We are fully aware of the significance of education as one of the crucial pillars of iGEM since education is the core channel via which individuals acquire knowledge of the principles of synthetic biology. Additionally, a variety of teams are encouraged to join iGEM by paying attention to this section. Our main motivator during this year's journey was our aim to raise awareness of synthetic biology among the general public in our local community.
To reach the goals of the predetermined plan and create spectacular achievements, we have established a number of tactics. After crafting the plan, it was carefully reviewed and served as the framework for determining how far along we were.
Our goal was to attract people from all educational levels —high school and undergraduate — from a range of colleges and disciplines— either medical, such as faculties of medicine, pharmacy, and science, or non-medical ones as business, agriculture, and other fields that could benefit from synthetic biology. This is accomplished by addressing its many applications, such as antibody and vaccine production, biofuel production, agricultural bioengineering, and microbial engineering.
We have been committed to improving our educational plan since the early beginning of this iGEM season. Through intricate research on how to deliver our scientific content and make it more digestible and understandable for the public, we made efforts with careful planning to educate people about our project and how SynBio offered us unprecedented options for improving the therapeutic trials for many diseases. To do this, we had to gather important resources to help us in this regard to help people learn more about synthetic biology, its concepts, and how to implement tangible solutions that it offers. We started to teach the undergraduate students some skills that will later help them in their careers, such as marketing concepts, feasibility studies for their proposed projects, and the ideas they had. We were able to achieve this with simple, easily approachable, and intriguing course lectures, illustration videos, and various hands-on workshops. Our course material has been carefully revised and evaluated by professionals and experts to ensure that the full benefit of this content can be easily and correctly delivered to our target audience.
One of our main concerns was making sure that participants had easy access to all educational resources, whether they wanted to obtain the content or utilize it again. As a result, We took advantage of social media platforms and shared scientific posts, including links to sources that explain the basics of synthetic biology on a page called Synchrony. Besides, we created the AFCM-EGYPT page to promote the most important events and workshops that we host or participate in. All along our educational journey, we aimed to establish a two-way dialogue with our community. Hence, we made sure that our audience understood the contributions of synthetic biology in different fields. At the same time, we tried to take into consideration all their concerns and their ideas in order to guide us through the steps of our journey.
To convey the knowledge in an engaging and appealing manner, we were eager to alter the educational strategy used in the lectures. We refused to believe that the attendees solely took information passively. Instead, we took great effort to ensure that every meeting during the year was interactive, in which everyone took part and then, the participants put what they had learned into practice using their own hands. While we were observing and supervising every step they made to make sure that they stuck to the lab safety measures and perfectly conducted the steps they learned from the workshop in the wet lab until they mastered them. We also made sure our participants convey what they had learned to their colleagues in order to spread the knowledge. In addition, we insisted on teaching them some fundamental soft skills, such as presentation and communication skills. As we consistently encouraged them to host seminars and lectures for their peers at universities or in classrooms in order to share knowledge and impart experience.
The benefit was mutual as we learned from the attendees multiple skills in different fields. Next, they shared with us their suggestions for our iGEM 2023 journey before we ended up settling on the idea of finding a cure for Rheumatoid Arthritis. They also came up with some new places to target for our field visits in order to reach and help a wider population of Rheumatoid patients.
They asked us to provide them with a practical guide on how to set up their business models, what resources they might use and how to predict the costs for the whole project. In return, this practical guide has later helped us in conducting both our cost analysis and our B2B model for the project.
Every time, we were eager to receive feedback from attendees and consider it in order to continually enhance the education we provide. Regarding some recommendations, we added new lectures in our workshop explaining the essential steps needed for any sicentific idea to make the leap from lab to market.
First Step: Online Meetings
As you know, our efforts to explain the basics of synthetic biology are not just based on personal discussions or face-to-face meetings. We also couldn't eventually visit all universities across Egypt. Hence, we announced events, organized online Zoom meetings, and contacted people from different cities around the country to discuss the principles of synthetic biology and help them learn new skills useful in both their academic and professional careers. We found out that one of the main issues that most entrepreneurs faced was the fundraising of their innovative projects. Not all of them knew how to launch fundraising campaigns and convince local and international sponsors to support their ideas. This is why we set up some tutorials on how to reach out to stakeholders, perform SWOT and market analysis, and proceed with fundraising and sponsorship with other institutions and policymakers. We additionally informed them about iGEM MENA League, which is more accepted financially and geographically. As well, it will grant them a great experience similar to iGEM.
Additionally, there is a high level of interest among many people who want to learn more about iGEM and synthetic biology. Early on, we organized online sessions open to everyone interested in synthetic biology where a wide range of people from diverse age groups and educational backgrounds attended. We gave them a brief overview of the team, its involvement in the iGEM competition, and its previous initiatives at the outset. We covered the fundamentals of synthetic biology during these meetings, including the genetic circuit, its elements, DNA, and how to alter and introduce genes safely into cells to alter their functions and confer new features.
The team members additionally outlined a condensed course that included brief lectures on toehold switches, riboswitches, restriction enzymes, mathematical modeling, logic gates, and their numerous applications. In addition, we explained to them the rationale for our decision to develop a new therapeutic approach for Rheumatoid Arthritis in this year's project. These meetings were excellent and had an amazing feedback. We made the lectures accessible to everyone at all times, and we answered all of their inquiries. Finally, we asked the audience a few questions to make sure they understood all the topics that we discussed.
Second Step: RA Guidebook
We made a guide to Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) because, according to our surveys, few people were aware of RA risk factors or how to deal with RA patients. As a response, we made this detailed manual.
We considered preparing this guide in an easy language and a simple method suitable for all levels of education. The handbook provides a brief description of the condition and details about the risk factors for the disease. In addition, it describes how the condition is currently diagnosed and managed. The associated diseases related to RA are also mentioned in this guidebook.
Such a manual would aid patients and their families in understanding the illness, when to be concerned, and how to maintain patients' psychological and physical health by adhering to lifestyle recommendations to reduce the deterioration of the condition.
Rheumatoid Arthritis Guidebook
The RA guidebook is currently accessible to everyone in both hard copy and digital form, in a variety of languages. In every place we visited throughout the journey of our Human Practices, we gave the manual to patients and their caregivers.
Thanks to iGEM UPNAvarra Spain, our Guidebook is also avaialble in Spanish and you can access it by clicking here!
Third Step: Immersion in social events
We made an effort to attend events, conferences, and even online meetings relevant to scientific research. Our intention was to engage with different sections of society and demonstrate our presence on a larger scale. The enormous crowd of attendees allowed us to extend our data gathering and statistical analysis for the project and educate the public about Rheumatoid Arthritis. Participating in these events enabled us to give a talk in front of many health stakeholders and policymakers in Africa about our project on Rheumatoid Arthritis, its causes, current treatment modalities, and our proposed method of treatment. We constantly aimed to increase the value of the knowledge shared during these meetings, broaden our experience, and acquire new skills by discussing all the nuances of the updates in the health sector and therapeutic trials. We have relied on these community events to spread awareness about iGEM and other essential synthetic biology concepts like bioengineering, synthetic genomics, protocells in synthetic biology, unconventional molecular biology, and in silico techniques. In addition, we tried to establish relationships with institutions, policymakers who attended these social events, and investors to help us with either financial support or guidance and advice in marketing our product. When circumstances permit, we provided information about our project this year through lectures and talks, taking advantage of the large gathering of people from various fields at such events.
We participated in the 50th anniversary celebration of the creation of the Egyptian Heart Association. It is one of the most esteemed organizations in Egypt that is concerned with heart health. We thought that accepting this offer would be a fantastic chance for us to engage with new stakeholders relevant to our project. Over the course of three days, we actively and significantly contributed to the conference. We requested permission from the conference organizers to deliver brief lectures that cover the fundamentals of scientific inquiry. The basic concepts of synthetic biology were a major topic of discussion in these lectures. We also discussed the advancement of synthetic biology in the medical and pharmaceutical fields, such as the integration of heterologous pathways into cells designed to efficiently produce medical agents, increasing the yield of natural products in cell growth media, developing novel gene circuits for tumor targeting, and controlling therapeutic agent release in response to biomarkers. This is all specific to the treatment of many diseases such as diabetes and cancer.
The course offered in-depth lectures on mathematical modeling that uses equations, constants, and variables to express molecular interactions in SynBio. Adding to that, the logic gates and its integration in the detection and treatment of many diseases. Moreover, we explored the different uses of the toehold switch and the riboswitch. Then, we introduced ourselves as the iGEM AFCM team, our previous projects, and our prior contributions to solving many local and international health issues. Additionally, we revealed our 2023 Rheumatoid Arthritis project and the progress that we made so far in the development of our platform. We also introduced the attendees to the iGEM International Competition, synthetic biology, and its applications in treating many diseases, including heart diseases.
To further clarify the idea, we used examples of prior iGEM team initiatives in the diagnostic and therapeutic fields of various cardiovascular conditions. The audience engaged with us intensely and expressed their awe at the prodigious volume of ideas being generated by young people. Some of the Cardiologists who were there provided us with means of communication with leading doctors and consultants in Immunology and Rheumatology fields. We consequently contacted these experts and arranged meetings with them to help us with this year’s project. By attending this conference, we learned about advanced research topics in medicine, including Rheumatic Fever, and other talks by the Rheumatologists and Cardiologists who attended the conference. This emphasized the importance of targeting autoimmune diseases and highlighted the need for more research to find treatments for such conditions.
Fourth Step: Visits
It was necessary to have a lot of visits to gather information and statistics for the current year's project. Whether this data was collected from physicians, patients, and their caregivers in hospitals, or from construction sites' workers and technicians susceptible to RA. The highlight of these visits was the interaction with people on the ground, feeling their suffering, sharing their thoughts and fears, and listening to them. We even scheduled hospital visits in other cities than Cairo in order to reach out to as many RA patients as we could. Hence, we visited both Tanta Military Hospital and Mostafa Kamel Military Hospital in Alexandria.
We also considered visiting some factories and holding meetings with employees to learn more about their occupational risks which increase their liability of contracting RA. We also informed the officials in these factories about the disease and their responsibility to change some modalities in the work area and provide workers with modern means of work that are more comfortable and safer to protect them from RA. We also visited a nursing facility, where we met a lot of elderly people diagnosed with RA and living with the disease since a very long time.
Instead of only collecting data from patients, physicians, and their families, we wanted to make the most out of those encounters. Hence, we held simple interactive interviews with patients, including a brief review of synthetic biology and its application to numerous health issues, as well as illustrations of specific diseases that synthetic biology has helped to treat. We discussed autoimmune disorders in general with them and how they develop, but we mostly spoke about Rheumatoid Arthritis. We described the disease in a thoroughly clear manner, the significance of finding a treatment for it, and the serious harm brought on by carelessness in treating such a disease. We also talked about how lifestyle changes are crucial to slowing the disease's progression. The attendees actively engaged in the talks, which were highly successful. All of the attendees' queries, whether they related to the illness or synthetic biology, were addressed by the lecturers. The fundamentals we taught participants helped them comprehend our project and its scientific basis, and these meetings significantly aided us in changing people's views about synthetic biology.
Members of the team distributed the Rheumatoid Arthritis Guidebook to everyone everywhere we go. This guide enabled people to learn more about the disease, its etiology, symptoms, and other details as a consequence. The attendees actively engaged in the talks and all their concerns were covered by our team and also our Guidebook.
Tanta University
Based on our previous achievements in synthetic biology, many faculties across Egypt have reached out to us for guidance and supervision during the preliminary steps to join the iGEM competition. We have listened to their ideas and shared thoughts about problems that require urgent intervention, suggesting solutions using SynBio.
For instance, one of the most esteemed universities in Egypt, Tanta University, sent us an email discussing their motivations for entering the challenge and learning more about synthetic biology and iGEM. The Zoom meeting was actually conducted using a simplified lecture to clarify the idea. They listened carefully to all what we shared about the competition, from the general rules and the entry requirements to the medal criteria and the judging process. They requested our guidance until they were able to build a team capable of joining the iGEM competition. This notion has been well-received, and a constant channel of communication has been established between us for later collaborations and future partnerships.
Over the course of the year, we walked alongside them step by step, beginning with selecting the team members based on criteria suitable for scientific, human practices, and media groups. In addition, we gave them access to a variety of educational materials and courses that they needed to complete in order to proceed with their project, such as scientific writing, entrepreneurship, and software. All these facilities enabled them to contact us with any issues they may be experiencing, offering support and resolving their problems as necessary.
The matter did not stop at online meetings but rather evolved to a higher level when they invited us to take part in the yearly new-student orientation lectures. We saw this as an excellent chance to teach students in Tanta the fundamentals of scientific inquiry and synthetic biology in an easy and straight-forward way. Some team members provided an easy-to-understand clarification of a set of lectures that had been created by us and carefully evaluated by the supervisors. We talked with them about stem cells and their applications in treating autoimmune, inflammatory, neurological, orthopedic conditions , and traumatic injuries. In addition, we clarified the synthesis of genes and genomes and the design of genetic circuits by assembling components of the signaling systems of different organisms into novel circuits that lead to the desired reaction of the cell. We also discussed genome reduction and the generation of protocells by simplifying a cell so that it only retains the essential genes for survival, and construction of protocells from chemical components.
The students engaged in active participation and excellent contact during the lectures, and we did our best to respond to their questions. Although the topics were diverse, they were interesting for the attendees, and they admitted that they had a strong understanding of them due to our excellent explanations and carefully prepared lectures. We also discussed our most recent research on this year's project to develop a cure for Rheumatoid Arthritis. What we presented was not limited to purely scientific content but extended beyond that, as we taught them how to communicate with foreign businesses to support their ideas and launch a start-up for their project. Moreover, we taught them digital marketing techniques, financial management,and analytical skills.
Additionally, we requested permission from Tanta University administrators so that University of Alabama students could access the courses we were giving via the Zoom program. Next, Dr. Mona Fouad from the University of Alabama visited the college, got to know the team, and conveyed how much she appreciated what we had to offer. She recommended us to organize a virtual meeting with her university's students in order to set them on the right path toward signing up for the iGEM competition. Paralell to that, Tanta University administration enthusiastically agreed and welcomed the idea. The students took advantage of all we offered during the day and participated virtually the entire time. We had great discussions with the students on their project ideas and supported them to employ the skills they have learned through SynBio to help them with their projects' implementation.
At the end, they received our Rheumatoid Arthritis Guidebook and they enjoyed it so much that they gave it to their family and neighbors who suffered from the condition. The day was quite exhausting, as we put in a lot of effort, but all of our exhaustion faded away after we met our objectives throughout the event.
Fifth Step: Hosting Events
Hosting events on synthetic biology was our top priority. After that, we were sufficiently prepared, especially adopting Synbio sprout, which targets students at an early age in high school education from various schools in different regions of the country. Additionally, we were eager to invite Egyptian universities to come meet our team, with a particular emphasis on departments that dealt with scientific research and synthetic biology. Such as Benha University, which responded to the invitation, and a delegation of its students interested in scientific research has indeed visited us.
We rejected the idea that it should only apply locally. In order to persuade more people to participate in this exciting field that will benefit their communities and future generations, we took advantage of any international visits to our college by well-known professors or experts. Hence, we met with them and introduced them to our team. Then, we clarified the rules and tracks of the iGEM competition, synthetic biology and its uses in many fields, and emphasized the importance of spreading this scientific knowledge to other university students worldwide.
BackSpace Commuinty
We also organized some simple workshops in remote governorates for students of different universities. In these workshops, we discussed synthetic biology and its applications in various fields, such as medicine, engineering, agriculture, etc. We also gave them a general idea and overview of the iGEM competition, how to form a team to participate, and the skills they will learn in return. We also discussed with them our therapeutic approach against Rheumatoid Arthritis and our latest findings in the wet lab phase. We educated them about the basic procedures that must be followed to ensure safety inside the laboratory, as well as some other skills, such as digital marketing and entrepreneurial skills, and how to transform their ideas from a mere idea into a tangible reality and find the necessary funds for the success of their project.
Synbio Sprouts
Since we first entered the iGEM Competition in 2017, we have hosted a SynFair every year since then, but this year we wanted to take it to a new level. We carefully considered all of the feedback we received in recent years, which led to a creative idea of how to build a new extraordinary approach to distribute our course material in a relevant, accessible, and snappy manner.
On February 12, 2023, our AFCM-Egypt iGEM team arranged an event for ninth graders at Almaza Hospital. The theme of this event was called "Synbio Sprouts" in which we sought to teach students the fundamentals of biotechnology through genetic engineering and synthetic biology. The Synbio Sprouts lasted for 3 consecutive days, as we divided our course material into sessions along those days to make it more practical, engaging, and of course more enjoyable.
Day(1):
Our team leader launched the day with some ice-breaking remarks, asking the students how fish and other little organisms can survive in such freezing conditions in the oceans. One student in the audience raised his hand and answered, " I suppose because they are designed to live in such an environment," which was a really intelligent response; in fact, we went on along to explain that some organisms emit biological materials known as anti-freeze proteins. Which attach to ice in such a way that ice crystal development is suppressed, allowing the organisms to live in and withstand these extraordinary situations.
We then started to motivate them to think about how to use the principles they learned from SynBio and apply them to come up with real-impact solutions. We asked them a question: “What would happen if we extracted the gene and processed it into a protein?”. This not only drives them to fully understand the concept of Synthetic biology and how observing living organisms and how they behave in the environment can help us understand their genes but also to later introduce such genotypes into a genetic circuit to make use of these genes in many other things, as well. Indeed, antifreeze proteins are utilized in cryopreservation and vehicle radiators today in a technique known as "gene expression," but that isn't the issue here; the more significant question was what would happen if the gene was inserted into a synthetic cell. The synthetic cell will develop new properties, such as the capacity to withstand freezing, and this is precisely the function of synthetic biology.
Eventually, we shared our experience of synthetic biology in iGEM. We discussed the concept in detail and exhibited our wiki pages from past years to urge students in high school to register in iGEM, where they may deepen their system of knowledge and enhance their international perspectives in international events.
Day(2):
With easy and fun sessions, we aimed to inculcate basic knowledge of synthetic biology in high school students and stimulate their interest in science.
The students arrived and we were delighted to start the second day; the goal of that day's session was to present the principles of synthetic biology and how to develop a whole genetic circuit from scratch.
Our exceptional teammate Hossam Bannis started by giving a simple lecture about the use of restriction enzymes in integrating their genetic parts within a plasmid vector and how they can make sure that the ligation step was successful and proper., he described it as "magic scissors" as they cut only certain sequences known as sites of restriction. Then he told a short funny story about a king called "bacteria" who has very loyal servants called "restriction enzymes," but instead of holding weapons, they hold scissors, and when an enemy "bacteriophage" comes to attack their king, they defend their king and cut the enemy into several pieces with their magical scissors, and this was the story of how CRISPRS were discovered. Finally, he explained several cloning processes and their applications.
We then began talking about the dry lab phase, focusing on applied or computational mathematics, and our outstanding teammate Hossam Elgamal gave a brief presentation on mathematical modeling. He talked about how important it is to have clear visuals to describe one's work, and he illustrated how to design ordinary differential equations (ODEs), as well as their numerous varieties and applications in various projects. After that, he demonstrated models to show how mathematical modeling helps us predict the molecular interactions in a clearer way and predict the way the circuit will behave to guide us later on through the implementation phase and wet lab work. This was followed by workshops where participants could put what they had certainly learned into practice.
Throughout the session, the environment was remarkably more lively. The students were captivated by the topic. They raised their hands to respond to questions, shared their daily knowledge, and meticulously recorded the valuable information they had gained. Elgamal outlined the lecture's topic and urged students to contribute what they had picked up at the conclusion of the day.
Day(3):
On that day, we greeted the students in the early morning, first introducing them to the lab's required safety precautions and how they may cope with dangerous substances, and then completing the day’s sessions by teaching them other skills such as Blotting Methods. Blotting is the most often used laboratory method in cell and molecular biology.
We had a Q&A session at the end of our course, and the students had some valid questions. A girl stated that she had read about partial differential equations but did not fully comprehend the distinction between them and ordinary differential equations. Then, Elgamal responded positively, explaining that partial differential equations are used to mathematically formulate, and thus aid in the solution of, physical and other problems involving functions of multiple variables, such as heat or sound propagation, fluid flow, elasticity, electrostatics, electrodynamics, and so on.
Once we ended the program, the learners' bright grins gave us a sense of satisfaction and enhanced our determination to continue with the Synbio Sprouts for other sessions.
