For University Freshmen

As part of our commitment to age inclusivity, we hosted an introductory lecture in September for first-year students at East China University of Science and Technology. Designed for newcomers with no prior background, the session lowered barriers to entry by presenting past ECUST iGEM projects through vivid stories and interactive Q&A, showing that undergraduates can contribute to cutting-edge synthetic biology. We highlighted multiple participation paths—wet lab, modeling, Human Practices, and design—so every student could find a role that matched their interests. Feedback from attendees was collected and used to refine follow-up training, ensuring that all who were interested could smoothly join the team. This event not only introduced synthetic biology to a new cohort but also brought fresh perspectives and energy to our project, demonstrating that science is open to every young learner.

For Rural Teens

In August 2025, our iGEM team set out to “bring frontier science into rural classrooms.” We traveled from Shanghai to Tangchi Middle School in Yuexi County, Anhui Province, where students rarely encounter cutting-edge science, let alone synthetic biology. Yuexi lies deep in the Dabie Mountains, with rugged roads, a single-industry economy, and long-term underfunding of education. At the school, biology lessons remain textbook-based, and students have almost no access to university research teams or innovation programs.

Our visit therefore became more than a science talk—it was a practice of educational inclusiveness, breaking both geographic and economic barriers. For the first time, concepts such as probiotic engineering, gene switches, and AlphaFold appeared in their classrooms. We connected science to daily life by discussing hyperuricemia, a condition familiar in local diets high in meat and soy, and showed how an oral probiotic therapy could one day help without expensive equipment.

The impact was immediate. Before the lecture, most students imagined only careers like teacher, doctor, or civil servant, seeing “scientist” as unreachable. Afterward, one said, “I want to study biology and do research in the future!” We encouraged them to start small—observing plants or forming a biology club—proving that science is a path built on curiosity and persistence, not privilege.

We also shared our failures—unsuccessful strains, AlphaFold missteps, even an incubator accident that wiped out cultures—to show that research is not magic but perseverance. Students responded with new ambitions: to study local tea plants at an agricultural university, or to return to Yuexi to teach science themselves.

This visit demonstrated that inclusive education is more than sharing advanced knowledge: it strengthens confidence, nurtures hometown pride, and plants seeds of scientific aspiration that will continue to grow among the green mountains for generations.

For Children

In June 2025, our ECUST iGEM team brought frontier science into the community by visiting the Kangqiao Peninsula Community Center and Bajin Kindergarten in Shanghai's Pudong District for an engaging science session—“Gut Guardian: The Intestinal 'Probiotic Team' Health Class.”

To make synthetic biology accessible to young children, we transformed complex scientific concepts into lively, age-appropriate stories and visuals. We used our creative magnetic whiteboard intestine model to vividly demonstrate how probiotics work in the gut. Children could move cartoon probiotic magnets to “capture” purine precursors, which turned abstract processes into a playful, hands-on experience.

During the class, we explained the structure and function of the digestive tract and introduced key knowledge about hyperuricemia (gout), helping children understand the importance of healthy eating and gut probiotics. In the interactive “Draw Your Gut Guardian” segment, the children unleashed their creativity: some drew rainbow protectors, others sketched “super white blood cells,” and several even imagined our engineered probiotics as “Gut Superheroes.”

By bringing university-level synthetic biology into local communities and kindergartens, we ensured that science education transcends age and resource barriers, truly making cutting-edge biology accessible to every child.

For the Visually Impaired

To remove vision as a barrier to science education, we produced Braille versions of our core brochures detailing the GoutBuster project's principles, probiotic design, and health significance. These tactile materials allow fully blind or severely visually impaired participants to read and explore the content themselves, rather than relying solely on verbal explanations.

Chinese Braille Brochure

English Braille Brochure

For Readers with Visual Challenges

Recognizing that some people do not use Braille, we also created an audio edition of the picturebook. Professionally recorded and compatible with standard screen-reader devices, the audio version enables those with low vision, reading disabilities, or attention difficulties to listen anywhere, anytime, making our information accessible in the most comfortable format.

For the Hearing Impaired

For participants who are deaf or hard of hearing, our modeling team designed an intelligent language-interactive assistant. This device offers multilingual voice output along with an embedded screen for real-time text display, ensuring that every demonstration of synthetic biology can be followed through clear, instant captions. By combining voice interaction and visual text, the assistant turns outreach events into a fully inclusive, multi-sensory learning experience, proving that advanced science communication can be both innovative and barrier-free.

Currently, the assistant is equipped with several mainstream languages, including English, French, Spanish, and Chinese. More importantly, it has been designed with flexibility in mind: additional languages can be integrated on demand to meet the needs of different audiences. This adaptability ensures that our outreach can remain inclusive in diverse settings, whether in international conferences, local community centers, or cross-border collaborations, making synthetic biology communication truly global and accessible.

Color-Friendly Design for Accessibility

Inclusivity is not limited to education or outreach—it also extends to how we design and present scientific information. To make our website truly accessible for all audiences, including users with color-vision deficiencies, we implemented a series of color-adjusted interface designs based on accessibility simulation and visual ergonomics.

We imported the color scheme of Suprobiotics onto a website called Coolors , and separately simulated the color perception of color-blind individuals (deuteranopia, trichromatic color blindness, and achromatopsia), in order to verify that this design could maintain the clarity and readability of information under different color vision conditions. By precisely adjusting the contrast, hue, and brightness, we ensured that key data and visual elements would not experience information loss or confusion due to color vision differences. Additionally, this study introduced textures and patterns as supplementary means of color, further enhancing the interface's recognizability, thereby ensuring that all users can equally access and understand the content. These series of measures not only optimized the user experience but also demonstrated the commitment to the fairness of scientific communication.

This is Suprobiotics as seen by people with deuteranopia.

This is Suprobiotics as seen by people with trichromatic color blindness.

This is Suprobiotics as seen by people with achromatopsia.

Through this engineering process, we translated empathy into accessibility—turning inclusive design into tangible, code-level practice.

By embedding visual inclusivity into the digital layer of our project, we ensured that no visual condition becomes a barrier to understanding science, embodying the true spirit of “Science for All.”

Limitations and Future Outlook

While these initiatives significantly broadened accessibility, we acknowledge a key limitation: our materials for visually and hearing-impaired communities were created primarily from our team's perspective, without sufficient direct involvement of the target users. This means that their real needs, preferences, and daily challenges may not have been fully addressed.

Looking ahead, we aim to move from “designing for” to “designing with.” Specifically, we plan to collaborate closely with disability organizations, special education schools, and patient advocacy groups. Blind schools, deaf schools, and their teachers, parents, and students will be directly invited to co-design, test, and refine our Braille brochures, audio resources, and multilingual intelligent assistant. By embedding their feedback into every iteration, we can ensure that these tools not only look inclusive on paper but also function effectively in real-world scenarios.

In addition, we intend to establish structured feedback mechanisms, such as iterative usability testing, follow-up interviews, and community review sessions, to keep refining our inclusivity work over time. Through this co-creation model, inclusivity will evolve from a one-time initiative into a sustainable, user-centered practice—setting a replicable precedent for future iGEM teams and science communicators worldwide.

Traditional Chinese Medicine Integration

Through interviews with doctors at several Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) hospitals, we learned that Tai Chi is often recommended as a lifestyle practice for patients with hyperuricemia. While these practices are rooted in cultural traditions and not scientifically proven for uric acid reduction, they represent an important part of local health culture. To connect with this context, we joined a Tai Chi class at our university, where we not only shared our Goutbuster project but also engaged in the exercises with participants. This experience allowed us to integrate “probiotics + lifestyle” into health education, creating a culturally relevant and approachable way to communicate our science.

Art & Creativity

During our early outreach in kindergartens and community centers, we noticed a limitation: although children loved our intestine whiteboard model and games, many concepts were hard to retain after the class. Parents also expressed the need for resources they could use at home to continue learning with their children.

In response, we designed and distributed an original children's picture book, transforming synthetic biology into colorful storytelling. The book explained how probiotics safeguard intestinal health in a way that children could understand and parents could revisit. This iteration—from live sessions to a take-home resource—ensured that our science communication was not just a one-time event, but a sustained learning journey.

Building on this momentum, we co-organized the nationwide “Light of Life” drawing contest with Jiangnan University. We invited children and teenagers to express their visions of synthetic biology through art. Over 20 submissions poured in from both urban and remote areas, filled with creativity: probiotics personified as guardians of health, DNA depicted as a beautiful symphony, and cells imagined as tiny protectors of the body. These works revealed how art can make science inclusive, allowing even those who may struggle with traditional science classes to participate meaningfully and with confidence.

Together, the children's picture book and the Light of Life contest created a reinforcing loop of science education: classroom → take-home learning → creative expression. This cycle not only deepened understanding but also empowered young learners to reimagine biology in their own language, bridging science, art, and culture.

Through these efforts, we brought science closer to families and communities, blending cultural and creative elements with synthetic biology. Beyond lectures and activities, we also designed cultural-creative products such as postcards, probiotic-themed stickers, and hairpins. These were warmly welcomed by students and children, adding a tangible, fun dimension to our outreach. Together, these initiatives made our project more relatable and human-centered while fulfilling the goal of inclusivity—ensuring that cutting-edge science can be understood, enjoyed, and embraced by diverse audiences.

Autism-Friendly Science Workshops

In July,our team visited the Triangle Line community in Inner Mongolia and designed a series of engaging classes for children with autism. We understood that these children have their own ways of learning and perceiving the world, so we focused on creating activities that emphasized hands-on practice and interaction, allowing them to explore in a relaxed and supportive environment.

In the “Micro-Exploration Journey,” the children used molecular models and simple protein experiments to understand that molecules are the building blocks of life, and they observed firsthand the processes of protein salting-out and denaturation. Through simple analogies, we introduced the idea of synthetic biology, helping them see how scientists can “assemble” genetic parts like building blocks to design new biological functions, making abstract scientific concepts tangible and accessible.

In the “Handmade Fan Workshop,” the children created unique fans by cutting, coloring, and decorating, combining designs of the Mongolian yurt and the Shanghai Shikumen. We observed that the quiet and creative process helped them concentrate, and completing their own fans gave them confidence and joy in expressing themselves.

Through these activities, we aimed to provide children with autism equal opportunities to experience both science and culture. By engaging in hands-on creation, they could feel the joy of exploration. We believe that science and culture should have no boundaries, and that every child deserves the chance to discover the world and express their creativity.

Parental Voices:During the class, one parent remarked with emotion, "My child isn't usually inclined to hands-on activities, but today they managed to complete a fan entirely—it's truly remarkable! Such lessons are not only educational but also bring joy to children, making them profoundly meaningful.

The SynBio MythBuster Handbook

In addition to reaching diverse age groups and abilities, we recognized that misinformation itself can become a major barrier to inclusivity. If large parts of society believe that “synthetic biology is unnatural” or “genetic editing is inherently dangerous,” then no matter how well-designed our outreach is, these audiences will remain excluded from meaningful scientific dialogue.

To address this, we joined forces with CJUH-JLU-China and 33 other iGEM teams to launch the nationwide “SynBio MythBuster Handbook.” This collaborative publication directly confronted six categories of public concerns, ranging from “Does synthetic biology violate nature?” to “Are gene-edited foods and medicines unsafe?” Each section combined clear explanations with solid scientific evidence, presenting the facts in a way that is accessible, transparent, and culturally sensitive.

The handbook was designed not only as a resource for the public, but also as a tool for future teams, educators, and science communicators who want to engage with communities more effectively. By distributing it online and offline, we sought to reduce fear, dispel misconceptions, and replace them with understanding and curiosity.

This initiative highlights our belief that inclusivity goes beyond physical accessibility—it also means creating an informed environment where science can be trusted, discussed, and embraced.