Events:

2025/07/21 - 2025/07/22: Be an iGEMer Workshop (HKUST x HK-HS)

2025/09/13: Be an iGEMer Workshop (HKUST x UCCKE)

Organising Unit(s):

HKUST iGEM team

HK-HS iGEM team

UCCKE iGEM team

Overview:

Apart from synthetic biology, promoting iGEM is also a part of iGEM education. The “Be an iGEMer workshop” aims to provide high school students an experience of what it’s like to be an iGEMer, including 3 crucial parts:

1.Ideation of a project

2.Experiments that validate a project

3.Presenting the project to others

Participants worked in groups representing “teams” with 1-2 existing high school iGEM team members in each group acting as “advisors”, while college team members hosted the workshop.

Objectives:

Promote iGEM to high school students through an immersive experience.

Introduce synthetic biology to participants of different academic levels.

Build problem-solving and critical-thinking skills of participants.

Explore the possibilities of high school and college iGEM teams

Highlights:

Ideation Practices included in Synbio Booklet

Feedback loop with collaborators in second tries

HKUST x HK-HS

Customizations

The origin of the workshop comes from a connection between one of our team members and a teacher from the HK-HS team. Through this connection we were able to integrate the goal of exploring collaboration possibilities between our teams. Multiple meetings were done between our teams to cater for both our needs, ensuring the workshop was inclusive and bidirectional.

HK-HS suggested that one of their education goals was to “train the trainer”, which aligned with our proposal to have “advisors” in groups. Our presentation materials were also altered to include a session introducing mi-RNAs, which was a crucial part of their project.

During the ideation of the rundown of this workshop, we acknowledged the many free time while waiting for the experimental processes (eg. cPCR) to run. During these times we implemented a game HK-HS designed and would like to share, plus the presentation time for our ideation task.

We were very lucky to have HK-HS’s connections with secondary schools interested in iGEM who have yet to have the chance to participate. With the help of this collaboration, we successfully recruited over 40 students from 8 schools, greatly exceeding our original expectations of 20 students per session. This also led to the possibility of interviews with some teachers from these schools for our Synbio Booklet.

Material design

The target audience for this session was high school students who are taking biology and picked by the participant school teachers. Therefore we tried to include in detail how each experimental procedure is done and the concept behind it. The material generally covered the process of bacterial transformation from plasmid recombination to gibson assembly, cPCR and gel electrophoresis.

Experiment design

2 plates of E.coli, 1 transformed with the target gene, one without, were presented to the participants. Each group was required to pick a colony from each plate and conduct cPCR and Gel on both the samples, verifying if the bacteria was successfully transformed with the target gene.

Participants were prompted to speculate the outcome of each plate and why it happened according to the theoretical knowledge taught beforehand. This also served as an example to introduce synthetic biology or to visualize how these experimental procedures illustrated before worked.

Ideation task

The ideation was instructed as follows.

Each team drew a topic that they needed to find a solution to a problem of. An instruction sheet was given and advisors were responsible for helping them formulate ideas and giving them directions during the night between day 1 and day 2. Groups then brought back their documentation and proposed projects to present on day 2. These projects were encouraged to be similar to the format of an iGEM project and examples were included in the instruction sheet as reference. Their project would not be judged on feasibility but we set up a most creative prize and best presentation prize that would be voted out by iGEMers, advisors and teachers. We hope through this way we can emphasize the creative aspect of synthetic biology and develop research skills of the participant.

Activity Execution :

Day 1 Summary:

The first day of the "Be an iGEMer" workshop introduced participants to the world of synthetic biology and the iGEM competition. The day began with an introductory lesson explaining what iGEM is and a brief project presentation from both our teams as examples. This was followed by an interactive lecture covering core biology concepts and techniques crucial for iGEM, including the nature of DNA, the process and applications of bacterial transformation, the principles of polymerase chain reaction and gel electrophoresis.

Following the theoretical foundation. Participants were divided into groups, each guided by 2 advisors, and introduced to a series of team exercises, including a Kahoot quiz to reinforce the lessons, a pipetting art session to familiarize the students with how to use a micropipette in preparation of day 2 of the workshop, and an ideation exercise where teams brainstormed project ideas like a typical iGEM team, which they will present as a group on the next day.

Immediate feedback

On the night of day 1, we received immediate feedback from teachers who participated in the workshop voicing some concerns, noting that we may have over estimated the knowledge level of the participants since some of them were actually middle school students rather than high school. We had not anticipated this and recognised it as an error of communication during our recruitment process. To address this, we modified our materials for day 2 of the workshop, reintroducing the basic concepts of DNA and plasmids to the participants and clarified some of the information.

Day 2 Summary

Day 2 of the workshop focused on translating the previous day's theoretical knowledge into practical, hands-on laboratory experience. The day began with a quick review of key experimental techniques and reintroducing the basic concepts of biotechnology. The core activity involved cPCR and gel electrophoresis.

The groups presented their project as designed overnight to the other participants and hosts. Our team members acted as “representatives” to give advice on the perspective of iGEM for their projects and how they could hypothetically develop their project in the future. Participants voted for the project they found most creative within a google form after all groups presented. The workshop concluded with an analysis of the gels, a final Q&A session, and the distribution of feedback surveys. The day ended on a high note with a prize-giving ceremony and a group photo to commemorate the successful completion of the intensive two-day program.

Feedback

Format: via google form to participants and interview with participating teachers

1.Teaching Content:

The technical content was noted as potentially too challenging for F3- F4 students since they have not learnt the basics of DNA yet.

The content generally aroused interest of the participants towards synthetic biology and iGEM

It was effective in conveying they key concepts of synthetic biology apart from being slightly too challenging

2.Rundown:

Time management was rather poor for day 2, causing the session to overrun. Better planning for how to teach the lab session was discussed and implemented afterwards.

3.Event design:

pipette art session turned out to be quite boring and unnecessary as rated by participants, we cut this session out in the subsequent workshop

The ideation session was praised by teachers since it gave a chance for participants to experience researching and demonstrate creativity plus critical thinking skills, both of which were suggested to be the most crucial attainments from iGEM.

However, participants suggested that the scope of the ideation task was too big for an overnight project and the workload turned out to be quite big. We thus tried to simplify the task in the subsequent workshop.

The feedback was incorporated to structure the next workshop better with UCCKE

Customizations

UCCKE’s team operated similarly to a college iGEM team. Due to having a past of collaborating with us in 2023, they found us again this year to seek guidance on their project. As a result, we incorporated a few collaborated events with them in our year in response to one of our education goals.

The UCCKE team suggested that one of their education goals was to reach out to diverse schools, especially those with no lab or less academic validation. As such we narrowed down our target audience of this session to be students with little/ no biological background and designed our materials accordingly, not repeating the mistakes last time.

When constructing our event, we settled on having one full day workshop instead of separation into 2 days to avoid the redundancy of having the participants travelling to both HKUST and UCCKE, which were institutes that are not that convenient to travel to, and to accommodate to the starting of the school semester. As such this version was a single day workshop from 9-5 at UCCKE.

The recruitment of this event was also mainly from the relations of the UCCKE team with other high schools and from the public promotion at another event, JSSE. However, around one week before the event we realized that a lot of potential participants agreed that the label of “9-5” for a workshop was too long and made them not want to join. Unfortunately it was too late for us to change anything at that point, but we still managed to have 10 participants for this session.

Material design

As this time the participants were known to be high schoolers with no biological background, our material was designed to highlight how synthetic biology is applied in real life and cover the basics of the experiments that will be done in the workshop.

We also designed Chinese versions of the material and conducted our session in Cantonese due to our participants coming from Chinese schools as opposed to the last session where English was the main language, targeting mainly English secondary schools.

Experimental design

The experiment design remind the same as before

Ideation design

Although the feedback from last session suggested that the time given for the ideation task was too little, we had to further shrink the time allocated to this task due to it being 1 day only. Therefore, we changed the format and formality of the task and presentation. The task topic was more specified and no longer encouraged the presentation in a format similar to an iGEM presentation. The bar for applicability in synthetic biology was further lowered and encouraged wild suggestions due to the participants having no biology background.

The time available for ideation was around 3 hours. We challenged groups to identify and research on the specific topic they chose and how might a creative solution be to use some sort of biological approach to solve the issue. The advisor and hosts roles were even more important in facilitating their research as hosts also participated in brainstorming this time.

Activity Execution :

Summary

Participants arrived at UCCKE at 9am, ready to indulge in synthetic biology. We started again with a lecture on what DNA is, how synthetic biology utilizes the properties of DNA to change and make new things, and a brief introduction of how these procedures may be done. Examples of biotech were used to visualize the effects such as dolly the sheep and GM food, a Kahoot was conducted afterwards as well.

Before the experimental session, we started the ideation session and allowed 45 minutes of discussion, allowing them to have an idea. The experiments were conducted afterwards and we had a lunch break during the cPCR run time. Trial gels were provided by UCCKE and a gel loading practice was done before loading the gel to increase their chance of success. Unfortunately, the results were not that pretty, but the participants still had a good experience.

The rest of the time was for ideation and presentation, groups were able to characterize their idea with the help of advisors and hosts before our time was up. They shared their sketches and solutions with other iGEMers as the workshop came to an end.

Events:

2025/07/25 : Nursery session

2025/10/02 : Primary School session

Organising Unit(s):

HKUST iGEM Team

Yuen Yuen Institute Jockey Club Kwun Tong Social Service Centre

Tsang Mui Millennium School 曾梅千禧學校

Overview:

Synbio Sidekick is an attempt to include the younger generation into the world of science and synthetic biology through role play and stories, both versions of the event include 2 main parts:

1.Role-play game

2.Designing a “genetically modified organism”

Participants were separated into groups of 4-5 to collaboratively complete an objective in the role play game aligning with our project - eliminate cadmium. After demonstrating how synthetic biology is used within the game, the kids were prompted to try and design their own “genetically modified organism” and describe what the organism did.

Objectives:

Arouse interest of participants towards science and synthetic biology

encourage creative thinking through art aspects

raise environmental awareness of older participants through role play scenarios

Highlights:

Inclusion of nursery children in events

Attempt in education through role play games

Events:

2025/09/20 : Silver Scientist

Organising Unit(s):

HKUST iGEM team

旺角街坊會九龍總商會耆英中心 (Kowloon Chamber of Commerce Centre for the Elderly)

Overview:

The "Silver Scientist" event underscores the inclusive spirit of iGEM by actively engaging the population often overlooked in science outreach: the elderly. The program is designed to bridge the generational gap in science, demonstrating that learning biology has no age limit. Through a hands-on workshop, participants are introduced to the world of synthetic biology.

Objectives:

Introduce seniors to the concepts of synthetic biology, aiming to spark their interest in science

Enhance their understanding of contemporary biotechnology applications and genetically modified foods.

Origin

When we were ideating our education events, we realized one of the groups of society that were seldom included in iGEM was the elderly. And it does make sense in a way, since one could ask the question, how would learning synthetic biology benefit the elderly? And it would be pretty hard to immediately come up with a sophisticated answer as compared to other age groups like children or teenagers.

However, returning to our education goals, we tried to think of an event that may interest and benefit them. At the time we thought the main event would just be teaching and act like a talk at community centres, which was not that much in alignment with our other goal to promote creativity. After the Synbio Sidekick nursery session, we were commented by the social workers that our approach to teaching synthetic biology (breaking up the session into games and using story) would actually be interesting to the elderly according to their experience and encouraged us to try this direction.

Design

With the suggestions received, we tried to include the immersion of “being a scientist” in our event to allow participants to be much more included. Through this design, we may also incorporate a much more interactive narrative to include the aspect of creativity. Of course, the elderly are different from children, so we did not use a role play game in this event. We instead included 2 games to actively introduce the concept of what DNA is and characterize the concept of DNA modification in synthetic biology. The material aims to dispel what misinformation that might be present about biotechnology or genetically modified organisms and explain how they are applied in real life.

Activity Execution:

The "Silver Scientist" event is a two-hour, interactive workshop designed for a group of 10-15 senior participants. The session began with a brief introduction to iGEM and synthetic biology. When asked about how much they knew about biotech or synbio, it was no shock that they were not familiar. During the teaching, the small class size allowed us to engage in chats regarding the topics and clarify a few things they might have misunderstood.

To illustrate what DNA is, we included a DNA origami model folding session. Participants were able to make a beautiful helix structure with card paper. We were able to use this activity as a medium to explain why DNA was portrayed as a helix, which to our surprise was something participants were quite interested in.

The next activity was to conduct a DNA extraction experiment from strawberries with them, where participants are able to see real-life DNA. A brief transition discussion connects these activities to everyday applications, such as genetically modified foods. The participants were all very invested in doing the experiments. Even if the experiment results were not that great, we still had a nice time.

Finally, we summed up everything with a final Q & A session and got some feedback from the participants. They gifted us with homemade mooncakes after the event since it was near the mid autumn festival. Overall it was a fulfilling morning and a successful event.

Feedback:

Method: Questionnaire and observation

Positive feedback

Most of the participants found the DNA origami and the experiment session fun and intriguing, while the content was relevant to the elderly about synthetic biology and biotechnology

Execution

The content delivery might not have been the best since a minority of participants still found the content confusing and not coherent enough throughout the workshop

we may have underestimated the elderly in terms of the activities, since the DNA origami and experiment session were both finished much quicker than we expected. In contrast, most of the time was spent listening to their opinions about the contents and conversing.

Interviewer:

HKUST iGEM team

Interviewees:

Ms. Lau (Pope Paul VI College)

Mrs. Fu (Delia Memorial School)

Mr. Kwok (Cotton Spinners Association Secondary School)

Overview:

This report summarizes feedback from three secondary school teachers regarding an educational event organized by our team. The interviews aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of the "Be an iGEMer" page

event and gather insights on science education, with a focus on synthetic biology.

Objectives:

Evaluating the effectiveness of our workshop and gaining specified insight from experienced teachers

Exploring the techniques and advantages of synthetic biology education and where it is positioned in the broader aspect of education

Interview Details:

Ms. Lau

iGEMer event feedback:

Ms. Lau expressed great satisfaction with the iGEMer event, praising its well-planned, two-day program and its success in training participants in problem-solving skills aligned with iGEM's ideology. She highlighted the value of practical work for students.

For improvements, she suggested increasing university student participation to provide more detailed guidance, especially during lab sessions. She also noted a potential language barrier, recommending offering sessions in Chinese to boost confidence for students from diverse backgrounds.

Teaching of Biology

Regarding making science engaging, Ms. Lau stressed the need to tailor activities and strategies precisely to different age groups. She found the event highly inspirational for secondary students, noting it could ignite a passion for biology and even influence future career choices, such as engineering. She also observed that the core high school team members learned valuable leadership skills, which aligned with her team’s education goals.

On synthetic biology in education, she stated it fits perfectly with STEM principles, connecting textbook concepts to real-life applications and the new HKDSE curriculum. For the future, Ms. Lau believes synbio will be critical in fields like medicine and agriculture, but she strongly emphasised that educators must equip students with a robust ethical framework to prevent technological misuse.

Mrs. Fu

Feedback from iGEMer

Regarding the iGEMer event, Ms. Fu found it well-designed but noted the concepts were challenging for Form 3 and 4 students, suggesting more guidance or a simpler curriculum for younger years. To make it more engaging, she recommended age-specific approaches: more hands-on activities and animations for younger students while the current level is good for senior forms.

Before the event, both she and her students were unfamiliar with iGEM, but she considered it a unique and valuable experience.

Teaching of Biology

Mrs. Fu identified that students struggle most with practical and scientific inquiry skills in the HKDSE biology curriculum, which are difficult to develop due to time constraints and limited school resources and equipment. Her primary teaching goal is to combine hands-on experiments with lecturing, often through after-school activities, and she aims to move towards more student-centred research projects this year.

She expressed a need for better resources, specifically in technique, manpower, and knowledge, to facilitate this student-centred work. When connecting lessons to the real world, she uses diverse examples from diseases to ecology, and she believes higher-ability students can use synbio as a problem-solving tool, though it requires significant support. She sees synbio's future role as providing solutions to societal problems like pollution, hoping it will help students connect their learning to the real world.

Mr. Kwok

Feedback from iGEMer:

Mr. Kwok was impressed that his students handled the challenge of speaking English in front of a large audience, praising the inspiration and motivation they gained during the workshop. For improvement, he recommended simplifying complex, university-level concepts using step-by-step guides and interactive questions to include students with weaker academic backgrounds.

He is a strong proponent of active learning, praising interactive elements like pipette art and suggesting DIY kits to motivate students. Before the event, he was unfamiliar with iGEM but now sees its value in demonstrating that biology is about real-world problem-solving, not just memorisation. He also expresses interest in organising an iGEM team in his school or considering joining a collaborated team, to which we encouraged and were happy to see that our event inspired his interest.

Teaching in Biology:

Mr. Kwok stated that students struggle most with plant-related topics like photosynthesis and cell division because they find them abstract and difficult to visualise. His preferred teaching method relies heavily on hands-on experiences and group work, using tools like puzzles, videos, and even a murder mystery game to teach the immune system to make concepts more concrete.

He wishes he had better resources for molecular biology and genetics topics, such as DNA replication, which students find conceptually difficult. To make biology less abstract, he consistently relates it to real life. He suggested that external help, such as university-led workshops or mentorship programs where undergraduates act as role models, would be highly beneficial.

He was not very familiar with synthetic biology but believes it will grow in popularity and that it helps broaden STEM skills. Finally, he notes that he does not believe the exam-based system hinders interest, in contrast, a current focus on activities has been observed through the exams in the system over pure content memorisation.

Organising Unit(s):

HKUST iGEM team

Joint School Science Exhibition Committee

Overview:

Every individual should be allowed to follow the trend of science. Participation in the Joint School Science Exhibition granted us a valuable chance to meet the public and present our project to the public. We participated in this exhibition for 7 days, introducing synthetic biology and cadmium pollution to a diverse public. Overall, it was a great opportunity to connect with the public and raise awareness toward cadmium pollution.

Objectives:

Raising public awareness toward the cadmium pollution

Introducing synthetic biology

Promoting iGEM competition

Inclusivity and Public Engagement

Our booth attracted a diverse range of visitors, from secondary school students to middle-aged adults. Recognizing that many were unfamiliar with synthetic biology, we began by explaining its fundamental principles and real-world applications. This foundational approach fostered an environment of active learning, with visitors engaging deeply by asking insightful questions.

We were truly inspired by the broad spectrum of individuals—students, parents, and seniors—who demonstrated a genuine interest in the field. This experience has reinforced our commitment to planning inclusive events that engage people of all ages and backgrounds, reaffirming our goal of making science accessible to everyone.

Raising Awareness on Cadmium Pollution

As visitors grew interested in our project, we introduced the critical issue of cadmium pollution. We detailed its pathway from industrial waste to sludge and, ultimately, to agricultural soil, contaminating the food chain. The audience was often alarmed to learn about the prevalence and dangers of this heavy metal, expressing their concern through questions about its health impacts.

We believe our participation in the exhibition was instrumental in raising public awareness of global cadmium pollution. It provided valuable knowledge about this environmental hazard, empowering attendees to understand its potential risks.

Events:

2025/09/21: Exploring Synthetic Biology: Multi-Teams' Talk on Research & Innovation -- Uni Students' Session

Organising Unit:

HKUST-GZ iGEM team

Participating Teams:

HKUST iGEM team

HZAU iGEM team

JLU iGEM team

Overview:

The online talk and round table meeting organized by HKUST-GZ was an opportunity given to us to share our projects with university students interested in iGEM via zoom. Each team was given 15 minutes to deliver a presentation about their project to share the specialties of it that we have been working on all year. After the sharing, an internal round table meeting with the following objectives were commenced:

Exploring the future of collaboration between iGEM teams

How would synthetic biology reach a breakthrough in the future

Teams exchanged ideas on these topics and valuable insights were gained.

Details

Presentation

Each team was given the opportunity to give a 15 minute presentation about their project, afterwards, listeners had the opportunity to raise questions and teams responded accordingly. The event encouraged feedback from the audience and we were able to identify confusing points of our presentation because of the questions we received.

Round table meeting

After the presentation, the four teams had a round table meeting discussing the collaboration between teams and synthetic biology advancements. The topic discussed quickly started to revolve around artificial intelligence, which was believed to bring the next breakthrough to synthetic biology via advancements in handling large scale data sets and simulations of biological activities.

With this regard, teams further suggested how within iGEM, although wet lab collaborations may be limited by geographical location, dry lab collaborations may be the most viable and beneficial to teams. In recent iGEM dry lab developments, we should be able to see the increasing trend of building AI models to assist with the project, collaborations and exchanging in ideas would encourage and facilitate the development of these models.

In addition, in terms of human practices, the benefit in connections was also brought to the table. Teams from different schools may have access to different resources and some experts in specialized fields may be easier to contact by some than others. For example, teams from a researched based institute may have ease in contacting wet lab based experts but difficulties in contacting specific industries such as farmers. The importance of connections must be apparent to those who participated in human practices and it may prove to be infinitely frustrating when your target audience does not respond. Therefore, this aspect of collaboration between teams may be immensely crucial for the development of human practices if normalized.

Time: 2025/08/25

Organising Unit:

• HKUST iGEM team
• UCCKE iGEM team

Overview:

As a University iGEM team, it is true that we have more resources, technology, and knowledge about the wet lab skills than secondary schools. We had a collaboration with UCCKE, a secondary iGEM team in Hong Kong, to share the knowledge and demonstrate the experiments for enhancing the lab skills.

Explanation of Protocol

Demonstration of making competent bacteria

Demonstration of performing transformation

Two team leaders from the UCCKE iGEM team visited HKUST Innolab to see the demonstration for competent cell making and transformation.

Objectives:

Sharing the skills and precautions for experiments

Empowerment

This educational initiative originated through an academic connection facilitated by a team advisor. We were contacted by UCCKE, a secondary school iGEM team from Hong Kong, seeking guidance on their synthetic biology project.

In response, we organized a dedicated workshop at the Innolab at HKUST, focusing on foundational wet-lab techniques. Our experienced wet-lab members conducted a hands-on session, demonstrating the preparation of chemical competent cells and a transformation procedure. The instruction included a detailed explanation of the protocol and emphasized critical safety precautions and best practices in laboratory technique.

To further support UCCKE's research endeavors, we concluded the session by providing them with essential molecular biology reagents, including enzymes for cloning, prepared competent cells, and antibiotics.

While this was a focused workshop, we are confident that it provided valuable, practical experience for the secondary school students. We believe this engagement will help familiarize them with university-level laboratory work and foster their continued interest in synthetic biology and the iGEM competition.

Time: 2025/08/25

Organising Unit:

• HKUST iGEM team
• UCCKE iGEM team

Overview:

To bridge the computational biology divide between university and secondary levels, we organized a dry lab workshop for skill-building. We collaborated with Hong Kong's UCCKE secondary iGEM team to share expertise and demonstrate modeling tools.

Activities:

1.Introduced dry lab functions and GUI tool

2.Guided step-by-step MATLAB E. coli growth curve modeling and Python elastic network models for lactic acid production prediction

Objectives:

1.Sharing the skills and precautions for dry lab modeling and simulation

2.Introduce our peers to the core concepts and practical tools of computational biology, fostering a deeper understanding of this dynamic field.

Details

On 25 August, we successfully hosted an online Dry Lab tutorial, in collaboration with the UCCKE Team.

During the tutorial, we introduced the function of dry lab, including circuit modeling, molecular modeling and statistical modeling. We then explored three powerful graphical user interface tools: AlphaFold for protein structure prediction, SimBiology for biological system modeling, and CHARMM-GUI for molecular dynamics simulations, providing clear insights into their real-world applications.

During the hands-on segment, we guided students through a lively demonstration of using MATLAB to model Escherichia coli growth curves, walking them step-by-step from model creation to result visualization. We also showcased how to use Python to run elastic network models to predict Escherichia coli behavior for lactic acid production, ensuring the process was approachable and engaging for all, regardless of prior experience.

The interactive Q&A session was vibrant, with UCCKE students actively asking thoughtful questions about tool applications, technical details, and learning pathways. This tutorial not only deepened everyone’s understanding of computational modeling but also equipped us with practical, beginner-friendly skills to support our future research endeavors.