Hepatic fibrosis and its end-stage diseases are major challenges facing global public health. As reflected in the "HP Loop" we have constructed—featuring "social demand input → social interaction and co-creation → achievement feedback to society"—every step of a technology's journey from "laboratory concept" to "patient-accessible solution" is inseparable from in-depth connection with society. Education work serves as the core engine for building this connection and driving the operation of the HP Loop. Between technology and society, we clearly identify several gaps that need to be bridged urgently.
In terms of cognition, there is a disconnect in the public's understanding of the reversibility of liver diseases, and cutting-edge concepts such as "exosome therapy" are even unheard of, which hidden risks for social trust in new technologies. In terms of emotion, behind the cold medical record data lie the real and heavy predicaments of patients and their families—they suffer from side effects, exhaust their savings due to repeated hospitalizations, and hold a simple desire for "mild, economical, and effective" treatment methods. In terms of resources, the harsh reality that "liver sources only meet 10% of the demand" requires our technological innovation not only to "cure diseases" but also to address the inclusive proposition of "making treatment accessible to more people". In terms of regions, the lack of health knowledge and misconceptions in vast primary-level areas form the most solid barrier on the path to health equity.
These acute social pain points collectively lead to a conclusion: if we do not take the initiative to build a communication bridge, even if a technology achieves major breakthroughs in the laboratory, it will eventually become a "technological island" that cannot respond to the urgent needs of society.
Therefore, our positioning of Education is not the additional role of traditional "one-way science popularization", but rather a core driving force throughout the entire HP process. Its essence is to systematically break down the cognitive, emotional, and participatory barriers between synthetic biology and social reality. We are committed to enabling different groups not only to "understand" the scientific value of exosome therapy but also to "participate" in the optimization and implementation of the technology, ultimately achieving a two-way engagement where technology "originates from society and serves society".

While our exosome-targeted delivery experiments were making progress in ultra-clean benches, the clear question of "Why do livers get sick?" from children in rural classrooms in Longnan, Gansu Province, made us deeply aware of the reality and urgency of the health cognition gap at the primary level. It was in response to such real-world demands that the "Zhixing Program" came into being. It is not a simple "sending knowledge to rural areas" initiative, but an in-depth practice centered on rural teachers and students, aiming to build a complete interactive chain of "technological cognition → family linkage → demand feedback".

The success of the "Zhixing Program" is first based on accurate adaptation to rural scenarios. We abandoned rigid professional explanations, collaborated with local volunteer teaching teams, selected 3 central primary schools in the Longnan area, covering more than 200 students. We created an original "three-person collaboration model" consisting of "1 scientific research volunteer + 1 volunteer teacher + 1 rural teacher": scientific research volunteers are responsible for "translating" the core scientific content, volunteer teachers excel in communicating with children, and rural teachers can accurately connect with families.
In terms of teaching aid design, we completely abandoned traditional manuals filled with text and instead developed a set of "visual + operable" interactive materials. We used building blocks of different colors to represent healthy liver cells (green), fibrotic liver tissue (brown), and exosomes (blue) respectively. By manually replacing "brown building blocks" with "blue building blocks", children intuitively understood the core principle of exosomes "repairing" the liver.

The core of our practice is to break the boundaries of the classroom and upgrade one-way knowledge transmission into a "demand co-creation" process driven by children and involving families.
We created a feedback loop through a "task card". After the "Liver Castle Defense" game, we distributed a carefully designed "Family Science Popularization Task Card" to each child. There were no esoteric terms on the card, only three simple tasks: telling family members the story of the "liver's little couriers" (exosomes), discussing habits harmful to the liver with family, and recording family members' questions about liver disease treatment. The original intention of this design was to let children become "little messengers" connecting science and families, bringing the seeds of health knowledge into families that are information-isolated due to busy livelihoods.
This small card brought us the most real and urgent voices from the primary level. One mother wrote on the card: "...I want to ask if it won't cost a lot of money; our family is afraid we can't afford it"; another father was concerned: "...Can it be used in rural hospitals? Do we not have to travel far to big cities?" These feedbacks were not just recorded—our collaboration team systematically organized and analyzed them through weekly online meetings. The data clearly pointed to three core concerns: treatment cost accounting for 38%, primary-level accessibility 29%, and side effects 23%.
These real demands from rural areas became the clearest "social orientation" in our laboratory. In response to the cost concerns accounting for as high as 38%, the team immediately launched a new research direction—exploring the use of more economical membrane separation technology to replace the expensive ultracentrifugation method for exosome preparation. This is the most vivid embodiment of "social demands feeding back into scientific research innovation".
We built deep trust through an "equal dialogue". During the interaction, we always adhered to the principles of "listening" and "co-creation". When a sixth-grade child asked the seemingly naive question "Can we make the 'little couriers' run faster?", we did not perfunctorily dismiss it. We realized that this directly pointed to the technical core of "exosome delivery efficiency". We immediately launched a "brainstorming" session with the children on "how to speed up the couriers", and the children's idea of "drawing an arrow as navigation" was even formally included in our subsequent targeted strategy seminars.
In the face of parents' widespread concerns about safety, we chose to be honest. We used the analogy of "just like farmers need to test-plant crops first and confirm they grow well before large-scale sowing" to explain the rigor and necessary cycle of scientific research. This sincere communication—without exaggeration or evasion—won deep trust from rural families. Data showed that 92% of the interviewed parents stated that they "are willing to continue paying attention to subsequent progress", laying a valuable social trust foundation for the future implementation of the technology.
The practice of the "Zhixing Program" is far more than a single science popularization activity. Through operable forms, transferable knowledge, and quantifiable demands, it successfully transformed rural groups from "technological onlookers" into "participants and contributors". It not only filled the cognitive gap in rural areas but also enabled the team to establish a core R&D principle: "Technology must not only be effective in the laboratory but also feasible in rural scenarios".

Fig1-A painting created by children in volunteer teaching based on liver disease

Fig2- Volunteers introduce exosome therapy for liver cirrhosis to children

Based on the solid foundation of the "Zhixing Program"—which deeply rooted in the primary level and successfully captured real-world demands—we strategically expanded the scope of Education work. We recognized that to truly mature exosome technology, it is not only necessary to listen to voices from rural areas but also to conduct in-depth collaboration with groups that play key roles in the technology transformation chain: patients and their families, and cross-disciplinary teachers and students in universities. To this end, we designed more targeted and professional interactive sessions, aiming to build a complete demand transformation funnel from "broad primary-level demands" to "consensus among core groups" and then to "problem-solving with professional wisdom".

We are well aware that patients are the ultimate users of any new therapy, and their understanding and trust are the emotional foundation for the "implementation" of the technology. In response to the anxiety and information needs they expressed in clinical interviews, we carried out special communication activities centered on "empowerment and empathy".
Creating "understandable science". We designed and printed the Q&A Manual on Exosome Therapy for Liver Disease: Concerns of Patients and Their Families. Using the most plain language and diagrams, the manual answered the questions patients cared about most: "What are exosomes?", "How are they different from current drugs?", "Are they safe?", and "How far are they from us?". We avoided any promotional terms that might cause misunderstandings and instead objectively presented the current status and potential of exosome therapy as a cutting-edge research field.
Organizing "warm dialogues". In collaboration with doctors from the First Clinical Medical College of Lanzhou University, we held 3 small-scale doctor-patient communication meetings. During the meetings, members of our team, acting as scientific consultants, patiently listened to patients talk about their difficulties in the treatment process and explained the content of the Q&A manual face-to-face. We honestly informed them that this technology still requires time, but every question they raised and every demand for "improved quality of life" are valuable assets guiding us to optimize the technology. This process not only effectively alleviated patients' sense of unfamiliarity and fear towards the new technology but also established a "partnership to jointly face disease challenges".

To break down disciplinary barriers within the scientific research team, we designed a unique "problem-oriented discussion + joint pre-experiment" two-stage interaction model, aiming to transform the cross-disciplinary wisdom of universities into innovative momentum for solving specific technical problems.
The first stage was to carry out cross-disciplinary "brainstorming" activities to address real-world diagnostic challenges. We joined hands with 86 teachers and students from four majors—biological engineering, clinical medicine, mechanical design, and journalism and communication—to launch an in-depth seminar themed "What practical problems need to be solved for exosome therapy to move from the laboratory to the clinic?". Ideas clashed fiercely at the meeting: a postgraduate student in clinical medicine shared a case where a patient suffered greatly from the off-target effect of targeted drugs, which immediately inspired students in biological engineering to think about "how to install a more accurate 'navigation system' for exosomes". When a professor of mechanical design saw photos of the large ultracentrifuges in our laboratory, he immediately pointed out that "this equipment can never be popularized in any county-level hospital", directly highlighting the application bottleneck of the technology at the primary level. Students majoring in journalism and communication sharply pointed out that although the metaphor of "little couriers" we collected in the "Zhixing Program" was good, it lacked impact. They suggested using "liver repair craftsmen" to emphasize the positive implication of "proactive repair", making the science popularization expression more accurate and powerful.
The second stage was joint pre-experiments to turn ideas into verifiable data. Discussions must not stop at "empty talk". After the meeting, an interdisciplinary task force composed of 15 teachers and students was quickly formed to carry out a two-week joint pre-experiment with us. The biological team optimized the centrifugation parameters, increasing the exosome extraction efficiency by 25% while reducing contaminating proteins by 10%. These optimized parameters were immediately solidified into the team's Standard Operating Procedure (SOP), laying the foundation for cost control and data stability in all subsequent experiments. The medical team confirmed through cell experiments that exosomes modified with C1q peptides showed a 30% increase in targeted binding rate to hepatic stellate cells. This key data provided strong "proof of concept" support for our selection of targeted strategies in subsequent animal experiments. The engineering team completed the preliminary design sketch of a mini centrifuge, reducing the equipment volume to 1/3 of the original and simplifying the operation steps from 8 to 3. This is not just a drawing, but a solid step towards the popularization of the technology.

Fig3-Discussion among students from different majors

Fig4-Discussion among students from different majors

The value of this interdisciplinary collaboration was concentratedly reflected in a moment of "epiphany". When we connected the "portable mini-equipment" idea proposed by the mechanical design major with the deep aspiration of the rural father in the "Zhixing Program"—"hoping rural hospitals can also use it"—the chain of the entire HP Loop was instantly connected.
A simple wish from rural areas was transformed into a practical engineering solution by a group of interdisciplinary teachers and students in a university campus hundreds of kilometers away. This is the core value of our Education work: it is not just two independent activities, but a successful construction of a three-dimensional demand transformation network of "primary-level demands → professional perspectives → technical solutions", enabling the most simple people's concerns to accurately drive the most cutting-edge scientific exploration.

Looking back, our Education work centered on exosome-based liver disease treatment technology has always taken the HP Loop as the core, successfully transforming traditional "one-way science popularization" into a two-way value system of "capturing primary-level demands → empowering with professional wisdom → feeding back R&D for implementation". From the "Liver Castle Defense" in Longnan, Gansu, to the joint pre-experiments on university campuses, every practice is not an isolated node but an interconnected part of the value chain. This process not only effectively filled the cognitive gap but also transformed "technology serving society" from a slogan into a measurable and verifiable action framework.

The "feedback loop" between demands and technology. Through "Family Task Cards", we captured the core demands of rural groups for "low cost and easy operation". These demands were accurately transformed into core topics for interdisciplinary seminars in universities. Finally, the development of mini centrifuges led by the mechanical design major and the optimization of low-time-consuming extraction parameters by the biological engineering major are precise technical responses to the primary-level demand for "accessibility".
The "ripple loop" between cognition and learning. We witnessed the two-way flow of knowledge: rural children understood science through building block games and became "little messengers" delivering health knowledge to their families, creating a cognitive ripple of "children → families". At the same time, the scientific research team also gained valuable inspiration for optimizing targeting efficiency from the child's question of "making the little couriers run faster", truly realizing "mutual learning" where "researchers learn from society and society learns from researchers".
The "model loop" between practice and replication. We solidified every practice into standardized documents and tools, including the task card template of the "Zhixing Program", the parameter report of university joint experiments, and the demand classification statistics table. This ensures that our experience can be replicated, adjusted, and reused, providing a reliable operation reference for the iGEM community and other scientific research teams, and avoiding resource waste from "one-time activities".

Throughout the entire Education work, we always adhered to the bottom line of objective presentation and proactively faced the limitations of the technology—whether it was being honest with rural parents that "exosomes are still in the experimental stage" or discussing the bottleneck of "high cost of large-scale preparation" with university teachers and students. This honesty, which "respects the public's right to know", did not weaken trust but instead won broader recognition: 92% of rural parents are willing to continue paying attention to the project progress, and 86% of university teachers and students hope to continue participating in optimization. This has accumulated the most valuable social capital for the future clinical transformation of the technology.

Based on existing achievements, we will strive to promote Education work in three more in-depth directions and build a sustainable HP ecosystem:
——Regularized in-depth rural interaction: We plan to sign a 2-year "Health Science Popularization Co-construction Agreement" with partner primary schools in Longnan, upgrading one-time activities to a regular mechanism of "quarterly themed science popularization + annual demand survey". We will also establish a "real-time demand feedback group" to make the collection of primary-level demands more timely.
——In-depth strengthened professional linkage: We will promote the establishment of a "Joint Laboratory for Primary-Level Adaptable Exosome Technology", focusing on two core pain points: "low-cost large-scale preparation" and "portable detection equipment". Based on existing sketches, we will advance the R&D and trial of mini centrifuge prototypes, enabling technical equipment to truly adapt to primary-level medical scenarios.
——Shared empowerment of the iGEM community: We will systematically organize the practical experience of this project into the Guide to Primary-Level Science Popularization and Professional Interaction, covering demand survey templates, activity design processes, feedback transformation methods, etc. It will be shared through the iGEM community platform to provide a reference practical framework for other teams.
One day in the future, when the mini centrifuge we designed can operate stably in township hospitals in Longnan, and when the children there can clearly explain to their families how exosomes repair the liver—that will be the ultimate embodiment of the value of all our efforts, and a vivid footnote to synthetic biology "moving from the laboratory to the broad world". We sincerely hope that exosome technology can truly benefit every patient in need!