Singapore, often referred to as the "Lion City," has risen to prominence as a global financial hub due to its strategic location in Europe/India, China and the Malay Archipelago. Being a world-class financial infrastructure, and committed to innovation,
Singapore's evolution from a trading port to a booming economic powerhouse is supported by a clear and efficient regulatory environment and a diverse array of financial services. Singapore's Economic Development Board underlined the prospects and potentials of synthetic biology for the country in 2023.
Brand-name investors like Khosla Ventures, GIC, and Temasek are making significant investments,
and the synbio industry is predicted to more than double to US$55.37 billion by 2030 [1]. However, we discovered that a substantial demographic tendency of Singapore students preferred to pursue a business degree over a biological science degree,
which creates a disparity and imbalance in the future talent pool of synthetic biology.
Table 1. University Students Enrolment in AY22/23 in Different Departments
| University | School | Number of Students |
|---|---|---|
| National University Singapore [2,3] | Business | Life Sciences |
| 4791 | 350* | |
| Nanyang Technological University [4] | Business | Biological Sciences |
| 4265 | 1054 |
*Average students in every cohort year (NUS, 2023)
While NTU iGEM 2023 - Prime Xplore is tasked to venture into foundational advance projects such as prime editing, we acknowledged and agreed upon its presence to be shared with the public especially young talents and scientists in Singapore.
Hence, NTU iGEM joined forces with NTU Biomakerspace, with the shared vision of educating students who are interested in synthetic biology or biological science in general.
On 15 September 2023, we organized an experiential learning workshop for students in NTU to learn and practice synthetic biology. Students invited from different majors in the
School of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology were able to expose themselves to a different field of interest than their major and specialization.
The workshop begins with a brief introduction to synthetic biology and the experiments (Colony picking, gel creation, gel electrophoresis and data analysis). Most importantly, a safety briefing was carried out to inform participants about the safety and hazards of performing synthetic biology experiments in the lab to ensure everyone is well-informed in light of any unprecedented accidents that occur.
While each experiment was carried out separately, every student stands an equal opportunity to execute the task given for an enhanced learning experience. A few Chemistry major students have shared their enthusiasm over practicing cloning experiments. In fact, the wet-lab team was impressed by the skills exhibited by the participants which have the capability to correspond with the experiment to its application. The team further elaborated on how such experimental techniques are used in our research project for iGEM 2023.
The workshop has established an opportunity for a two-way dialogue session at the end of the experiment, where some of the participants shared their research topic which we realized its an indirect impact on the science community. Hence, we investigated certain ethical and sociological issues for prime editing applications in various sectors. Surprisingly, we now have a fresh viewpoint and knowledge of how to enhance our research so that prime editing may be commercialized and utilized on a bigger scale to impact the area of synthetic biology. Likewise, the round-table discussion we had in the end ultimately the team to seek novelty in prime editing research, where we believed the unrealized potential could soon be discovered.
References
[1] EDB. (2023, Aug 4). Why Asia is key to synthetic biology's future. From https://www.edb.gov.sg/en/business-insights/insights/why-asia-is-key-to-synthetic-biologys-future.html
[2] NUS. (2022, Sep 5). Summary of undergraduate student enrolment 2022/2023. From https://www.nus.edu.sg/registrar/docs/info/student-statistics/enrolment-statistics/undergraduate-studies/ug-enrol-20222023.pdf
[3] NUS. (2023). Admissions. From Frequent Asked Questions: https://www.dbs.nus.edu.sg/lifesciences/admissions/
[4] NTU. (2022). AY2022-23 undergraduate student enrolement (Student Status and Gender). From https://www.ntu.edu.sg/docs/default-source/corporate-ntu/isu/ay2022-undergraduate-student-enrolment67c79e97-6f1c-4f37-883e-a7b52736b131.pdf?sfvrsn=5c66a902_3