Part I:Our efforts:Planting a seed of Synthetic Biology

In order to foster greater public understanding of synthetic biology and encourage more students to engage in synthetic biology research in the future, our team actively participates in various activities, including Science and Technology Week, volunteering at science museums, and community science outreach. We promote basic knowledge of synthetic biology to the public, especially to elementary and middle school students. We explain the composition of proteins, emphasize the importance of protein sequence design, and engage them in fun experiments related to proteins. Our goal is to plant the seed of synthetic biology in the hearts of these children, hoping that it will eventually grow into towering trees of knowledge.

If you want to know more details, please browse our Education section of Human Practice page.

Part II:Our platform:Making the learning of Synthetic Biology easier

In the initial design of our platform, we originally conceived it as an auxiliary tool for experienced researchers in protein sequence design. However, later on, we discovered that many newcomers in the field of synthetic biology faced challenges in practical skills and didn't know where to start. Consequently, we decided to streamline the platform, making it more user-friendly for beginners. After completing the development of the platform, we opened it to the public and collected user feedback through surveys. Among the 146 responses we gathered, the majority expressed that our platform was helpful for learning protein sequence design. Of course, there are still many areas for improvement, and we will continue to enhance the platform's stability and usability after the competition concludes.

If you want to know more details, please browse our Evaluation section of Results page.

Part III:Our future:setting up a new course based on Prot-DAP

As our project matures, we've sparked a new idea - to offer an elective course on protein sequence design at USTC based on the Prot-DAP platform. Students will have the opportunity to engage in sequence design, compare mutation sites, and validate results in wet labs, gaining practical experience in synthetic biology. Of course, at this point, the course is still in the early planning stages, and we'll be updating the latest developments on the wiki as we progress.