Inclusivity ​

Overview ​

In our project, inclusivity is not just an additional activity, but a core concept that runs through the entire process of research and practice. As a team, we firmly believe that the value of science lies not only in laboratory discoveries, but also in whether it can be understood, accepted, and benefit people from diverse backgrounds. Therefore, we view "inclusivity" as a cyclical practice process: from understanding needs, designing solutions, and implementing actions, to listening to feedback and continuous improvement.

Our initial motivation comes from concern for liver disease patients. During the research process, we discovered that liver disease patients not only suffer physically, but also often face psychological challenges due to prejudice and discrimination. It is this dual challenge of physical and mental suffering that made us realize the broader social inequalities reflected by the disease. As a result, our focus expanded from liver disease patients to other vulnerable groups: economically disadvantaged individuals, people with physical or cognitive disabilities, marginalized linguistic and cultural groups, geographically isolated populations, and those on the fringes of social identity. We aim to support and understand these groups through action, and raise awareness that "science should serve everyone."

In our actions, we strive to help more groups be seen, understood, and respected through various means:

During the National Liver Health Day campus flash activity, we used interactive Q&A and games to break misunderstandings and call on the public to reject prejudice against hepatitis B patients.

During the National Liver Health Day campus flash activity, we used interactive Q&A and games to break misunderstandings and call on the public to reject prejudice against hepatitis B patients.

In the "n Ways to Touch the Light" event, we invited healthy individuals to experience the daily challenges of visually impaired people, allowing more people to understand their situation.

We wrote the "Inclusivity Guide" to provide practical frameworks for science communicators, educators, and future iGEM teams, helping them better promote inclusivity in different environments.

We collaborated with the Jin Blind Cane Public Welfare Organization to discuss and improve the NFC-based assistive tool solution, NaviWave, and gathered genuine feedback from visually impaired students.

We created specially designed science popularization animations for hearing-impaired children and held sharing activities at the Helen Deaf Children’s Welfare Institute, planting the seeds of scientific enlightenment through the children's laughter.

After each attempt, we actively listen to feedback from participants and partner organizations, integrating it into the next stage of improvement, thus forming a continuously iterating, growing inclusivity cycle.

This series of practices fully embodies the inclusivity spirit advocated by iGEM: making science not only belong to scientists, but to everyone. As a team, we hope that our efforts will not only improve the situation of vulnerable groups but also provide valuable references for future iGEM teams, educators, and all sectors of society.

To the 2025 iGEM team at Peking University Health Science Center, inclusivity is not just a responsibility, but a belief. We believe that the power of science lies in moving forward together, allowing people from different backgrounds to find their place in a shared future.

What have we contributed to inclusive work at the theoretical level? ​

Our initial idea ​

The audience for inclusive activities is remarkably broad, often characterized by diversity, marginalization, and neglect. This includes people with disabilities (such as hearing, visual, or intellectual impairments), older adults (particularly those from diverse cultural backgrounds or in remote areas), and low-income or marginalized groups (such as urban low-income earners or rural populations with limited education). When organizing activities for these minority groups, it is essential to emphasize collaborative diversity, cultural respect, environmental adaptability, and continuous feedback. The essence of inclusive activities is not about "doing something for certain people" but rather "enabling everyone to participate together." The ultimate goal is to break down barriers, foster understanding, and enhance overall social well-being.

This year, utilizing riboswitch technology, we achieved highly efficient treatment of liver diseases by targeting disease-related proteins. While conducting experiments, we also engaged in simple conversations with hepatitis B patients around us. Through these interactions, we realized that these patients not only suffer from physical illness but also face widespread misunderstandings. Many people are unaware of how hepatitis B is transmitted and often mistakenly believe that the hepatitis B virus spreads through respiratory droplets, similar to the influenza virus. In daily life, people tend to keep a respectful distance from hepatitis B patients due to these misconceptions.

We came to understand that for special groups like hepatitis B patients, physical treatment is only one part of recovery—addressing the psychological challenges stemming from the disease is equally important. Hepatitis B is not merely a medical infectious disease but also a social issue. Medical knowledge can inform us about its transmission routes and prevention measures, yet prejudice and discrimination often arise from cognitive blind spots. Therefore, we decided to begin with a cognitive survey to gain deeper insights into the psychological challenges hepatitis B patients may encounter in social interactions.

Step1: Feel the resistance in the lives of special groups through real conversations ​

We decided to conduct field research to understand the public's awareness of hepatitis B in real-life contexts. After comparing multiple demographic groups, we ultimately chose to focus our survey on medical students. The reason behind this decision is that medical students have received basic medical education and should theoretically possess a higher level of scientific knowledge. By investigating their attitudes and understanding of the disease, we aimed to explore the intersection between medical education and public science outreach. If even medical students still hold misconceptions about hepatitis B, it highlights an even greater need for targeted scientific education among the general public.

However, the survey results revealed that even among medical students:

1. Approximately 15% still mistakenly believed that "dining together can spread hepatitis B";
2. Only 38% were comfortable sharing laboratory equipment with hepatitis B patients;
3. Many students also supported designating "separate tableware" for hepatitis B patients.

These findings indicate that medical education alone cannot automatically eliminate prejudice—there is a gap between knowledge and social attitudes. Therefore, on World Liver Day, we designed a special activity aimed at integrating scientific knowledge with inclusive attitudes, putting the principles of inclusivity into practice in real public spaces.

Step2: The first heartwarming act carried out on Global Liver Day ​

Our activities are targeted at both the general public and medical students, ensuring that popular science does not remain confined to the "professional community". During the process, actively invite passing classmates, friends, and even people who have no knowledge of hepatitis B at all to participate, so as to bring science popularization into broader social scenarios. We not only explained the medical facts about "how hepatitis B spreads and how to prevent it", but also raised a deeper question:

“If your classmate is a hepatitis B patient, how would you treat him? ”

We hope to establish a connection between knowledge and attitude, avoiding merely remaining at the level of popular science rather than in-depth practice.

Our classmates distributed traditional Chinese medicine liver-protecting tea on the main road of the school, hoping to consider from the other person's perspective, "Be kind to your own liver and also be kind to others' hearts." In addition, we conducted on-site interviews at the booth and invited students to answer specific scenario questions, such as "What would you do if you were assigned to the same dormitory as a hepatitis B patient?" Would you be willing to have sexual relations with a hepatitis B patient? . These answers help us confront the real differences attitudes.

The most special part of the event was the "Embrace Experiment". One of our team members, dressed in a cartoon costume, posed as a hepatitis B patient and stood on one side of the booth. At first, many students were hesitant and indecisive, their eyes dodging and their steps pausing. After one-on-one patient science popularization, we invited them to make a choice: "Would you like to embrace this doll symbolizing a hepatitis B patient?"

This seemingly simple action is actually a test of one's attitude“it requires participants to transform the knowledge that "hepatitis B is not transmitted through daily contact" into acceptance in specific behaviors. It translates "cognitive security" into "psychological trust and respect".

The experimental results are positive:

After a brief moment of thought, the vast majority of the students smiled and went forward to embrace the doll. The atmosphere on the spot also changed accordingly. The initial shyness was gradually replaced by relaxation and warmth. Even the passing students voluntarily asked for a group photo as a memento. The moment of embracing is not merely a symbolic gesture; it is also an understanding and response to the psychological predicament of hepatitis B patients. This process from hesitation to embrace precisely reflects the changing path of society's attitude towards hepatitis B patients:

Fear → Understanding → Acceptance → Action.

Finally, we edited the event and interview footage into videos and posted them on Bilibili and Instagram, hoping to spread the inclusive voice through a wider reach.

Through this survey, we believe that:

It is highly necessary to establish targeted popular science guidelines, especially to incorporate an "inclusive" perspective, emphasizing scientific cognition while reducing social discrimination. Popular science activities and medical education should complement each other: not only should medical facts be imparted, but also the public should be guided to form correct social attitudes. Paying attention to mental health is as important as paying attention to physical health. Hepatitis B patients should not merely be "medical patients", but also a group that needs social understanding and support.

Step3: Draft inclusivity guide based on activity experience and project experience ​

After the Global Liver Day activities, we found that many other considerations are needed when organizing inclusive events. For instance, when holding events for special groups, we need to take into account that traditional communication methods such as dialogue and eye contact cannot be used, and instead, we need to build a communication model framework based on barrier-free communication to carry out popular science activities.

We have consulted many official volunteer websites and the igem team wiki and found that there are still no detailed guidelines for inclusive activities at present. When carrying out inclusive projects, we still need to start from scratch and feel our way forward. In response to this issue, drawing on our experience during this year's inclusive activities, we have written an inclusive guide that covers various aspects to be considered in inclusive activities. We hope it can provide some inspiration for iGEM teams and social welfare groups that will carry out inclusive activities in the future.

We had many brainstorming sessions！

Before writing this guide, we first studied the ways in which the inclusive activities of previous teams in iGEM were carried out, and then designed a series of inclusive activities in an object-oriented manner based on the inclusive activities in our team's iGEM activities this year. After the event, team meetings and exchanges with other teams were held. Some problems existing in the inclusive implementation of iGEM were summarized, and based on this, the outline of the inclusivity guide was drafted through team brainstorming.

It includes content design and language expression, information accessibility and barrier-free communication, cultural and language inclusiveness, event organization and participation mechanisms, communication channel construction, and economic costs. It covers the entire process of inclusive activities and provides precautions during these processes as well as solutions to some possible problems.

After determining the outline of the inclusivity guide, we wrote this inclusivity guide based on our own experience and the previous projects of the iGEM team. After the first version of the inclusive guideline was completed, We once again held an internal brainstorming session to optimize this inclusivity guide.

Who we contact?

Disadvantaged groups and teams with experience in inclusive activities.

What we learned?

Through communication, we have gained some new ideas that can be used to supplement the guide. In addition, we have found that the language and text of the first edition of the inclusivity guide are not very readable, the target audience is limited, and the content is not vivid enough.

What we adapted to our project?

Based on the above issues, we first revised the writing style of the inclusive guidelines and added illustrations to make the content more vivid and visual. In addition to the inclusive activities of the iGEM team, we also investigated the process of social welfare activities carried out by social welfare organizations such as the Red Cross Society of China, expanding the application scenarios of this inclusivity guide.

In addition, we have designed the two covers of inclusivity guide on which multiple avatars/various patterns represent different groups of people, embodying inclusiveness. Both of these covers have been selected as the covers of our inclusivity Guide, which can enhance the appeal of this inclusivity guide.

Figure4. the two covers of our inclusivity Guide

We have also made a simple explanatory video for this guide to help future igem teams get started more quickly and easily.

Step4: We did some advantages to ensure that the guide was excellent ​

To verify and optimize the guidelines, we have decided to personally carry out inclusive activities for vulnerable groups. We first targeted hearing-impaired children. Due to the decline in hearing and the relatively young age, the difficulty of this activity is obvious, but this is exactly what we need.

After in-depth communication and discussion with the teachers of Helen Deaf Children Rehabilitation Center and in combination with the content of the "Inclusive Guidelines", we have planned this deaf children's visit public welfare activity. The aim is to popularize cell biology and genetics knowledge among hearing-impaired children in a vivid and interesting way, eliminate obstacles in science communication, and promote the inclusive development of science education.

Activity content and inclusive design:

First, we carefully produced the animation "Cell Adventure" for the hearing-impaired children and had many communications with the hearing-impaired rehabilitation teachers. We gave a preview and then iterated the animation to reduce the obstacles in information transmission. The final animation adopts a visual narrative throughout, fully considering the visualization of information and the design of multiple perception channels, avoiding any auditory reliance. Through anthropomorphic cell images, dynamic illustrations, and clear subtitles, it ensures the accuracy and interest of information transmission.

After the animation screening, we designed a parent-child genetic game session. Through connection and drawing tasks, we collected feedback data from the children, quantified their understanding levels, and formed a closed-loop process of "design - implementation - evaluation - optimization", embodying the concept of "dynamic iteration" in the guide. Through statistics, it was found that all the hearing-impaired children who participated in the activity could correctly understand and apply the genetic knowledge reflected in the animation during the game. This fully demonstrates the effectiveness of visual narrative and gamified learning methods, and the effect of internalizing knowledge is remarkable.

Based on this practice, we have also further optimized the "inclusivity guide", supplementing them with inspirations and guidance for inclusion work targeting children and teenagers as well as special groups such as visually impaired and hearing-impaired people.

The "Cell Adventure" project is not only a successful practice of the iGEM team in terms of popular science inclusiveness, but also a powerful proof of the scientific and practical nature of the "inclusivity guide". Through our concrete actions, we have demonstrated that inclusive design is not just theoretical talk, but a systematic project that is operable, verifiable and optimizable.

In the future, we will continue to rely on the guidelines to guide more inclusive projects and promote the diverse integration of synthetic biology education and communication.

What have we contributed to inclusive work at the practical level? ​

Our initial idea ​

Looking back at the previous story where we hoped to verify the guidelines through contact with vulnerable groups, we not only chose the hearing-impaired group but also the visually impaired group. However, due to the loss of vision, the visually impaired group has a weaker ability to perceive the world, making it more difficult for us to carry out activities.

However, for moral and ethical reasons - mainly out of concern that it might bring them a poor psychological experience - we did not choose to directly target the visually impaired group. Instead, we let healthy people inspire us and the general public by simulating the perspective of the visually impaired.

Step1: n Ways to Touch the Light ​

Based on the above considerations, we held the theme activity "N Ways to Touch Light", aiming to enable healthy people to deeply understand the daily life and psychological world of the visually impaired through immersive experiences, and to think about how technology, education and social services can better support disadvantaged groups.

The event attracted a large number of participants and covered a variety of interactive sessions.

First, the host conducted the most basic Braille learning for everyone, such as learning the numbers 0-10 and basic greetings, and asked the participants to try this special way of obtaining information by touching the concave and convex points.

After that, we held a Braille recognition competition, asking the participants to wear eye masks, touch the Braille and say the corresponding Braille.

We also designed a special part where two people worked together. One student put on an eye mask and touched the object to guess what it was, and then used plasticine to restore the shape of the object (this part could be done with eyes open because normal blind people could convey information through Braille, but our student did not reach an excellent level of Braille, so they conveyed information in this way). You can use body language to ask another student to guess the name of this item.

Through all these interactive sessions, we guide everyone to start from their senses and stimulate understanding and empathy. During the experience, participants not only felt the daily challenge of losing their sight, but also recorded their true feelings and thoughts about the life of the blind.

After the event, they spontaneously wrote these insights on postcards and conveyed them to blind teenagers with warm words, such as "With a candle in your heart, fear not the darkness", "Please don't give up the connection with the world and show your shining self to the fullest", and even some people wrote "I Love You" in the Braille they had just learned, engraving blessings in everyone's heart. These kind actions have enabled the concept of inclusiveness to spread through practical experiences and exchanges, generating extensive and profound social impacts.

This practice fully embodies the inclusive cycle: experience → understanding → reflection → action → re-dissemination. Participants gain empathy through real experiences, which in turn leads to profound reflection and positive actions. These actions, in turn, reach a wider range of social groups, allowing more people to be seen, understood and respected. The activity also made the team realize that only by responding to real social predicaments and integrating humanistic care can scientific research truly have warmth and significance.

Step2:We want to do something "visible" ​

After the previous activities, we have delved deeper into our thinking about the visually impaired population. First, we have found that Braille has become relatively mature and can effectively promote the dissemination of knowledge. Secondly, we have found that touch is a very good sensory experience that can help blind people distinguish objects. However, the real difficulty lies in the fact that when faced with different items of similar shapes, due to visual loss, the possibility of blind people accepting incorrect information is greatly increased. Based on this, we got in touch with the teacher of the Golden Cane （it is a public welfare project dedicated to cultivating the independent travel ability of visually impaired people. Through systematic training, it helps visually impaired people master the skills of using the cane, urban navigation skills, and social integration abilities）for a more in-depth discussion to see what we could do to solve this problem

Then, we made it.

Step 3 NaviWave: An NFC-Powered Solution for Barrier-Free Daily Living ​

After interviewing the teacher from Golden Cane, we gained a clear picture of the daily challenges faced by people with visual impairments. We distilled their recurring obstacles into three core problems:

Static information is abundant but hard to access quickly

Touch-screen devices provide no tactile feedback

Unfamiliar spaces lack reliable points of reference

To tackle these issues, we compared two low-cost tagging technologies—QR codes and NFC. QR codes are inexpensive, but they require aiming a camera, and their success rate drops sharply in poor light or when both hands are occupied. NFC, by contrast, needs no aiming; a light tap reads the tag in milliseconds, perfectly matching the “touch-first, confirm-next” habit of blind users. We chose NFC.

Figure13. compare QR codes and NFC

We therefore turned our inclusive vision into a working product: NaviWave. A universal NFC chip sits at the center, encased in a petal-soft, tactile shell.

Figure14. 3D schematic diagram of NaviWave

NaviWave is more than a technical bridge tailor-made for blind users; it embodies the core principle of universal design——equal, effortless access to environmental information for everyone. A simple, natural touch is all that is needed to hear precise details about the surroundings, closing the information gap and restoring confidence and independence.

To deploy the technology where it is needed most, we arranged the application scenarios along a continuum of urgency, guided by our discussions.

1. Life-Safety Tier (highest priority) ​

Fundamental rights to health and survival come first. Drug safety is critical: NFC tags on medicine packages speak the name, dosage, expiry date and administration instructions, eliminating the life-threatening risk of mis-medication.

2. Daily-Living Support Tier ​

We target high-frequency tasks—sorting office supplies (documents, stationery) and identifying kitchen items (spice jars, utensils). An NFC tag on a seasoning jar, for example, lets a user cook unassisted, preserving dignity and efficiency while rebuilding basic household autonomy.

Figure15. NaviWave applocation(Life support level)

Social-Inclusion Expansion Tier ​

Bus-stop navigation (station info, real-time arrival) and barrier-free museum guides (audio descriptions of exhibits, spatial directions) fall here. Embedding an NFC label beside a painting lets any phone speak an in-depth commentary, dismantling cultural barriers and shifting users from “survival” to “participation.”

The three tiers map onto the bottom, middle and top of Maslow’s hierarchy: the right to life, the right to independent living, and the right to social and cultural development. Together they frame an inclusive, NFC-based accessibility infrastructure.

Ethical simplicity guided every technical choice. All data stay on the user’s device; nothing is uploaded, so content cannot be tampered with remotely. Reading/writing works through a generic Android app or WeChat mini-program compatible with most phones. Tags are re-writable and cost only a few cents, allowing pharmacies, households and public venues to roll them out at scale.

Anchored in this hands-on journey, we have refined the Accessibility Design Framework into a living toolkit—now seeded with field-tested insights and step-by-step guidance for crafting inclusive solutions that serve older adults, low-vision users, and every too-often-overlooked community.

NaviWave stands as more than a showcase of our resolve to erase barriers; it is proof that the Framework is both scientifically sound and streets-smart effective. By moving from sketch to sidewalk, we have demonstrated that inclusive design is neither slogan nor side-project—it is a systematic, measurable, and ever-improvable discipline.

Going forward, we will continue to let the Framework steer every new accessibility venture, steadily weaving NFC-based assistive technologies into the fabric of everyday life—equitably, seamlessly, and for everyone.