Our Human Practices were guided by two core questions: who can truly benefit from our project, and what their real needs are!
Driven by these principles, every activity—whether stakeholder analysis, expert consultation, or collaboration—deeply informed both our project design and hardware development. At each step, we followed a structured reflection model —who, why, what we learned, and what we adapted to our project — to translate every dialogue into meaningful evolution of our project.
Through this iterative process of reflection and response, our once imaginative idea grew into a responsible, well-validated innovation that bridges synthetic biology and human purpose.
During project brainstorming, several team members, who were passionate about space exploration, came across news of past space accidents and astronauts safety. These stories sparked a futuristic idea — help astronauts instantly repair spacesuits leaks. Although without a clear biological solution, yet this bold, imaginative, and science-fiction-like concept immediately excited the entire team.
Figure 1. Our group discussion at initial brainstorming.
Through group discussion, we identified two key questions that would guide our journey:
As we studied iGEM’s Human Practices framework and past teams’ approaches, we realized that the first question could be systematically explored through stakeholder analysis. To properly find the stakeholders, we developed “People Proximate to the Problem (PPP)” — to assess individuals or groups affected by the topic.
Building on Mendelow’s Matrix and 2024 GreatBay-SCIE’s method, we designed our own PPP Matrix, adding a third dimension — impact — to highlight how much our project could truly change their situation. The three key dimensions were:
All stakeholder can be categoried into one the following:
In this category, we involved aerospace agencies such as NASA, ESA, and China National Space Administration. These are the PPPs who have the most advanced knowledge in this area. They are the people who really send astronauts or machines into space. Therefore, the main goal for us to communicate with them is to know where there is a demand, which is helpful for our team to specify our application scenarios, ensuring that our project has practical value; in addition, we can be informed of the conditions we need to consider when developing our project, since the condition in space is significantly different from earth, and we are making a thing that ought to be able to use in space.
In this category, we included researchers from material science and biology. Although these PPPs are not directly related to space, they will also be willing to see that their research can be combined with space. They may not be able to provide enough information about space, but they can help us a lot during the process of our project’s design and experiment. Our aim for these PPPs is to seek help with the possibility of the protein we designed to satisfy the condition in space. Moreover, if we encounter some methodological difficulties in our experiment, they are also good resources that we can access.
In this category, we have the public who are interested in topics relevant to space and synthetic biology, especially young people such as students. These PPPs may not have a lot of relation to our project, though; they may be interested in our project. Our duty for these PPPs is to keep telling them about our project and ask them what they feel. By keeping them informed about our project, their interest may be enhanced. That is to say, more and more students or children will likely study space or synthetic biology in the future, which will foster the development of space and synthetic biology. Moreover, when we ask them about their thoughts, they can give us some interesting inspiration.
In this category, we included investors and corporate leaders in non-space tech. These PPPs’ main focus isn’t space, but they might still benefit from technological advancements or by-products of our project. They may be able to assist us in making this technology not only conducive to space but also to our daily lives. Our target for these PPPs is to ask them about how to expand our application fields from space-only to as many areas as possible. As such, our project can benefit as many people as we can.
Figure 2. PPP visualization in a two-dimensional model: the x- and y-axes represented power and interest, and the size of each dot indicated impact.
This mapping helped us design targeted communication strategies for each group and ensured that our work remained grounded in real human needs. It also helped us to evaluate and integrate their inputs more effectively.
To ensure every interview, survey, and collaboration yielded actionable insights, we developed our own reflection model for Human Practices:
Who we contacted, Why we engaged them, What we learned, and What we adapted to our project.
This framework helped us transform communication into reflection and reflection into concrete improvement, forming the backbone of how our Human Practices continuously shaped our project’s evolution.
Figure 3. Our HP activity’s 4-step model.
Our project evolved through repeated cycles of dialogue, reflection, and redesign.
Figure 4. Project goal evolution process and the integration of human practices activities.
Our earliest concept—patching a spacesuit with biological glue—was bold and full of imagination, but technically naïve. Through expert feedback, we began to understand real constraints and refine our design toward scientific feasibility.
Why：
What we Learned：
What we Adapted：
Figure 5: Interviewed Mr. Yao Zhikai
Interview Record PDF:
Figure 6: Interviewed Mr. Zeng
Henkel Space Adhesive Manual PDF:
Figure 7. Attending the CCiC China iGEM teams conference and meeting with university teams.
We found that our protein showed strong adhesiveness even before purification, implying that future production could occur without complex purification equipment—a key insight for in-situ resource utilization in space.
Figure 8. Project goal evolution process and the integration of human practices activities.
To answer the question—how to realize our idea biologically—we conducted an extensive review of previous iGEM projects and academic literature. We found our inspiration from UCC Ireland 2014 on hagfish intermediate filament proteins for strong thread-like materials, Greatbay_SZ 2019 on colorful spider silk proteins for spiderman, and NAU-China 2024 on self-healing deep ocean protein materials for undersea robotics. By analyzing their design philosophies, protein systems, and testing methods, we learned from their successes and limitations. These insights shaped our vision of developing a marine-inspired, flexible, and adhesive optimized for extreme environments, employing hagfish protein.
Figure 9. Meeting with Tongji University iGEM Team
Beyond improving our biological experiments, Human Practices also shaped our hardware system—the fermentation and control module supporting protein production. This iterative design process blended internal testing, expert guidance, and cross-team collaboration.
What we learned：
What we adapted to our project：
Figure 10. Feedback communications with iGEM team Tongji-China.
After completing our prototype, Tongji University provided valuable suggestions: make the structure modular, so future teams could customize or DIY their own versions easily. This feedback led us to reorganize our system into detachable modules with standard interfaces.
In follow-up discussions, LinkSpider recommended adding a thermal cover and a temperature control module to stabilize fermentation conditions. We are investigating how this feature can be added with low-cost, modular, or 3D-printable parts, so as to enhance both precision and reproducibility.
Finally, Human Practices came full circle—translating science into social engagement.
What we adapted：
Figure 11. Meeting with Jilin University iGEM Team.
Through continuous reflection, dialogue, and redesign, our Human Practices guided every step of our project’s evolution, from identifying stakeholders and analyzing needs, to redefining goals, building reliable systems, validating performance, and sharing knowledge with society. We see Human Practices not simply as a competition deliverable, but more importantly, a guide for us to explore science through Responsibility, Reflection, and Response. We will work all the way to make innovation in synthetic biology as thoughtful as technical—bridging science, engineering, and humanity.