The BioExperience Program
Hertek Gill - April 22, 2021
Design of the clarifier insert for wastewater treatment tanks created by the BioEnvo team and presented at the cGEM 2020 conference.
COVID-19 has affected the world in many ways but one effect of the lockdown that has hit university students hard was the sudden loss of many summer employment and co-op opportunities. Many students rely on these opportunities to fund their education and to gain vital job experience in their field of study. Due to the lockdown, many traditional student employers were, unfortunately, unable to host students over the summer. It was amidst these unprecedented times that Dr. Mads Kaern of the Faculty of Cellular and Molecular Medicine at the University of Ottawa started the BioExperience program with support from the University of Ottawa and BioTalent Canada. This new program would provide over 50 students the ability to work over the summer as well as the opportunity to gain the experiences and skills needed to initiate a career in biotechnology with an emphasis on the engineering of biological systems at the cellular and molecular level.
The BioExperience program was an interactive and collaborative learning experience in which teams of 6-8 undergraduate students from a wide variety of programs and faculties worked together on various self-guided projects related to synthetic biology. The 2020 BioExperience Program consisted of 7 different teams which investigated various topics ranging from removing microplastics from wastewater to creating a 3D bioprinter.
Students in the program were involved in every step in the research project from formulating the research question, creating a plan, interviewing and hiring other students, organizing and distributing the workload, and summarizing the results into publication-quality reports. This allowed for a large potential for growth as students learned to independently do the various tasks associated with running a research project.
The group setting with fellow undergraduate students created an environment where discovery and trial and error were promoted as everyone was learning how to organize and manage a research project together. This created a very collaborative and encouraging environment where everyone was able to speak during lab meetings and have their ideas considered. The inter-faculty nature of the groups also provided many students with their first exposure to working in interdisciplinary teams as most other group projects at the undergraduate level are done with peers in the same program. This allowed all the students to experience working with people with a completely different knowledge base and using these different backgrounds to the advantage of the group as a whole. This skill set will be very beneficial to all the students in future endeavors where they will have to coordinate with different departments at their place of work.
Another aspect of the program that was very influential in making the experience rewarding were the various training sessions held throughout the summer on topics such as doing research using the library’s virtual resources and how to cite work. These workshops helped teach important skills in an environment where they would be immediately applied, allowing students the opportunity to use and refine the skills without forgetting them.
COVID-19 testing kit designed by the COVID-ENG Team.
Throughout the summer each student conducted both self and peer-assessments of their fellow teammates. These assessments allowed students to understand their strengths and weaknesses so that they could understand what they could work on improving over the summer. Self-reflections were important as they allowed the students to think about what they have accomplished so far and what they personally see as their next steps. Students were then able to compare their reflection with the anonymous assessments their peers made of them to understand if they missed something. These moments of reflection ensured that everyone stayed on course over the summer and could utilize the remaining time to improve themselves as much as possible.
At the end of the 4-month program, every team submitted their work in a series of reports, schematics, and diagrams. The final day of the BioExperience Program was the Closing Ceremony. This one-day event featured presentations from each team, speaker panels as well as prizes for the various teams. This event was a culmination of everyone’s hard work and allowed everyone to showcase their work to their peers, faculty, and family.
After the summer, one of the BioExperience teams was chosen to present their work at the first annual Canadian Genetically Engineered Machines. Here the BioEnvo team was able to capture a gold medal and the award for the “Best Collaboration” for their close discussion with experts in the field, other research groups, and universities. The BioEnvo team consisted of 3 subteams which each worked on a different aspect of the project. The three sub-teams included the Microplastic Filtration sub-team, which designed a clarifier insert for wastewater treatment tanks; the Microplastic Remediation sub-team, which determined the necessary steps to process the collected microplastics, and the Microplastics Biodegradation sub-team, which focused on enzymatic processes to degrade microplastics. The final product of this project was a theoretical system that can remove microplastics from wastewater, using magnetite powder to create magnetic clumps of microplastics, which could then be easily collected. These collected microplastics would then be taken to a separate facility where they could be degraded by PETase enzymes inside a specifically designed Bioreactor facility.
The team not only focused on the science behind the project but also developed a viable business plan and pitch presentation to show potential investors. The pitch focused on the business aspect of the BioEnvo project and the benefits, both environmental and financial, that would come from the implementation of this project to remediate and recycle microplastics from the Ottawa River.
In the end, the BioExperience program was an experience like nothing else a student at the undergraduate level experiences in university. This program’s blend of problem-based learning with collaboration amongst an interdisciplinary team allowed every single student to develop many skills that will be vital to them in the job market. This program provided an experience that will have a profound impact on how students perceive the job market and their place within it. As a student who has experienced the first iteration of the BioExperience program, I would strongly encourage students to take the opportunity to be a part of this program as it will help them improve a multitude of skills and will leave them better prepared for anything that lies ahead. If your university does not offer such a program, strongly consider discussing this with the administration as a BioExperience-like program would be very beneficial to all students in terms of the experiences it provides to its participants.