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First of all, expert professors have rich knowledge and experience in their respective fields, and their opinions and suggestions can help us determine the direction of the project, improve the product design, and help us better understand the market needs and trends.
Secondly, the market research of pharmacies is to better understand the needs and buying behavior of target customers. By interacting with pharmacy staff, we can get real-time information about consumer preferences, product sales, and competitive market patterns. This helps us position our products.
In addition, holding seminars facilitates in-depth exchanges and cooperation with experts, partners and stakeholders both inside and outside the industry. The workshop provides a platform for different participants to share their views, experiences and insights.
And we also talked to doctors and patients separately, which allowed us to understand their needs from different perspectives.
Not only that, through the form of questionnaires, we have learned the comments and improvement suggestions of target users, so that our products can better serve customers.
Through these efforts, we can better understand market needs, improve products and services, and lay a solid foundation for project success and development.
With leading synthetic biotechnology, INGIA has established a global leading production platform and research and development system covering efficient engineering bacteria construction, microbial metabolism regulation and optimization, efficient biotransformation/fermentation and purification. It is one of the world's leading producers of stevia biosides and has the largest R&D and production platform for synthetic biology of natural products in China.
There was a meeting between our school leaders, INGIA and iGEM. At the meeting, PI Wei introduced the situation of this year's iGEM competition to her, and Xuan Hang, the captain of iGEM, reported the 2023 pre-project as a student representative. The two pre-projects designed by the team were highly recognized by Chairman Huajun, who at the same time put forward valuable suggestions for the improvement and development of our project and expressed his willingness to provide financial assistance in the follow-up experiments and practices of the project.
Hua Jun, chairman of Sichuan INGIA and 89 alumnus, is speaking
Hua Jun, Chairman of INGIA, introduced the company's product direction and operation scope, showing us the huge development potential of the biological industry. Since the iGEM competition interprets the core connotation of synthetic biology, INGIA, which is also committed to synthetic biology research, hopes to cooperate with the iGEM team and other research projects in our university in more aspects.
Our team leader Xuan Hang made a pre-project report
Chairman Hua Jun made suggestions based on the current market demand, and affirmed our academic achievements in the past. After the meeting, Dr. Li Zhenghong gave an academic report entitled "The Application of Creation - Advanced Lecture on Synthetic Biology" for teachers and students of the College. Dr. Li introduced the history of synthetic biology, enabling technologies and industry developments, and discussed with professors the problems faced in the construction of multistrain systems. This wonderful lecture allows us to deepen our understanding of synthetic biology, and also realize the charm and powerful potential of synthetic biology.
Dr. Li Zhenghong gave an academic report
In order to further optimize our project design, we interviewed Shaanxi Lifegen CO.,Ltd. Technical Director Professor Dai, We hope he can make some comments and suggestions on our project.
First, we introduced the project. Professor Dai pointed out our problems and made suggestions in the aspects of project background, incidence of inflammatory bowel disease, background design, etc.
The team member is explaining the project
Then, Professor Dai also put forward a unique view in the experimental design.
· Role of Elafin: We need
to further search the literature to understand the role of Elafin in literature reports, its role in our
experiment and the nature of its role.
· BL21: It is necessary to explain clearly why BL21 is chosen,
why it is expressed in EcN and the advantages of this choice.
· Expression strain: Why was this strain
chosen.
In the explanation, Prof. Dai also put forward his own questions:
· Function of the project design
envelope: to protect probiotics and prevent them from being destroyed by stomach acid.
· Why is it
necessary to replace the T7 promoter with J23119 and T5 promoters: there is no T7 polymerase system in EcN,
and in order to enhance inducible expression, it is necessary to compare the expression of the two promoters
in the future.
· Plasmid transformation: CAT and SOD are planned to be connected to a plasmid carrier,
and Elafin is transferred separately to eliminate its homologous incompatibility.
Finally, Professor Dai suggested to us that we should pay attention to the feasibility of the project and the experimental design should be "seamless".
Photo of the team members and Professor Dai
In this conversation, Professor Dai gave us advice and guidance, which is of great help to us to improve and perfect the project.
Prof. Chang Hui
We learned that Teacher Chang Hui in our college is quite accomplished in intestinal digestion, so we actively contacted the teacher for communication.
Team member is talking with Teacher Chang on the phone
Professor Chang answered our questions in terms of daily eating habits, bacterial balance and the use of
antibiotics to treat intestinal diseases. The key points mentioned by Teacher Chang are:
a. Daily diet:
In terms of nutrition, different groups of people need to ingest different amounts, the most basic thing is
to meet the intake of the three major nutrients . From the point of view of applied physiology, it is normal
to eat what you want, because what you want is what your body lacks. As long as you control your portion
size, it's okay.
b. Use of antibiotics: excessive use of antibiotics will kill intestinal flora and
destroy homeostasis. The use of antibiotics needs to be determined on a case-by-case basis, and cannot be
abused or overdone. After taking antibiotics, you need to take probiotics for a week to adjust.
Through communication, we realized that we need to let more people out of the misunderstanding that eating is just because of cravings, which also contains nutrition problems. In addition, for antibiotic users, we can also do more targeted product promotion.
Different project teams have unique expertise and experience, and by interacting with them, we can learn from each other and share best practices and lessons learned. It can also help us assess potential risks and resolve problems. Through communication, we can learn from their experience, avoid repeating mistakes and solve problems quickly. Not only that, but through creative communication and brainstorming with other teams, we can gain new ideas and perspectives, and the process of mutual inspiration and stimulation may produce innovative ideas that cross fields and provide new directions for the project.
We can look for common interests and opportunities for cooperation, and work together to solve common problems or challenges. This cross-team cooperation can promote resource sharing, knowledge exchange and work collaboration, and improve the overall team effectiveness.
Conference theme
We participated in the New Standards conference organized by CCiC to discuss the recently released award criteria, and we exchanged team projects.
CCiC Synthetic Biology Competition is a grand event jointly organized by the Chinese Society of Bioengineering (CSBT) and the School of Synthetic Biology (SIAT) of Shenzhen University of Technology and other 30 institutions.
Online meeting screenshot
Through this exchange meeting, we learned about the latest adjustments to the competition system, such as the limit on the number of best individual awards this year. We also shared projects with many excellent teams, and made corresponding adjustments and improvements to our projects and follow-up plans.
On August 8th, our team, as the organizer, hosted the 5th Northwest China iGEM Meetup. A total of seven teams participated in the conference, including AFMU-China, CSU-CHINA, LZU-CHINA, NPU-CHINA, UM-Macau, XJU-China and our team.
The meeting was a combination of online and offline form. Each team presented the project from the aspects of project background, experimental design, modeling, HP, future plan, etc., and put forward the advantages, disadvantages and doubts of the team project. During the Q&A session, participants actively asked questions about other teams' projects and made suggestions for improvements.
Conference photo
For our project this year, during the question-and-answer session, we discussed the role and opening of the kill switch and how to avoid the effects of E. coli self-produced hydrogen peroxide. This allowed us to look at our project from a different perspective and refine our project in the course of subsequent experiments.
The captain is communicating with another captains
We had the honor to hear excellent teams from different schools share their research results and experience. Through many wonderful speeches, interactions and discussions, we had a deeper understanding of the latest progress and cutting-edge technologies in synthetic biology, established closer academic ties and friendship bonds, and promoted communication and cooperation between different schools to inspire and learn from each other. In the field of synthetic biology together to write a more wonderful chapter. (For the full session, please see PDF below)
Offline participants group photo
In order to understand the national regulatory policy on probiotic drugs, we made inquiries and consultations on relevant national websites, and conducted a survey of pharmacies and interviews with relevant practitioners.
Interviewing business people is a crucial part of our understanding of the market. Corporate personnel, as practitioners, have the experience and knowledge to deeply understand the market and industry. They have close contact with market participants at all levels in their daily business, including suppliers, distributors, partners and end consumers. As a result, they have unique insight into market trends, competitive dynamics, target customer needs, and product positioning. Their insight into the market can help us understand customer behavior and preferences, as well as the competitive position of our products in the market. Through interviews with enterprise personnel, we can obtain valuable market intelligence and insights, understand the actual needs and challenges of the market, and make timely adjustments and optimization to meet the market demand and maintain competitiveness.
We invited Mr. Pan Yulin, CEO of Shandong ZHONGKE-JIAYI to be interviewed.
Mr. Pan Yulin, CEO of Shandong ZHONGKE-JIAYI
Chairman of Shandong ZHONGKE-JIAYI Biological Engineering Co., LTD., Vice Chairman of Traditional Medicine Committee of Chinese Ethnic Medicine Association, innovation and entrepreneurship growth tutor of Beijing Forestry University, visiting professor of Qingdao Agricultural University and Yantai University.
In this interview, Mr. Pan put forward his own unique insights and experience on the domestic market and future development trend of probiotics, the main characteristics and advantages of probiotics, social responsibility and sustainable development and other 10 questions. See the PDF below for details.
Keywords
Then, we also asked Mr. Pan what they wanted to know.
Mr. Pan answers the questions of our members
Through this interview, we have a more profound understanding of the characteristics and functions of probiotics, and we are also deeply moved by Teacher Pan's intentions and all the energy to do one thing well. We are very grateful to Mr. Pan Yulin for accepting our interview. The knowledge and experience he shared gave us valuable inspiration and guidance. We realized that we needed to do more research on national policy and public perception.
Dr. Ma Xin: R&D Director of THANKCOME Biotechnology (Suzhou)
In order to understand technology trends and product development strategies, innovative ideas and technical feasibility, we interviewed Dr. Ma, R&D Director of THANKCOME Biotechnology Co., LTD.
The interview covers the current probiotic market, companies, and our project itself. It involves many aspects such as product form and product positioning.
We have benefited a lot from this interview and exchange. We know that our project has great potential, and we need to consider our product positioning from more angles and improve our products with a global perspective. In response to the suggestions and questions raised by Dr. Ma, we have also made detailed modifications to the project and inquired about the materials.
Communicated with Dr. Ma
In order to understand the available drugs and treatment, we contacted Dr. Xu Rujuan of the Department of Gastroenterology and secretion of the hospital for an interview. Dr. Xu has rich experience in the diagnosis and treatment of severe diseases of the digestive system and endocrine system.
One of the team members presented our confusion to the doctor
We first made a brief introduction to our project background and project content. Then we asked Dr. Xu to share the cases of intestinal inflammation that he had encountered before, and to ask questions about the diagnostic methods, the advantages and disadvantages of diagnostic methods, and how to judge different types of enteritis. Dr. Xu brought us a lot of first-hand information. More on that below.
After communicating with Dr. Xu, we learned that the treatment of IBD is a complex process that requires individualized treatment. Effective communication between patient and physician and confidence building in the patient are both key to successful treatment. At the same time, probiotics can be considered as a therapeutic supplement, but their usage and type should be adjusted according to the needs and responses of the patients.
A team member and doctor
As our target users, we need to consider and understand their suggestions and ideas about the process of care. Therefore, through social media, we contacted three enthusiastic patients who used their personal experience to answer questions and disseminate science for patients on social media platforms. After introducing our ideas to them, they agreed to be interviewed by us.
We learned about their physical conditions from four aspects: diagnosis and initiation, disease management, support, future outlook and advice, and also knew their needs.
Here is a table of their conditions:
| Basic patient information | Manifestations of illness | Methods of Diagnosis | Treatments that have been tried | An understanding of probiotics |
| Sun Liuyi A 23-year-old female patient with CD was basically controlled | Persistent diarrhea, skin tags, ulcers, and thickening | Gastrointestinal endoscopy, small bowel CT, abdominal B ultrasound, blood test | Basic treatment (Mesalazine, TCD), Surgery, Biological agents (Bigram) | Understand that probiotics can be used as adjunctive therapy, and have taken probiotic drugs but have not adhered to them |
| MR. Renn A 28-year-old male patient with CD was basically controlled | Abdominal pain, hematochezia, ulcerations, and cobblestone-like changes | Contrast-enhanced CT of the small intestine, enteroscopy | Treatments other than surgery have been tried | A little bit is known about probiotics for IBD. Probiotics can improve constipation and digestion |
| COCO A 25-year-old female with CD is still in serious condition | Abdominal pain, diarrhea, hematochezia, Intestinal fistula, | enteroscopy | Mesalazine, biological agent | Probiotics have been used to treat IBD with no effect |
In terms of "expectations and recommendations", they both expressed the hope for cheaper drugs and more effective treatments, and they also called for the public to have a better understanding of IBD patients.
Sun Liuyi's suggestion: Some children have low self-esteem and depression because of their illness. Calling on everyone to know more about this disease, be more inclusive, and want to be treated as an equal.
Mr. Ren's suggestion: I hope to develop better and more effective biological agents and immune agents.
COCO's suggestion: I hope you can do more science popularization to the public and let more people know about IBD.
In the process of communicating with them, we deeply felt the necessity of IBD to be treated as soon as possible, and felt their pain. We call on more people to pay attention to this disease here, so we carried out relevant popular science push in this regard
At the same time, we noticed that they all mentioned that "CCCF has provided me with great help", and then we learned some basic information about them through CCCF's official website. We actively got in touch with the staff of the foundation, hoping to learn about the relevant situation of inflammation in China, and also hoping to carry out a wider range of science popularization activities in the later stage, so that more people can understand and understand IBD.
In order to understand the types, brands and prices of probiotic products in the current market, explore consumers' cognition and demand for probiotic products, evaluate the price range and sales of probiotic products, and accurately position our products, we visited and investigated the surrounding pharmacies.
The team is doing research
We visited 24 pharmacies in the surrounding area to talk to salespeople and see what probiotics they had on offer.
Our research map
What we found:
a. Variety of probiotic products: In the pharmacies surveyed, the types of probiotic products are very diverse and the types of health care products are much larger than the types of drugs. Including oral dosage forms, such as tablets, capsules and powders; There are also liquid forms, such as yogurt and preconditioning.
b. Brand diversity: The survey shows that there are several well-known brands of probiotic products in the market, and at the same time, some local brands are also emerging in the competition.
c. Increased consumer awareness: In conversations with sales staff, we learned that more and more consumers are beginning to pay attention to gut health and have a deeper understanding of probiotic products. Many customers buy probiotic products to improve digestive problems or boost immunity.
d. Big price difference: According to our survey, the price of probiotic products varies by brand and dosage form, mostly in the price range of 40-120 yuan. In general, tablet and capsule dosage forms of products are more expensive, and liquid dosage forms of products are relatively cheaper.
Common probiotic drugs or health products on the market
Through this visit, we decided to think more about the form of medicine. Not only that, but through talking to pharmacists, we learned that there are more and more probiotic products available today, and the number of brands available to users is also increasing. Some common intestinal disorders can be improved by using probiotics. We are also aware that probiotic drugs take a long time and store in a harsh environment, and probiotic products (such as candy, beverage granules, etc.) are portable but have limited effectiveness and are expensive. Pharmacists also tell us that buyers are often confused about when to take and how to take it (such as whether it must be washed with warm water). We plan to do more work on science popularization and product positioning.
In order to understand the public's knowledge of gut and understanding of our project, we made a simple questionnaire in both Chinese and English to initially grasp the public's understanding of gut inflammation and collect their suggestions on our work.
Through questionnaires, we found that people usually rely more on diarrhea and other conditions to judge the health of the gut. In this regard, our team has also done the collection of relevant information, and shared relevant science knowledge on our public account (click here to learn more).
These are the information we have collected, the feedback of the respondents and their suggestions about our project:
1.Because I don't know much about the relevant knowledge, I can't give my opinion.
2. It is hoped that a large number of experiments will ensure safety and stability before it is used in humans.
3. You should make a more detailed public education about engineered probiotics for the treatment of enteritis.
4. Hoping to do more science popularization.
5. Are there any side effects of engineered probiotics?
6. Probiotics can improve the gut microbiota and should have some help in enteritis, but also focus on the repair of intestinal tissue.
7. I do not know much about intestinal diseases, and I hope that the popularization of science can be strengthened and the forms of science popularization can be diversified.
8. It may be more convincing to compare this treatment with traditional treatment.
9. Hemorrhoids are not intestinal lesions?
10. It is hoped that the engineered bacteria will be safe, non-toxic and practical.
11. People who do not understand the technical terms too much, can not understand.
12. Can be combined with the existing medical means to continuously improve.
13. Some small doubts: oral administration is safe, product positioning is health care products or drugs, efficacy compared with other traditional drugs, after oral administration of gastric acid treatment of probiotics can also maintain vitality, how to play a role in the regulation of intestinal flora? Does modulation of the gut microbiota improve intestinal inflammation (is disturbance of the gut microbiota the cause of intestinal inflammation, and if not, does modulation of the gut microbiota achieve the goal of treatment?)
14. It is recommended to promote the knowledge of the treatment and prevention of intestinal inflammation.
Through the preliminary questionnaire survey, we learned the public's understanding of intestinal inflammation and acceptance of synthetic biology drugs.
The general public's understanding of intestinal inflammation
The public's understanding of synthetic biology for IBD
Public acceptance of our products
A total of 123 people participated in our questionnaire. Through data analysis, we noticed that the public's understanding of synthetic biology and intestinal inflammation was still very shallow, so we decided to write a popular science push, carry out more offline popular science activities and other ways to improve the public's cognition and make synthetic biology and IBD familiar to the public. At the same time, let the public pay attention to such diseases and pay more comprehensive and accurate attention to intestinal health.
In addition to the online questionnaire, we also went to a nearby park to learn about the elderly's problems with intestinal inflammation and probiotic use. They suggested that we go to the hospital to find patient research to have a more targeted understanding, and said that they have the habit of taking probiotics regularly, and will seek medical help in time. One of the grandfathers said that he had been in good health recently, except for his poor appetite. In this regard, we also wrote a corresponding popular science article in the public number to answer questions and solve doubts.
Over the past period, we have conducted a series of interviews and in-depth exchanges to better understand their perspectives and experiences. Through interviews with company executives, we gained a deeper understanding of the market situation and our product positioning. Experts and doctors shared their expertise and unique experiences, giving us deeper insights into the healthcare industry. Through our interactions with patients, we hear their true stories and testimonies. Patients' voices are the ultimate driving force behind our work and why we fight so hard for them. Communicating with different teams allows us to find our shortcomings in time and make improvements and improvements. In short, we will continue to work hard to provide quality medical services to more people and promote progress in the medical field to achieve a healthier and happier future. Thanks to all participants for their support and cooperation!