The idea of iGEM is to use synthetic biology to solve real-world problems, and therefore requires more communication with the world.
Our team actively keeps communication with the society.
Detailed interviews with experts in multiple fields to solve various problems encountered in the implementation of our project;
Questionnaires and field interviews with stakeholders aim to better understand the needs of the society;
Maintain close communication and cooperation with at least two teams, and also participated in the second Synthetic Biology Competition and the Northwest Exchange Competition and other activities, with the purpose of team project publicity and exchange and cooperation;
After that, we communicated with a number of enterprises to achieve our experimental results, as well as discuss sustainability and inclusiveness. These exchanges will improve our projects to achieve better feedback to the society.
Communication with experts in various fields
1.1 Professor Yang Ruihua, Nutrition Expert
        In the early stage of the project, in order to better understand the current situation of obesity and the incidence of metabolic syndrome, improve the background of the project, and verify the need to verify the project, we interviewed Professor Ruihua Yang , a nutrition expert from the Air Force Military Medical University. Professor Ruihua Yang is an expert in the nutrition department of Xijing Hospital of Air Force Military Medical University. Meanwhile, she has also carried out the obesity training camp and other programs to help obese patients lose weight, and achieved remarkable results. Professor Ruihua Yang taught us the relevant knowledge of metabolic syndrome and obesity, affirmed the feasibility and application of our project, and let us understand the current public need for home detection of metabolic syndrome.
Interview with nutrition expert Professor Yang Ruihua.pdf
1.2 Professor Ji Gang, an expert in digestive surgery
        In the process of the project, in order to facilitate our use of clinical patients, we interviewed Professor Gang Ji of digestive surgery. Professor Gang Ji has deep attainments in digestive surgery. He pioneered sleeve gastric volume reduction (LSG), engaged in the study of obesity, gastrointestinal dysfunction and other fields, and held a series of China-US academic exchange conferences. Professor Gang Ji express affirmation for the clinical application prospects of our project in clinical application prospects, and points out that willing to clinical patients for the product, but also introduces to us the current clinical treatment for metabolic syndrome related diseases, detection means, let us in the follow-up project redesign process have a better understanding.
Interview with Professor Ji Gang, expert in digestive surgery.pdf
1.3 Researcher Erik Hanko from the UK
        This year is the first time our school to participated in the iGEM competition, in order to more detailed understanding of the rules and project requirements, we contacted the 2023 IGEM contest judge, Mr.Eric. Mr.Eric detailed told us the rules of the competition and analyzed the track we chose. At the same time, we also put forward our questions for the content of the competition and finally achieved the very full communication.
1.4 Erick Hanko from the UK
        To verify whether our project meets international standards of ethics and safety, we interviewed Professor Qiuju Zhang, an expert who is mainly in charge of ethics in our school. Professor Qiuju Zhang has been deeply engaged in ethical research for many years and has had a deep research on ethical standards and laboratory safety at home and abroad. Professor Qiuju Zhang helped us to analyze the experimental design and experimental process of the project and also emphasized the user’s privacy in the process of project promotion, put forward valuable suggestions for our later implementation of the project and the future transformation of results.
Interview with ethics expert Professor Zhang Qiuju.pdf
Online questionnaire survey and offline field interview
        In order to understand the public realization of metabolic syndrome and the cognition of obesity risk, at the beginning of our project we designed a questionnaire (insert questionnaire) on 5.11 world obesity day and finally received 300 + feedback. After data analysis, we concluded that the public cognition of metabolic syndrome is still insufficient, and we still need to do a lot of education science work (chart). Fortunately, the realization of the public toward prevention of obesity, and disease prevention consciousness is very strong, and they also express strong support for our project (chart).
        In the community interviews, the majority of the respondents expressed anxiety about obesity, and often consciously controlled diet (or even dieting) and enhanced exercise to prevent obesity. They also put forward valuable suggestions on the research and development of our kits, such as high accuracy and sensitivity, the price of the kit is not too expensive, the detection process is very convenient and the steps are not too complicated. (To protect the privacy of the respondents, we did not take photos or videos for our interview report)
Community interview transcript.pdf
        In order to understand the audience's feedback on the product, we designed a questionnaire to get effective evaluation and opinions after the product release, so that we can further improve the closed loop of the project, and truly use synthetic biology to make our world better and better.
Communication and cooperation with other teams
(2023.2.20) Sharing of excellent experience of West Jiaotong University of China
(2023.5.14) CCiC online conference, excellent team sharing in 2022
(2023.2.26) Communicate with team online meeting of Jilin University, experimental design of AFMU-China and JLU-iGEM
(2023.8.4-8.6) Participated in the second Synthetic Biology Competition, and communicated and learned with 80 teams
(2023.8.8) Northwest Exchange meeting, online and offline exchanges with Northwestern University, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Lanzhou University, University of Macau, etc
(2023.8.22) G20 collection, with teams from different regions and different countries to cooperate
Communication and communication with enterprises
        When the project was nearing the end and the experimental results took shape, we contacted the relevant leaders of GGL and Senmiao Co., Ltd. to ask about the business prospects and marketing process of the biological kit. And asked professionals to give constructive suggestions on the products we want to develop. Under their guidance, we wrote a product business plan, including the inclusiveness and sustainability of the product, which laid the foundation for the launch of the product.
Business plan.pdf