with the students about our wonderful experience joining this year's iGEM.

Most students agreed that the lab tour was an enjoyable and memorable experience. During the lab tour, we introduced them several commonly used techniques for synthetic biology experiments, such as polymerase chain reaction (PCR), agarose gel electrophoresis and endonuclease digestion. We also showed them photos taken during our daily experiments in order to give them a general picture of what synthetic biology research is like. The visitors, mainly local high school students, had hand-on experience on observing bacterial and yeast cells under microscopes. They were attracted by the rapid technological developments in modern biological research.

After the lab tour, we gave our visitors short presentations, introducing our iGEM project idea this year. Though the detailed mechanisms were not easy,they were able to appreciate the basic rationale of our iEGM project. They told us that they were very surprised and encouraged to see how health and medical problems could be better addressed by improved biological technologies. Many interesting questions and valuable suggestions were raised by the enthusiastic crowds after listening to our presentations. The high school students were very open-minded to our project idea and its potential applications. Many participants also shared with us their crazy and creative projects ideas, which also provided our iGEM members many insightful thoughts.

During the lab open day, we promoted synthetic biology among young people and showed them how our life could be better improved by synthetic biology studies. The message we successful passed to them is that synthetic biology requires originality and creativity and most importantly, it's full of challenges and joy.

TOP