Inclusivity:The bi-directional journey of computer science and synthetic biology.

As a team in the Software & AI track, we have been dedicated to integrating computer technology with synthetic biology, aiming to provide more effective research tools and an excellent research environment. To achieve this, we make efforts in the following areas, striving to eliminate barriers and embrace diversity.

Part I:Exploring collaboration paradigms for computer and biology students.

Among our team of 19 students, 12 are majoring in computer science rather than biology-related fields. They lack a solid foundation in synthetic biology and find it challenging to understand how computer technology can contribute to synthetic biology. On the other hand, the remaining 7 students are from biology backgrounds and, although they have a strong theoretical foundation in synthetic biology, they lack a clear concept of how computer science can assist in the field. Therefore, communication was inefficient in the early stages of the project.

To address this challenging issue, we attempted to divide these students into three groups, each consisting of a mix of biology, frontend, and backend students. The groups engaged in collaborative learning, studying the project together. For each reference or synthetic biology platform, the biology group explained the background principles, while the frontend and backend students were responsible for code logic and specific implementation. After two months of research and several group meetings, we merged the three groups and, through extensive discussions among all members, finalized the project topic.

Fig.1 A group study session in 8.6

Through the development and practice of this project, we believe that our approach,with mixed groups of biology, frontend, and backend students engaged in collaborative learning, serves as an exemplary model for future teams. It effectively eliminates barriers between areas, allowing students with different expertise to exchange knowledge and greatly assisting in our project development.

Part II:The first step for beginners to understand Protein sequence design.

Whether you're an expert in another field or not, when you start learning about synthetic biology, you're a beginner. Learning how to design protein sequences is certainly crucial, as it's a significant aspect of synthetic biology, and our platform can be your first step in mastering this skill.

After completing the initial development of our platform, we conducted an extensive trial with 146 students who experienced our platform and filled out our survey. Among these users, 9 were from non-biology-related fields, and they generally found that, after some simple learning and understanding, our platform could effectively help them grasp the knowledge of protein sequence design.

Of course, our platform currently lacks beginner guides and relevant theoretical explanations, and its functionalities are relatively limited. In the future, we will continue to develop and improve it, collaborating with schools to design related courses, enabling more people to take their first step into the world of synthetic biology.