hku igem team 2016 learning...

HKU iGEM Team 2016 3/F, Laboratory Block, Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine, 21 Sassoon Road, Pokfulam, Hong Kong E-mail: [email protected] Team’s website: http://2016.igem.org/Team:Hong_Kong_HKU

International Genetically

Engineered Machine

Team HKU 2016

HKU iGEM Team 2016

Learning Report

mailto:[email protected]

http://2016.igem.org/Team:Hong_Kong_HKU



Engineered Machine

Team HKU 2016

The International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) Competition 2016 has come to an end after five of our team members attended the Giant Jamboree held in Boston, USA from 25-31 October and presented our project. The team received a silver medal in recognition of the work we have done over the summer. It has been an invaluable experience which we all found it rewarding. ‘

The team with advisor Mr. Simon Shiu

Each year, iGEM teams from leading universities across the globe strive for excellence in both academic and non-academic parts through a research project topic inspired by anything around us – ranging from art and design to diagnostics, which the Team HKU this year worked on.





Engineered Machine

Team HKU 2016

Academic – the Science iGEM is an undergraduate Synthetic Biology Competition. One important component is the full-scale scientific research. Under the guidance of Dr. Julian A. Tanner and various advisors, we designed our own three dimensional DNA nanostructure for disease screening. Our design is a tetrahedron assembled from DNA oligos. It makes use of strand displacement and G-quadruplex mechanisms to achieve oligo biomarkers detection. It was experimentally proven that our construct can be easily synthesized by DNS oligonucleotides self-assembly. It was also proven to be able to produce desirable signals upon detection of RNA targets. All these successes did not come overnight. We spent the whole summer doing literature review, computer simulations and tests on different nanostructure designs. Our efforts not just resulted in a functional diagnostic nano-device, but also an unforgettable learning experience to every member in the team. This activity offered us the opportunity to learn advanced laboratory techniques and scientific knowledge beyond our undergraduate curricula. Overall, it was an enjoyable academic activity for HKU students of different academic backgrounds to work together as a team, and present our creativity to the world.

Our team’s Giant Jamboree presentation at the Hynes Convention Centre, Boston, MA, USA





Engineered Machine

Team HKU 2016

A bit of touring in the city of Boston before the Giant Jamboree

Simply doing literature searches already prompted us to diving more into related areas of the project. Throughout, we went through many rounds of discussions as to generate a viable research area that matches most of our research interests. Even after coming up with the project topic, we still needed to each generate some ideas and compared them thoroughly, looking for the most optimised design best supported by previous literatures. Not only these allowed us to take a glimpse into the various components of a research project, but the experience gained has helped us to familiarize with the common techniques we had and to take a leap forward, with the understanding of various limitations. These all provided us to learn how to think in a precise and comprehensive manner, which is meaningful in both personal growth and our academia.

We have documented our team’s particulars, project and all achievements throughout the entire competition on our team’s website (http://2016.igem.org/Team:Hong_Kong_HKU).






Engineered Machine

Team HKU 2016

Non-Academic – Human Practices Human Practices contributes the other half of the competition and of course some of the medal requirements. Such promotes the communication with the general public upon the concept of Synthetic Biology, as well as collaborations across teams.

The HKU Team conducted three human practices- the Joint School Science Exhibition (JSSE), team mentorships and collaborations, and an interview upon biosafety.

1) Getting in touch with the general public – JSSE

We introduced the basic concept of DNA and strand displacement mechanism to the general public during the Joint School Science Exhibition (JSSE). We made use of a DNA ball-and-stick model to explain the unique double helix structure of DNA and its role in our body.

Team HKU participated as an “University Delegate” at the 49th JSSE





Engineered Machine

Team HKU 2016

We also prepared brochures (see Appendix I) that introduced Synthetic Biology and our project for the visitors. From this event, we obtained the skill of explaining complicated scientific theories to the general public in everyday terminologies. This is useful to develop for our future career to inspire others from other disciplines by our ideas. From the feedbacks, we were also greatly aspired towards the potential future applications of our constructs and social impacts of our project, which forms our team’s next step – a win-win situation.





Engineered Machine

Team HKU 2016

2) Inspiring the youngsters – Team Hong_Kong_UCCKE mentorship and more

The HKU Team was once new to the iGEM competition. And this year, United Christian College Kowloon East, joined as the first-ever secondary school team from Hong Kong. They formed the first flame of potential secondary school synthetic biologists and we thought it would be a good idea to share our experience and offer support to their team, ranging from project designs and experimental techniques. Just before the competition ended, we delivered a sharing session at the morning assembly in UCCKE to promote the concept of Synthetic Biology. Under HKU Team’s mentorship, the UCCKE Team achieved a Bronze Medal at the Giant Jamboree.

Meeting with the UCCKE iGEM Team

Such activities were not done locally, we also broke ourselves through the globe via approaching and arranging collaborative tasks with different leading universities worldwide e.g. ETH Zurich, Imperial College London, University of Dundee and NUS Singapore.





Engineered Machine

Team HKU 2016

3) Learn from the experienced – interview with Prof. Danny Chan upon biosafety

Lab safety is a crucial part in every single research project, ours is of course not an exception. We sincerely thank Prof. Danny Chan from the School of Biomedical Sciences for his valuable time in sharing his experiences with research laboratory safety, related regulations and research ethics. Such strengthened our project and our confidence towards our project’s success.

Photo taken with Prof. Danny Chan (right) after the interview, at the School of Biomedical Sciences.





Engineered Machine

Team HKU 2016

Tonnes of massive ‘thank you’

The Silver Award

Achieving the Silver Award has not been an easy task, and it would not have been possible without invaluable guidance from Primary Investigators and academic advisors, and laboratory technicians, kind support and generous donations from the University, CEDARS, the School Biomedical Sciences, Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine, Faculty of Science and sponsoring companies – Integrated DNA Technologies, New England Biolabs, Ricardo Lee & Law Associates Office and Pacific Blossom (HK) Ltd., and above all, the HKU iGEM Team 2016.



hku igem team 2016 learning...

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