Our project aims to diagnose S.Pyogenes by using a relatively fast and inexpensive methode. We prepared a short documentary to show the results of our negotiations with the researchers who are the experts of this subject. In our progress to prepare this documentary we conducted interviews with otolaryngologist Assoc. Prof. Dr. Gül Müge ÖZCAN, pediatrician Assoc. Prof. Dr. Fatmanur ÇAKMAK and Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nurcan BAYKAM.
Firstly, we explained our project to the doctors then talked about:
- the bacteria inflamations of the body;
- S. Pyogenes, SpeB enzyme;
- protease functioning proteins;
- statistics of the diseases caused by S. Pyogenes;
- the syptoms are emerged S. Pyogenes;
- the importance of early diagnosis;
- benefits of our project.
In addition to positive feedbacks we got, we also learned new information about the concepts related to our project. The doctors emphasized that bacteria are able to come to our body from everywhere and cause diseases easily. The focus bacteria of our project, S. Pyogenes can cause quinsy which is a common disease and early diagnosis is crucial for the treatment of the disease. They also stated that patients consult with different symptoms like headache to nausea. They answered all of our questions gently. Consequently our documentary was formed.
Enjoy the documentary…
Video; documentary videosu
BEYOND THE LAB
In addition to our project we also introduced bacteria and iGEM to the people, especially the little ones!
The surveys that we did to people showed us that most of the people don’t know the benefits of bacteria. Consequently, our team decided to persuade people about bacteria’s benefits. One of the things we’ve done for make people know is to go to a primary school and talk to both teachers and students. We expressed them the importance of bacteria and the fact that world cannot be the same without bacteria. We represented iGEM competition and encouraged them about attending iGEM in the future. Also, we prepared a conference includes informations about iGEM and synbio in our school. Everyone found it remarkable. Some of the students even decided to study synbio in the future.
Furthermore, we represented iGEM to the primary school students who visited our school. Many of them were fascinated by our presentation. It helped the students about their high school choice. Thanks to iGEM, our school gained lots of students!
Our team did activities with little people to make them know about bacteria. We asked them if they can draw bacteria on the fabric we gave them. Their imagination was so unbelievable! One of them even drew bacteria in a magnifying glass which showed us his knowledge about bacteria’s dimension. Moreover, the children tried to draw bacteria colonies. With the help of the activities we’ve done in their school not only we made the school-life more enjoyable for children, but also we evaluated children knowledge about bacteria.
We did the same activity in our school. This time, drawings were better but can’t say the same thing about imagination! The fact is they don’t have much opinion about bacteria, despite of the biology lessons they’ve studied at school. With that activity, we made them think about bacteria at least for some time.
ROCK'N TWITTER
Usage of social media is a great way to introduce iGem. There are already lots of iGem team on Twitter. However to keep a topic trending, these teams have to unite. We therefore used #iGem2014United tag to bring iGem teams together. Considering the location of iGem teams on the world, we prepared a list showing in which ours we should trend a topic as a whole iGem community.
We set our first trial on 31st of May. Lots of iGem teams joined us, however we were not enough to make the topic trending. Therefore we decided to keep working on the tag. In the Jamboree we are going to ask teams to tweet the tag on 31st of July. We hope we will be able to introduce iGem to more and more people.
We shoot six seconds funny videos and shared them via Vine to encourage people to participate in such projects by showing the fun we had. We shared our vines via tag #iGem2014United and asked iGem teams to shoot their vines. We organized a contest which iGem teams will choose the best Vine together. Hopefully in the Jamboree event we will be able to watch them.
Additional to the Twitter movement, we used Escherichia Coli @yourEcoli account to introduce iGem in a funny way. @yourEcoli is a bacterium seek to govern the SynBiology world by defeating humans (he prefers eukaryotes) with a revolution which he called as Inevitable Return. He sometimes tweets funny caps, sometimes make comments on other iGem teams tweet.
COLLABORATIONS
In the progress of our project we collaborated with several iGem teams on various issues. Collaborations help us to know each other better and share our knowledge and passion. Especially collaborations we did with university iGem teams helped us to learn more about synthetic biology and wiki editing.
We did some experiments of AUC_TURKEY and they did some of our experiments. When needed we exchanged lab materials as we use the same lab. Several times we discussed on the projects to improve them.
We had a beneficial conversation with iGemParisBettencourt team. They gave some tips to adjust our codes for iGem wiki and they shared their project to provide learning resources for iGem. Valencia UPV iGem, Imperial iGem, iGemSBU, OU iGem, AUC_TURKEY and iGem Bordeaux teams supported the #iGem2014United tag. We had a beneficial conversation with some of them; we discussed about finding funding for iGem project and lab chemicals, we shared our knowledge and learned about different approaches to the issue. In the future we are looking forward for collaborations that we can share with each other more.
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