Jiani Johnson Presenting Harvard iGEM E.CoDROP project to High School Students
In order to spread information about the various applications of synthetic biology, we presented our project to high school students from all across the United States who were participating in the Bioengineering, Science, and Technology Research (BioSTAR) summer program at Harvard. These students spent the summer learning about various bioengineering techniques that could be used to improve medical outcomes.
We described to the students what synthetic biology is and detailed the ways in which Harvard iGEM and other iGEM teams strive to advance the field. We then explained the way that cell-free expression detection systems operate and how our E.CoDROP project sought to make these systems faster and more accessible in order to help detect diseases and genetic abnormalities. By showing images of our droplets and lab setup, we demonstrated that seemingly abstract synthetic biology concepts could be translated into a meaningful and concrete output. We also detailed the ideation, experimentation, and revision process that is integral to all scientific endeavors. The students then applied the ideas in our presentation to create their own emulsions that model concepts similar to those used in cell-free expression detection systems.
Our presentation was followed by a Q and A session where students asked questions that helped them gain a better understanding of our team's work, the applications of synthetic biology, how to get involved in synthetic biology research, and ways that these ideas could be applied to their own work in the future.