Education & Collaboration

1. Promote synthetic biology, cervical cancer, and lab related knowledge through multiple social media platforms.

Teens are in the critical stage of deciding their future career path by following their interests. We, YiYe-China, as a team of high school students, thoroughly understood the importance of exploring various fields and the difficulty of making such important decisions. At the same time, we discovered that in the post-COVID pandemic in China (2022-2023), most citizens are anxious and stressed because of the tremendous amount of fake news or unreliable resources. (for example, drinking ethanol directly can disinfect your body). Therefore, we realized the importance of conveying accurate knowledge from a biological perspective to reduce the barrier between the public and their health in both mental and physical aspects.

Since our team includes a firm knowledge foundation of professors, masters, and team members who are passionate about biology, and we aimed to utilize these resources to improve people’s mindsets towards health, prepare people for any disease or cancer, and build people’s confidence that we can diagnose disease in an early stage or treat cancer by putting maximum effort.

Thus, we devoted much effort to diminishing the learning barrier and information failure. In the meantime, we were determined to invite more adolescents to enjoy the beauty of biology. To expand our influence and increase the availability of knowledge (breaking the boundary between countries), we used four different social media, including WeChat, TikTok, and Instagram.

1.1 WeChat official account

Our team published articles on biology and disease through the WeChat official account to address health issues and support science popularization in China. WeChat official account is one of China s most influential social media platforms. As of 2022 June 30th, 1.3 billion people were using WeChat. Therefore, we decided to use the platform with combined video, pictures, and articles in either Chinese or English to promote biology knowledge in China.

Figure 1. YiYe WeChat Official Account

Our articles’ contents had multiple focuses. The Idea Battle series (11 pieces) was a record of all the project idea brainstorming that our team members did. We also promoted various topics and generated debate based on our interest in different biology concepts (genetics, neuroscience, cancer study, etc.), and recorded the whole process of developing our final project focus. In this way, readers could realize one important factor contributing to researchers’ s success — open-mindedness and multiple perspectives. The method of refining research questions had always been a memorable time to learn from the teacher, generate creative ideas, and retain knowledge beyond our comfort zones and interests.

Additionally, we shared what we learned from interviews with doctors, business leaders, and professors. We also created a cervical cancer knowledge WeChat channel, including the current and latest prevention, treatment, and diagnostic strategies, as well as information about common questions, genetic knowledge, and research tips for high school students.

Figure 2. Examples of YiYe Official account articles —— Idea Battle Series

We continuously shared engaging topics for five months, with approximately 200 readers in total. It is worth noting that WeChat Users aged below 18 account for half of our readers, as they are an ideal target audience for learning about this new cutting-edge science and technology.

Figure 3. Age distribution of YiYe WeChat official account readers

Our followers are from many different cities in China, from first- and fourth-tier cities. As Figure 5 shows, we had readers from 18 other provinces.

Figure 4. Province distribution of YiYe WeChat official account readers

Therefore, our WeChat Official account articles attained our goal of promoting science knowledge to various people with different identities and age groups.

1.2 Instagram

Beyond sharing biology knowledge in China, we aimed to expand our sharing of engaging and memorable thoughts and experiences when doing experiments, visiting companies, or collaborating with other teams beyond China.

Figure 5 YiYe-China iGEM Instagram posts

1.3 TikTok Video Promoting

We recorded our lab experiments, team bonding activities, and interviews that we have done in TikTok to share the fascinating moments of our iGEM journey.

Figure 6. YiYe TikTok videos

2. Public Awareness

Using social media indeed was a practical approach to promoting scientific knowledge. However, we also wanted to have direct interactions with our communities. Direct communication with people increases efficiency, and enhances our ability to convey our message about synthetic biology, cervical cancer, and our project. Most importantly, we targeted citizens in different countries or areas using other languages.

2.1 HongShi Liu Village in Hubei

Wuhan’s ShiliuHong Village is famous for its agricultural products, including grapes and red pomegranates. Most residents there are children and the elderly, as the middle-aged residents went to work in the urban areas.

According to a study conducted by Aarhus University and Aarhus University Hospital on cervical cancer mortality in Denmark between 2002 and 2015, the mortality rate for cervical cancer patients over the age of 65 is very high, e.g., five times higher in women aged 75-79 than in women aged 40-45. In China, Cervical cancer screening can be terminated in women over 65 years old if the person’s previous screening results were negative. However, any underestimation of cervical cancer cases in a female over 65 years old would have severe danger and a higher risk of death than in younger women. Therefore, older adults were our targeted audience for this event.

Figure 7. Brochures, posters, and additional products we designed.

About 25 older adults came to our event, and their general understanding was that cervical cancer is deadly, and they were not really aware of ways avoid cervical cancer. Hence, we emphasized the importance of leading a healthy lifestyle, including a nutritious diet, regular exercise, and safe sexual activity. We also introduced HPV transmission prevention methods like vaccines and avoiding sharing towels with others. We then had Q&A sessions with older people in local Wuhan dialect. They were pleased that we had this roadshow in which they could give feedback and raise questions using the local language.

Figure 8. Our team members distributing and explaining the brochure.

2.2 To our Peers

Our dry team co-leader Kelly Jiang presented our iGEM project to her classmates in Wuhan, raising awareness about cervical cancer safety. Kelly also spoke about synthetic biology research and the elements that go into a successful research project, inspiring fellow classmates who are interested in similar opportunities.

Figure 9. Kelly Jiang sharing our iGEM project with her high school classmates.

2.3 Expanding our Reach

After our successful public awareness activity in Wuhan, we came up with an idea to bring the knowledge back to each of our teammates’ individual hometowns across seven different provinces to expand our influence.

2.3.1 Outside China

Our team leader Zia introduced the iGEM competition and our project in her high school in Switzerland. In presenting the group s iGEM project, She described how the team worked together to conceptualize our idea, design the experiment, deliver and analyze the results, interview the experts in the field, and share our project online. After the sharing, many students, even those who do not take biology, were inspired and sought more information to participate in this competition: iGEM is for everyone who wants to improve global health.

Figure 10. picture when the team leader (Zia Bärfuss—Liao) shared iGEM competition, synthetic biology, and cervical cancer in Switzerland High School

We also discussed the social implications and importance of synthetic biology in class and learned the true importance of communication in spreading scientific knowledge. Zia also presented our research project during her time at the 2023 Harvard 7-week Summer School s BIO1 S-1B office hours.

2.3.2 Beijing

Our team also aimed to introduce iGEM and synthetic biology to China’s capital city — Beijing. YiWen Zhao felt what she did was meaningful and memorable because more people had never heard of synthetic biology before are willing and eager to learn more about this field.

Figure 11 picture when the YiWen Zhao shared iGEM competition, synthetic biology and cervical cancer in streets in Beijing

2.3.3 Foshan

To further the reach of our project, our dry team leader Charlotte Liu also organized an information discussion session at Guangdong Shunde Desheng School. She engaged with approximately 20 parents, all of whom were mothers of teenagers.

Figure 12. The dry team leader (Charlotte Liu) introduced iGEM competition, synthetic biology and YiYe’s project to parents in DeSheng School International.

Parents expressed concerns about avoiding HPV infection and cervical cancer at their age while also feeling uncertain about other preventive measures. We explained the current HPV and cervical cancer screening methods and reminded parents to participate the annual screening subsidized by the Chinese government.

Furthermore, when introducing the iGEM competition to these parents, it was heartwarming to witness the enthusiasm of these individuals as they showed a genuine interest in understanding our cause and raising awareness about this critical issue.

2.3.4 Chengdu

As for the southwestern city of Chengdu, Tingyu Zhang, spread awareness about cervical cancer and our project on the streets of her neighborhood. Through conducting this activity, she noticed that a certain portion of young women now have a basic level of understanding about cervical cancer. However, there are still some people who lack sufficient knowledge. Therefore, if our activities can help more people understand and prioritize cervical cancer, it would be very meaningful.

3. Collaboration

3.1 China’s IGEM Community

On June 9th, our team attended the 10th Conference of the China iGEMer Community (2023 CCiC). At this stage, we had just finished our project design and was starting wet lab experiments, so we mainly focused on our idea of developing a “sensor” for cervical cancer screening based upon the fluorescent variations of MALAT1-miRNA complexes in cervical cancer cells, thus providing a powerful support for the early diagnosis of cervical cancer. Then we had an open communication with other teams and shared our experience discussion with excellent teams.

Figure 13. Our team members participated in the 10th CCiC

In addition, we also listened to the presentations from other teams, which expanded our knowledge and further encouraged us to contribute in a positive way to medicine and synthetic biology. We had the opportunity for meaningful communication with various teams from China, which had a profound impact on the later development of the project.

3.2 SynBio iGEM Meetup

On August 4th, our team organized a SynBio iGEM Meetup with NTHU and JLU-China focusing on Tumor Screening Campaign.

Figure 14. YiYe organized 2023 Tumor Screening Campaign

National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan (NTHU-Taiwan) aims to establish a detection system for early-stage colorectal cancer this year. They used two methods for early detection of rectal cancer, which inspired our team to look into ways of reinforcing our own detection system’s reliability.

Figure 15. National Tsing Hua University focus on CRC

Jilin University s project is about breast cancer early screening based on micro-RNA detection. Their experiment design pathway is very similar to the principle of our project, and we discussed ideas about the design of the reagent test kit. Secondly, the bioinformatics analysis, CRRNA evaluation, molecular docking, molecular dynamics simulation and cas13 modelling of Jilin University modelling also inspired us. Overall, this exchange inspired us to communicate with more people from different areas.