[HP01] Heritage Tour with Municipal Affairs Bureau Macau

Macau, a cosmopolitan city known for its unique fusion of Chinese and Portuguese cultures, boasts a rich history that is reflected in its cultural heritage. The Historic Centre of Macau, inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List, includes over 20 sites, such as churches, temples, and squares, which narrate the story of Macau's development from a fishing village to a vibrant city.

On September 20, Our iGEM Team participated in a guided tour designed to enrich our understanding of our local historical heritage. The tour, organised by the Municipal Affairs Bureau Macau in collaboration with the MGM Macau, who also supports heritage preservation.

Led by an experienced tour guide from the Oral History Association of Macao, we visited five UNESCO World Heritage Sites: 1. Largo de Santo Agostinho 2. Dom Pedro V Theatre 3. St. Lawrence's Church 4. Mandarin's House 5. A-Ma Temple.The tour provided us with rich historical context, fascinating trivia, and insights into the significant roles these sites played in different historical moments, etc.. We were particularly surprised to learn about the historical considerations behind the choice of materials used in constructing some of these buildings. We have the opportunity to closely examine the outlook and the interior of the buildings and how well they are preserved by the government. During the visit, we discovered that many of Macau's heritage buildings are constructed from limestone and bricks, which inspired us to design functional tests on those materials!

Afterwards, we held a discussion session with the MGM Sustainability Team and the representative of the Macau Science Center and some local guests inside the Maritime Workshop No. 2 in the Pen Tong Area inside the A-Ma temple district. Firstly, we initiated the session with our project presentation. Following our presentation, the audience raised insightful questions about our project design and project sustainability, further encouraging us to reconsider the details and logic of our project from new perspectives. These inquiries also illuminated areas where we could enhance our project’s clarity and effectiveness. They also provided practical recommendations to align our project with local cultural context and community needs. These constructive suggestions allowed us to identify potential weaknesses in our initial approach and were invaluable in helping us elevate our project to the next level.

The activity facilitated direct interaction with local heritage and provided us with opportunities to relate our project to real-world cultural context, it laid a strong foundation for meaningful cross-cultural learning. Moreover, on-site insights into heritage sites served as a critical lens to identify potential gaps in the project and a source of innovative strategies for heritage preservation.

Overall, This experience not only deepened students' appreciation of Macau’s heritage, but also listened to many valuable suggestions for our projects, it makes a more clear directions for us what to do next and explores further collaborations with different stakeholders. We are looking forward to our journey on heritage preservation!

[HP02/IHP01] Modelling Improvement: Meeting with Professor Ka Veng Yuen

On May 23, we were honoured to welcome Professor Ka Veng Yuen, an expert in civil and environmental engineering, for a discussion session with our iGEM team. During the meeting, we presented the concept and latest progress of our project, followed by an in-depth exchange of ideas. Professor Yuen provided us with valuable feedback, particularly on our modelling approach.

Professor Yuen pointed out that depth measurements are often unreliable due to surface irregularities and localized corrosion effects, especially in biologically influenced environments. These challenges complicate experimental validation and reduce the defensibility of depth-based metrics.

Integrated Human Practice:

In light of this feedback, we are now transitioning towards a strength-based modelling strategy. Rather than quantifying surface degradation directly, we focus on the impact of corrosion on material strength. This approach allows us to validate our model through mechanical testing, using changes in load-bearing capacity as a proxy for corrosion severity. It offers greater reproducibility and aligns more closely with real-world engineering concerns, where structural failure is typically governed by strength thresholds rather than surface loss alone.

Professor Yuen also encouraged us to consider how our model could be made more general and theoretically consistent. Inspired by this, we explored the principles of scale modelling and dimensionless analysis. Using the Buckingham π theorem, key parameters affecting corrosion and structural performance can be expressed in dimensionless form. This helps simplify the model and makes it easier to compare results across different scales. These methods are widely used in engineering and offer new possibilities for improving our modelling framework.

On July 21, we were invited to Professor Yuen’s Structures Laboratory in the University of Macau. This time, we had brought 6 standard limestone samples to the lab, intending to apply controlled mechanical stress to create cracks and conduct further experiments for testing the functions of our engineered E. Coli. on the cracks of limestones. The experiment results have been shown on the result page.

The sessions with Professor Yuen was an inspiring and valuable experience. We look forward to building on his advice and continuing our collaboration in the future. For further details and modelling methodology, please visit our modelling page.

[HP03] Heritage Preservation - Property owner's perspective: Interview with Vice Principal Keng Man Kwok of Macau Pui Ching Middle School

Pui Ching Middle School Macau (PCMS) has a history of more than 130 years and is located in the heart of the Macau Peninsula. At the center of the campus stands the Administrative Building (Block A)—originally the Lou Lim Ioc Residence, constructed in the early 20th century. Today, Block A is not only the symbol of PCMS but also a proud piece of cultural heritage for students and alumni. The building is recognized as a Classified Immovable Property and is listed on the Intangible Cultural Heritage Register of the Instituto Cultural Macau. While it once housed kindergarten classes and general classrooms, Block A is now primarily used for administrative purposes, serving as the workplace for teachers and the school management.

On June 19, our team interviewed Vice Principal Keng Man Kwok which is responsible for Block A maintenance and renovations. Block A is one of the school’s heritage landmarks that blends Chinese and Western architectural elements and has long been central to campus life. He described the building’s structure, which includes brick foundations, reinforced concrete beams supported by iron arches, and detailed plaster carvings—craftsmanship that reflects its historic character. He also noted challenges typical of heritage buildings, such as occasional water ingress, cracked roof tiles from heavy rain and acid rain, localized termite damage, and basement soil shifts. To address these, the school carries out planned maintenance, including regular termite inspections, fire-safety upgrades like smoke detectors, waterproofing repairs, and exterior renovations every five years.

The discussion highlighted the delicate balance between preserving authenticity and adapting heritage buildings for practical use. The principle of “restoring old as old” is respected, though it is complicated by the limited availability of traditional materials (lime, glutinous rice, straw) and skilled craftsmen for repairing intricate carvings. Financial pressures—such as sourcing of some rare wood for doors—and reliance on visual inspections rather than advanced scientific tools also affect decision-making. While routine maintenance can often receive government funding, urgent repairs typically require swift school-led action, and non-urgent projects face delays and higher costs when handled through official channels.

For our iGEM project, this exchange provided valuable insights. Vice Principal Kwok emphasized the importance of innovation in non-destructive assessment tools, sustainable repair materials, and streamlined funding mechanisms to safeguard Block A for future generations.

Furthermore, Vice Principal Kwok has conducted a rooftop tour with us, guiding us to see the rooftop bricks that are being used and showing us some abandoned bricks. Our team members learned a lot and inspired our interests on further experiments. He also granted us access to use abandoned rooftop bricks for testing. These bricks, weathered by decades of exposure, offered our wet lab and modelling teams real-world materials for data analysis and functional experiments. In addition, Vice Principal Kwok expressed strong support for our iGEM team across financial, technical, and administrative areas—support that continues to play a crucial role in the success of our project this year.

Here is the a shortcut about our rooftop tour and discussion with Vice Principal Kwok.

[HP04/IHP02] Heritage Preservation - Government's perspective: Visiting the Centre of Preservation and Transmission for Cultural Heritage of the Palace Museum

Macau has a subtropical humid climate, which causes microorganisms such as fungi to proliferate, causing surface erosion and structural integrity damage, eventually leading to permanent biological degradation. As a result, many of the city’s cultural landmarks—including the Ruins of St. Paul’s—are facing urgent conservation challenges.

On 20 June 2025, our iGEM team visited the Centre of Preservation and Transmission for Cultural Heritage of the Palace Museum to gain a deep understanding of the leading technologies in cultural relic preservation. The session was guided by Professor Jianxiong Ye and Dr. James Feng - the specialist for heritage preservation from the Cultural Affairs Bureau Macau. Both play an influential role in cultural relic conservation and the development of innovative restoration materials.

We toured the Cultural Conservation Laboratory and observed state-of-the-art preservation technologies applied to Macau’s heritage. Their work is centred on three key dimensions:

1. Material Analysis – Utilising Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, complemented by X-ray fluorescence (XRF), are used to determine material composition and elemental structure of cultural relics.

2. Standardised Restoration Procedures – Systematic protocols are being established for relic conservation. For example, the restoration of an iron cannon via soaking the whole cannon into a broth of chemical solution.

3. Artificial Aging and Weathering Simulation – Extreme weather is accelerated under laboratory equipments (e.g., high temperatures, strong UV exposure). This is of great help to our project since it allows us to speed up weather resistance of bio-repair materials under controlled laboratory conditions, thereby optimising material formulations to ensure long-term compatibility with the cultural relic matrix.

After the visit, the students provided Professor Ye and her colleagues with a detailed introduction to this year's competition theme. Professor Ye also offered suggestions:

1. Sustainability of Coatings: Conventional plastic polymer coatings are not durable and sustainable, leading to gradual peeling of walls and coatings and emphasising the breathability formed by bacteria on building materials.

2. Climate Modelling: It is introduced to use various modelling methods, to stimulate extreme weather conditions on our project, as the complexity of collecting weather data, it is suggested that we have a follow-up session in the future.

3. She suggested that after repeated experiments, we should follow testing standards for temperature, humidity, and other conditions to subject building materials to accelerated aging treatment to simulate characteristics of different building materials from long ago; she also suggested using a laboratory microscope to inspect whether bacteria have formed mesh structures in materials to allow water and air to pass through. Our lab team has put this into consideration for further proposals.

Professor Ye addressed that Macau’s heritage is particularly vulnerable to salt efflorescence, a humidity-driven process that increases internal pressure and causes cracks within materials. While acid rain is not currently a major concern, efflorescence poses a severe long-term threat.

Integrated Human Practice:

4. Protective Layer Testing: Professor Ye suggested that it is necessary to simulate different extreme environments to demonstrate differences from existing schemes (such as permeable mesh structures)

5. Dr. Feng addressed the current challenges in preserving Macau’s heritage. He emphasized that landmarks such as the Ruins of St. Paul’s and other historic cathedrals are tall and structurally delicate, requiring extensive scaffolding and careful maintenance every year. His insights inspired our hardware team to design a device that can attach to building surfaces, detect tiny cracks, and apply our project’s solution to repair them efficiently.

To address this, our team is developing a biosilica-based bio-repair system designed to fill cracks and restore structural integrity. We are employing the following genetic constructs to induce biosilica formation:

[1] pET-J23119 INP-silicatein (K1890001) + INP-YFP-csgA

[2] pET-J23119 INP-silicatein (K1890001)

[8]pET-T7-RBS-silicatein (K1890001)-T7 tag

We also conducted an online follow-up session with the Cultural Affairs Bureau to discuss the hardware results of our project. The Bureau representative provided positive feedback, highlighting that our device could serve as a valuable tool for regular monitoring of heritage sites by detecting cracks and follow-up investigations. They emphasized that sites such as the Ruins of St. Paul’s and other historic cathedrals in Macau are tall and structurally fragile, requiring extensive scaffolding for routine maintenance each year. With the implementation of our device, the Bureau recognized the potential to significantly reduce maintenance costs while improving the quality and efficiency of repair work. This feedback strongly reinforced the practical relevance of our project and the potential to contribute to sustainable heritage preservation in Macau.

This synthetic biology approach aims to create a breathable, biologically integrated, and sustainable material capable of preserving Macau’s cultural heritages via repairing internal cracks and restoring the structural integrity of the heritage sites.

For further information, please consider visiting the Hardware Section on our website.

[HP05] Meeting with Professors from Chinese University of Hong Kong

We were honored to hold an online meeting with Professor Fai Hang Lo and Professor Kendrew Mak from the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) on 3rd of July. Professor LO is an experienced researcher in the biochemistry field, and Professor Mak is an expert in chemistry. Both shared exceptional knowledge and insights in molecular biology that supported our experimental design!

We began by presenting our project to the professors, followed by a mock judging session to prepare for our upcoming iGEM judging session. Professor Lo acted as a primary judge to ask questions for each solution respectively. He emphasized the importance of defining the problems our project tackling in a more detailed manner, and helping us to sort out the pros and cons of our solutions to ensure our reasonings are well-structured.

As our current carrier is E.coli, we had a discussion about the survival environment of our engineered bacteria, which struggles under long-term acidic environments. The professors raised concerns about its long-term survivability. Furthermore, the professors were concerned about the ethical implications of using E. coli in the cultural heritages. In response, we explained that E.coli is currently used as a temporary carrier for our plasmid since it is convenient in culturing. We are planning to switch to a more suitable carrier once the experiments succeed.

Another important topic was our difficulty with western blot experiments, where our students had been experiencing a high failure rate. The professors offered practical suggestions to improve our laboratory procedures and increase experimental success.

Professor Lo shared valuable advice for improving our performance during judging sessions. Both professors provided positive feedback on our project’s direction and expressed interest in our future progress. We deeply appreciate their support and look forward to future collaboration.

[HP06/IHP03] Meet with professor Lee from University of New South Wales

On July 8, we are honoured to host an online session inviting Professor Chi King Lee from The University of New South Wales Sydney. Professor Lee is an expert on numerical modelling, structural engineering and sustainable construction materials. The discussion offered meaningful insight into key challenges we have encountered in model validation and experimental design. We have made a detailed presentation about our project and we have discussed our current limitations, especially on results interpretation within a constrained timeline.

To address this, Professor Lee emphasized the significance of selecting appropriate materials in shaping the reliability and responsiveness of our experiments. Given the time-sensitive nature of our setup, he suggested using materials that are more chemically reactive, allowing us to observe acid-induced changes within a shorter observation window.

He also pointed out that, compared to the difficulty of measuring penetration depth and the destructive nature of hydraulic press-based strength testing, tracking mass loss could serve as a more practical alternative. This method avoids damaging the samples and ensures that the experimental procedures remain relatively simple and repeatable, making it especially suitable for time-constrained setups like ours. After taking his advice into account and reviewing relevant literature, we decided to revise our modelling approach: mass loss will now be used to represent material degradation. This adjustment not only streamlines the experimental process but also improves the clarity and consistency of our results.

Integrated Human Practice:

This lead to a deeper discussion about the drying methods. Due to Macau’s high humidity level, moisture contents of the samples could not be fully evaporated under natural air-drying conditions. It affects the accuracy of weight measurements, which is a key measurement on our functional testing (Please have a look on our Model Page for detailed information). Therefore, we revised the experimental protocol that dry-heat method are used for our samples before and after weighing, instead of the natural air drying method.

Additionally, he recommended a supplementary approach for further research—compressing the materials to generate cracks, which could provide new avenues for exploration beyond our current setup.

His suggestions were highly valuable in shaping our next steps and refining our approach. The ideas and recommendations we received have become a cornerstone for the progression of our project.

[HP07] Social impact - Meeting with the MGM Managements

As part of our efforts to find potential sponsors who share our values and vision, our team prepared and submitted a detailed research proposal to several organizations with strong commitments to sustainability and social responsibility. Among them, MGM China Holdings Limited stood out as an ideal partner. Their core values—particularly their emphasis on sustainability, environmental stewardship, and cultural heritage preservation—resonate deeply with the goals of our iGEM project. After reviewing our proposal, the MGM Managements initiated a meeting with us to learn more about our work and explore possible collaboration opportunities.

On August 26, our team had the pleasure of visiting the MGM COTAI to present our iGEM project and explore opportunities for collaboration with our sponsor, the MGM China Holdings Limited—an international hotel group well known for its commitment to sustainability, environmental protection, and cultural heritage preservation.

The session began with our promotional video and highlights from the outreach activities followed by a brief introduction to iGEM and our project, our research progress and the goals of reaching sustainability . The MGM management expressed admiration for our achievements and progress to date.

In the subsequent feedback and discussion sessions, the focus was on sustainable innovation, heritage preservation, and engineering approaches.

While the overall promotional video was well received, MGM suggested clarifying certain concepts with more detailed explanations. For our presentations, they recommended that we should highlight our achievements, showing how our project improves upon existing solutions both in business contributions and in preserving Macau’s unique cultural heritage. The project presentation is a platform to showcase the strong connection between our team members from different departments to elaborate the project thoroughly. They also encouraged us to present with confidence and pride in our accomplishments. The management also emphasised Macau’s unique role as a bridge connecting Eastern and Western cultures together and its recognition on the UNESCO World Heritage List. They advised us to narrate our story and project journey beginning with Macau’s heritages, then expanding to a global context.

Experts in chemistry also provided some suggestions. Acid rain normally falls in the range of pH 3 – 4, and it was recommended that we focus our testing onto this range to better reflect the real-world conditions. They also encouraged testing across various materials—including gold (Au), silver (Ag), and copper (Cu)—to compare the effectiveness between metals and other normal building materials. This is relevant since the iconic MGM Lion Statue, made of copper, silver and gold, is currently affected by acid erosion. MGM expressed strong interest in piloting our solution on a small-scale test applied to the legs of the lion to assess feasibility. To ensure long-term stability and practicality, MGM also recommended conducting more durability tests under varying environmental conditions.

For Outreach and Sustainable Collaboration, the MGM Management is willing to help us on connecting the government for organising activities and compare with the government’s current practice on heritage preservation methods. They would like to help us on promoting the iGEM into the public via organising public workshops in the Macau Science Center, to allow public participation. Additionally, they express the gratitude of the sustainability of our project in industry aspect, they would like to have a long-term effect on heritage preservation.

For outreach, MGM offered to support us in connecting with government departments to align with current heritage preservation practices, local policies and practices, as well as organizing public workshops relevant to Climate Change and Heritage Preservation at the Macau Science Center, allowing the public to engage directly with the iGEM team. MGM also expressed gratitude for the sustainability focus of our project and its potential impact in the heritage preservation industry, emphasizing their interest in long-term collaboration.

We were deeply inspired by MGM’s commitment to environmental stewardship, green practices, and innovation in sustainability, which resonate strongly with our team’s mission. We are excited about the collaboration with them.

After the meaningful afternoon, we are honoured to be informed that MGM China Holindgs Limited have become a sponsor of us, our team feel gratituded to welcome this like-minded organisation to join our journey to Paris!

After such a meaningful afternoon, we were truly honoured to learn that MGM China Holdings Limited has become one of our sponsors. Our team is deeply grateful to welcome this like-minded organization on board as we continue our journey to Paris!

“We love where we live.” – MGM Management