[EDU01] 2025 Macau International Environment Co-operation Forum (MIECF)

From March 26 to 29, our iGEM team hosted a stall at the 2025 Macau International Environment Co-operation Forum (MIECF), a global platform dedicated to building international collaboration and exchange in environmental protection.

The event gave us the chance to connect with a wide range of stakeholders, including NGOs, international enterprises, and business startups, all united by the same common goal of protecting our environment. We showcased the success of our previous project on orange peel essential oil, which has already been produced on a small scale and launched into the market, is testing to be used in one of the hotels in Macau. It is a good example that allowed us to demonstrate to the public that our iGEM team has already been able to launch a tangible, market-ready product.

To further engage with the community, we organized interactive workshops where participants created fragrances using our kits. These hands-on sessions helped participants gain a deeper understanding of our concept: transforming waste into valuable, sustainable materials.

During the event, we have made some collaborations with local factories and brands that enabled us to explore the potential for large-scale production. By presenting our works to experts, we received encouraging feedback that our project could positively contribute to the supply chains in Macau. By applying locally manufactured products, our approach aims to support sustainability, reduce carbon footprints, and halving food waste through recycling.

In conclusion, the MIECF was a precious opportunity for us to present our products alongside our sponsors and collaborators. We understand the importance of cross-sector partnerships in establishing our ideas from concept to reality, and we successfully shared our project with professional experts and the public from around the world.

[EDU02] Broadcasting - Recording our progress: Two local Television Programmes

This year, our iGEM team was invited to collaborate with TDM–Teledifusão de Macau, the largest television broadcasting channel in Macau, to introduce iGEM, raise public awareness about synthetic biology, and showcase the results of last year’s project. Our product line—including body lotion, hand gel, and shower gel—was featured as part of our philosophy of “turning waste into treasure.”

On April 9, our team’s primary investigator and instructors appeared on the morning programme Good Morning Macau. As the only high school iGEM team in Macau, we shared our story of success in the iGEM. During the interview, our instructor Gina Liu explained the origins of our idea: starting from discarded hotel flowers and fruit peels such as orange rinds, materials typically considered “waste.” These undergo distillation to extract essential oils, and with our innovation—integrating synthetic biology through custom-designed enzymes—we enhance yield and efficiency by esterifying the extract. The resulting oils are then formulated into personal care and cleaning products, demonstrating how creativity and biotechnology can transform waste into value.

On May 21, we were featured again in the mini-documentary Stories of the Macanese. This program highlighted our students’ laboratory routines, critical thinking, and teamwork in solving problems. Our instructors and primary investigators also shared their experiences guiding a high school iGEM team and bringing a project from concept to success.

Through these media opportunities, we wanted to show that innovation thrives when environmental awareness meets creativity. The impact of these appearances extended even further. Following the broadcasts, we received positive feedback—ranging from encouragement from the public to inquiries from professionals and institutions who reached out to collaborate. These connections have greatly facilitated the exploration of our project this year. Additionally, the ferry companies in Macau broadcasted our programs during journeys between Hong Kong and Macau, allowing passengers to learn about our iGEM story. Many even sent us selfies of themselves watching our programme onboard!

These experiences not only amplified our outreach but also strengthened our belief that public engagement and media collaboration are powerful tools in advancing awareness of synthetic biology and sustainability.

Here are the links to the two television programmes filmed in Macau that featured our iGEM team and the iGEM. We invite you to take a look!

澳門人澳門事 Stories of the Macanese 21/05/2025

澳門早晨 Good Morning Macau 09/04/2025

[EDU03] High School Training Programme

The high school training programme targets grade 8 to 10 students. By providing hands-on lab sessions and scientific workshops, we aim to inspire and discover potential students who may join our iGEM team in the future. This year, in addition to our traditional training sessions on gel electrophoresis and PCR—core techniques that every iGEMer routinely performs—we have expanded our outreach by participating in a summer course, “Introduction to Advanced Experimental Techniques in Chemistry and Biotechnology.”, which provides opportunities to handling professional lab device and practicing lab techniques.

I. Gel Electrophoresis and PCR Training Workshop

On 26th of April, our iGEM team completed a useful lab training that provided hands-on experience with two fundamental techniques: polymerase chain reaction(PCR) using the MiniOne system and gel electrophoresis. This training was amazing since it helped us turn what we’d read in books into real hands-on ability.

Firstly, we learned the basics of how PCR machines operate, followed by practising setting up the MiniOne carriages. We programmed the thermal cycler with specific temperatures with the guidance of our teacher afterward, which is critical for denaturation, annealing and extension steps. We also trained extensively with varying sizes of pipettes, from measuring larger volumes to precise single-drop transfers, to prepare PCR reaction mixtures. We also learned to prepare agarose gels, including measuring and mixing agarose with a buffer, and pouring gels with combs to create wells. After setting up the electrophoresis apparatus, we practiced loading samples into wells and running the gel with the correct voltage, then observed how DNA fragments separate based on size.

All activities were conducted in small groups with actual samples, ensuring hands-on practice throughout. Our iGEM team students picked up lots of useful skills: how to pipette accurately, program thermal cyclers, make gels, and set up electrophoresis. We finally understood why each step matters, for example, realizing the reason why PCR needs specific temperatures, and how gel thickness affects DNA movement. We even learned to tackle tiny problems, like messy pipetting or lumpy gels. Teamwork also played a crucial role as we split jobs, checked each other’s work, and made sure things went right.

The training was incredibly rewarding. It transformed abstract concepts into tangible abilities, we all came away with essential lab skills. We really benefited from it!

II. Summer Camp in Hong Kong

From June 23 to 27, high school potential students and our fresh iGEMers participated in the “Introduction to Advanced Experimental Techniques in Chemistry and Biotechnology”, an intensive summer course organized by the Science Academy for Young Talent. Held at The Chinese University of Hong Kong's Faculty of Science, this programme provided students with an invaluable opportunity to deepen our practical skills and theoretical understanding, training potential iGEMers and iGEM freshers to get ready into the lab.

The course curriculum offered a comprehensive immersion into essential analytical techniques, including hands-on experiments and guidance about using UV-Visible Spectroscopy, IR Spectroscopy, Thin-Layer Chromatography, and Column Chromatography. This practical training boosted our ability to identify and characterize chemical substances. Furthermore, the programme expanded our knowledge in biotechnology by introducing core experiments such as q-PCR, which added to our professional skills in biological analysis.

Beyond the laboratory techniques, the course included a critical module on statistics, especially on research data analysis. We were introduced into various statistical methods like the T-test and ANOVA, which are essential for validating experimental results in our iGEM research. Learning how to apply these analytical methods has directly helped us to present our lab data more clearly and interpret our findings with increased statistical evidence.

This educational experience was more than just learning new techniques, it was a strategic investment in preparing for our project. The knowledge and techniques we mastered are now being applied to our experimental processes, ensuring that our data collection and analysis meet high scientific standards. By advancing our own expertise, we have strengthened our team's ability to develop strong solutions and share meaningful results.

In conclusion, our programme has been a success, receiving positive feedback from students who expressed that it truly helped them engage with microbiology experiments. Many participants, including teachers and students even recalled our team in previous assemblies, workshops, and events. We have been continuously organising promotion events to different grades of students since 2019. At the same time, valuable suggestions for improvement were raised. Students commented that a single session was not enough to consolidate techniques, and they would prefer a series of training events to allow for more practice. We are eager to persuade students to participate in the summer course in Hong Kong, as limitations in equipment such as pipettes and thermocyclers, along with safety concerns in the school laboratory, the university laboratory provides more lab resources. Therefore, we are planning to expand the collaboration with the CUHK next year, allowing more students to participate and finding other like-minded partners to collaborate with us in providing additional equipment in our school laboratory.

[EDU04] Primary Promotion Programme

Our primary promotion programme aims to promote the concept of synthetic biology, through designated STEM learning events to promote the idea of using science as a tool to solve current problems. In the programme, we have designed three activities to motivate students and bringing ideas of what iGEM is.

I. Morning sharing

The first event of the series is a morning sharing session with Grade 4 students to share our project. To begin, we introduced the current risks facing Macao's historic buildings and cultural heritage. Using animations, we illustrated how acid rain and other hazardous substances threaten these sites, making the dangers more tangible and easier to understand. This helped highlight the importance of preserving cultural heritage, which lies at the heart of our project.

We also gave a brief overview of our proposed solutions to reduce architectural corrosion. The students were engaged throughout the session, listening attentively to our presentation and showing great enthusiasm during the Q&A. Their curiosity and responses reinforced the value of our initiative and motivated us to continue pursuing this challenge.

We have received comments from teachers that the time is too limited. Extending the session would allow students to gain a deeper understanding and become even more involved. Next year, we also plan to expand the session to include Grade 3 and Grade 5 students.

Here is the slides that we used on the morning session:

II. Cement material making

Historical heritages carry thousands of history around the world, it’s crucial for us to find a more sustainable way to preserve the treasure of humanity.

On 3rd May, our iGEM team made cement material including cubes, flower pots and decorations for our further education with the public. Firstly, our students introduce the properties of cement and the composition of cement, which is the combination of different proportions of calcium oxide, silicon dioxide, aluminium oxide, and ferric oxide.

Following this, we started to make the cement material. Here is the protocol:

1. Add 300g of quartz into the blender.

2. Blend until everything is finely powdered.

3. Add 300g of white cement powder into the powdered quartz and mix it thoroughly.

4. Add 120g of water into the powder and mix until no powder.

5. Quickly pour it into the mold(s).

6. Wait for 3 hours to let it cure.

Our students introduced some problems happening in cement materials, including bleeding and cracking which are caused by the wrong proportion of water in cement. We later figured out that the cracks are caused by the bubbles remaining in the cement solution and the limited water in the solution. This interesting activity lets us think about not only the outside of the historical buildings, but also the inside of the material. This inspires our thoughts on our project. Then, we have examined whether biosilica can also fix the internal part of the historical heritages, and we are designing experiments to investigate it. However, we are not able to use these cubes as our experimental subject as we need standardized cubes that are prepared on certain conditions.

After all, both students and us have an enjoyable Saturday afternoon by designing and making cement flower pots. Learning with creativity and sparked new perspectives

This activity not only strengthened our knowledge but also deepened our motivation to pursue sustainable solutions. It reminded us that preserving cultural heritage requires attention to both the visible structures and the hidden material foundations. Moving forward, we aim to build on this experience by testing whether biosilica can reinforce cement from within, and exploring its potential applications in protecting historic buildings. Through such efforts, we hope to contribute to safeguarding humanity’s shared treasures for future generations.

Here is the resource pack, including the slides and the workshop protocol that we used during the session.

III. Pipette Painting Workshop

On the 30th of June, our team hosted a fun workshop for Grade 6 students—our future scientists—teaching them how researchers use pipettes to measure tiny amounts of liquid while introducing key STEM learning goals. During the session, students used these pipettes to create beautiful dot paintings while tracking volumes on worksheets. Though handling pipettes with precision wasn’t easy, the students learned to be patient and steady, and their perseverance paid off with stunning artworks created by themselves.

For most of these students, this was their first encounter with microliters (μL)—a crucial unit in scientific work. Their faces lit up with curiosity as they were fascinated to see science come alive through art. Through this innovative activity, we simultaneously taught them proper pipetting techniques, a fundamental laboratory skill used across countless scientific disciplines.

The assignment challenged students to create colorful artwork by precisely dispensing different volumes of dye (3–20μL) to form varied dot sizes. As they worked, they discovered firsthand how volume affects their creations—particularly when mixing colors. Many were surprised by the difficulty of achieving perfect purple from red and blue dyes, learning through experimentation how precise measurements impact results.

This hands-on experience allowed the students to see scientific concepts come to life in creative ways, helping them discover how fun science can be while giving these young learners a wonderful opportunity to apply their scientific knowledge.After completing their artworks, students calculated total volumes used, comparing both the diversity of colors and accuracy of their measurements. This approach not only built practical pipetting skills but also demonstrated why measurement precision matters in science.

We were particularly inspired by the students’ enthusiasm as they engaged with scientific tools creatively. Their excitement while troubleshooting color mixtures and celebrating successful measurements perfectly illustrated how STEAM activities can spark scientific interest. This experience has motivated us to develop more projects that combine hands-on learning with creative expression, hoping to nurture future iGEM team members through joyful scientific discovery.

Here is the resource pack, including the slides and the workshop protocol that we used during the session.

To summarise, our primary promotion programme successfully introduced synthetic biology and what iGEM is currently doing into the school. Through diverse activities, we aimed to inspire student’s creativity in using science to solve current global issues. Furthermore, we would like to enhance their awareness about heritage.

[EDU05] High school assembly sharing: A journey to become an iGEMer

On September 9, our team delivered a 40-minute assembly session to more than 200 students of Year 9 and Year 10 and the school management at Pui Ching Middle School, introducing our iGEM journey and this year’s project. Each department of our team had the opportunity to present and explain their work. During the session, we provided a comprehensive overview of the project, covering our core values, project initiation, modeling methods, hardware design, human practices approach, and sustainability efforts. We have raised the issues of the current challenges of heritage preservation and how climate change accelerates the deterioration of historical sites. We shared how our project began, the issues we observed, the design and testing of our experiments, and the way we built our iGEM network to the public.

The school management also attended the session, showing strong support for our work and the competition. As a long-term supporter of our team, we expressed our gratitude to them during the assembly. To engage students effectively, we avoided heavy scientific jargon and explained concepts in a fun and accessible way, tailoring our presentation to the science background of Year 9 and Year 10 students, who already have some fundamental knowledge in chemistry. The session concluded with a lively Q&A, where students tested their understanding and asked questions about how they could join the iGEM team.

Since Team:PuiChing_Macau is registered as one of the school’s extracurricular activities, we receive great support in team recruitment. This assembly allowed us to promote the team directly to our target year groups, resulting in certain applications that are interested in joining next year’s iGEM team—a clear positive impact of this event. As this marks the seventh year of hosting the assembly, we can see the long-lasting influence of this tradition. It demonstrates the importance of continuity in inspiring students their interests in STEM science, while showing that we are more than just a lab-based team—we are also active in the community, open to feedback, and passionate about sharing our ideas.

Here is the resource pack, including the slides that we used during the session.