iGEM Giant Jamboree in Boston 国际遗传工程机器大赛 高中生团队摘得铜牌！
历时12个月，日日夜夜的探索，11月9日至13日，协和万源美式高中科学组 David Doyle 老师与 Vanessa Zhang、Cassie Liu 两位十二年级同学，终于带着自己的研究成果来到波士顿年度iGEM全球大赛！
iGEM —— 国际遗传工程机器大赛，由麻省理工创办，国际性学术竞赛，是合成生物学领域最高级别的国际性学术竞赛。2017 iGEM汇聚全球各地3000多名合成生物学家，能站在如此专业的学术平台上展示研究成果，并获得铜质奖牌，我们深感骄傲！
And so, a long, arduous but immensely rewarding twelve months of effort and discovery culminated with two of our senior students joining 3,000 other synthetic biologists from around the globein Boston from November 9-13th for the annual iGEM (International Genetically Engineered Machine competition) Giant Jamboree.
我们生活的世界面临种种问题，有待利用更先进的合成生物技术去解决。iGEM主要由大学生参与，各项目通过“生物积木”—— 标准生物组件及分子生物技术来创立基因工程系统。每年，有近乎6000人参与到 iGEM大赛，其中相当一部分参与者在秋季大会期间，带着自己的科研成果一决高下。这其中还有来自哈佛大学、麻省理工学院、斯坦福大学等众多一流院校的代表队！在这一年间，我校学生倾尽全力，设计出了独一无二的生物模块，并利用特定细菌进行功能表达。
The iGEM competition gives students the opportunity to push the boundaries of Synthetic Biology by tackling everyday issues facing the world. The iGEM community is made up of primarily university level students of multidisciplinary teams who work together to design, build, test, and measure a system of their own design using interchangeable biological parts and standard molecular biology techniques. Students spend most the academic year building genetically engineered systems using standard biological parts of DNA called BioBricks. Every year nearly 6,000 people dedicate themselves to iGEM, and then many come together in the fall to present their work and compete at the annual Jamboree. Incredible achievements were made by our students during this time with the highlight coming with us successfully designing our very own unique and functional DNA sequence “BioBrick” and engineering bacteria cells to express it.
在为期五天的 iGEM大赛上，我们可以看见许许多多的新奇事物。演讲、海报展示、工作坊讨论…… 各个环节都展示了生物科研者如何利用前沿技术，尝试解决现实生活里的种种挑战。虽然，我校两名同学并不拥有丰富的行业经验，但面对众多大学学生、该领域专业科研人员，毫不逊色，获得一致好评！
The Jamboree is where teams from around the globe came together in celebration to showcase their work. During the event, iGEM teams unveiled scientific solutions to solve real-world challenges and competed for awards and prizes. This five-day event featured oral presentations, poster presentations, workshops and social events. It was awonderful experience for our small and inexperienced team to interact with college students and industry professionals throughout the event. We accepted high praise form undergraduate students for the sophistication of our work and the students’ knowledge & presentation skills.
最紧张的时刻莫过于大赛最终日的颁奖典礼。当评委念到 Vanessa Zhang、Cassie Liu 两位的同学的名字时，我们激动无比！可以代表万源城协和双语学校站在如此隆重的领奖台上，这一刻值得庆祝！
我们为你们的成功感到骄傲！感谢我们的实验室老师 Jeffery Gu 先生，没有你的帮助，这一切都不能实现！
获奖同时，也标志着下一段旅程的开始
2018 iGEM 大会！
Come the closing ceremony on the final day it was thrilling for us to be presented a bronze medal award to bring a perfect end to a remarkable journey for our students and campus. We thank all students for their efforts during this time and celebrate their achievements. Thanks to Mr. Jeffery Gu, our lab assistant! Without your hard work, we cannot achieve this! A new journey begins already in preparation for the 2018 iGEM Giant Jamboree.
INTERVIEW
Student perspective:
Vanessa & Cassie
Senior Students and SUIS iGEM 2017 members.
采访时刻，让我们听听两位同学的感言
过去一年里，你们做了怎样的努力？
Can you tell me about your teams work and milestones over the past year?
“反复利用的食用油” 中存在大量有毒物质，危害着人们的健康。我们的项目是研究如何利用生物方法降解“反复利用的食用油”中的致癌物质。我们还开设了微信公众平台，定期更新我们的项目成果，让更多人了解转基因微生物技术。(Cassie Liu)
Our initial research found that there are numerous toxic compounds found in gutter oil, with many of them being potential coregencies. We designed a project which takes two gene found in many higher organisms which can break down some of these harmful substances into benign by products. We successfully engineered these genes into E.coli bacteria, where they can be used to mass produce an engineered “living machine” which has the potential to be used in waste oil treatment plants. Our hope is that our bacteria could form part of the protocol followed in waste oil treatment systems. In addition to our bioengineering work, we also interacted with the community to learn more of the public’s attitudes toward food safety and the use of genetically modified microorganisms. We developed a wechat platform aimed at educating certain members of the public about these topics. [ Cassie Liu ]
是什么原因，让你们选择了这个课题？
What was the inspiration behind the team’s decisions to design your project about treating reused and recycled cooking oil?
中国，许多街头小吃摊，甚至大饭店都反复利用食用油，影响着我们的健康，然而很多人并不清楚其中的危害。我们希望通过生物科研项目，让大家明白其中的原因，并解决问题。这是我们应当具备的社会责任。(Cassie Liu)
In China, there has been successive incidences of “gutter oil” being used. In Cities like Shanghai, in particular, we feel there is greater public concern for food safety. People seem to still feel that many street vendors or even some big restaurants are sometimes reusing the cooking oil. However, as is often the case, many people are not fully aware of why exactly a substance is bad for them. Our project aimed to both try and address a problem which is prevalent in our local community and use our work to educate the public in more depth as to the potential adverse health effects of reused cooking oil.
Therefore, as good citizens, who had the opportunity to do scientific research like this, we believe we have the responsibility to give back to the community. [ Cassie Liu ]
iGEM大赛期间，面对众多世界一流学校的大学生，你是否感到紧张？
How daunting was it for you to be competing against some of the world’s top universities and against undergraduates majoring in biology and engineering at the iGEM competition?
其实，iGEM比赛并不是竞争制度，而在于我们的科研成果是否达到大赛设定的标准。此外，团队默契也是考量之一，iGEM大赛目的是希望我们对社会、自然环境有所担当。我在比赛中拓宽视野，学到许许多多的东西。最终场演讲的时候，台下满满坐着专业人事，我是既紧张又兴奋！(Vanessa Zhang)
One of the special things about iGEM is that to earn a medal, a team doesn’t need to outperform other teams, rather, they only need to complete the competition requirement. So, in essence, you are competing against set criteria which show good practice within the genetic engineering field. This means that teams are not direct competitors. In fact, the competition fosters the sense of collaboration in every way – a real sense of scientific endeavour. I learned that even in competition, the goal of science is for the improvement of our society and the environment. To join such world-class competition has been an extremely awakening experience for me. I am both nervous and excited at the same time to meet other teams and industry experts from all around the world in Boston during the final presentation! [ Vanessa Zhang ]
过去的几个月里，什么是你最大的收获？最值得骄傲的？
On reflection what were your biggest achievements over the past few months and what can you be most proud of?
最骄傲的时刻，就是看见自己的名字出现在国际注册 “Biobrick BBa_K2216000” 旁边。我们亲手设计的转基因微生物成果改变了我们的生活。能够在高中阶段实现这个愿望，由衷感到高兴！
同时，我以自己是团队一员感到骄傲！这个项目对我们高中生来说，实属不易。我们花费大量课余时间投入其中，这些都是美好的回忆。(Vanessa Zhang)
The proudest moment of my high school career may be seeing my name next to “Biobrick BBa_K2216000” in the international registry. Being able to build our own genetically engineered device that can hopefully help our community. My work can be used by, and built upon by future research teams anywhere in the world through the Biobricks foundation. For me I am immensely proud to have been able to achieve this while only in High School. I am deeply grateful for the opportunity.
As a team, I think we can look back on our achievements with great satisfaction. Although it was an extremely challenging few months we were able to showcase our talents and complete a large body of work, which we know is beyond the capabilities of most in High School. We sacrificed a lot of our time on the project but grew as individuals and built some fantastic memories together. [ Vanessa Zhang ]
我校第一次参加 iGEM大赛，能够与哈佛大学、麻省理工学院、斯坦福大学等代表队同台表现，获得铜质奖牌，是我们的科学学科教育的一大里程碑！
希望更多同学加入到 iGEM中来，争取在明年的比赛中囊获 金牌！
It is amazing for us in our first year attempting such a complex project that we earned the same bronze medal award as the teams representing Harvard, MIT and Stanford. We are already setting our sights on earning gold next year, we hope the most talented of our students share this ambition!