Jun 30

Jun 30 Published Author in High School - The Success Story of Alisa Leong Weng I and PuiChing Macau 2019 team

An interview with Alisa Leong Weng I, as part of PuiChing Macau 2019 iGEM team and co-author of “Using recombinant adhesive proteins as durable and green flame-retardant coatings” paper

Tell me about your teams iGEM project

Our project is about a fire retardant protein. At that time we heard the news from the Amazon forest - it was on fire. We hoped to deal with that problem. At first we wanted to cope with the forest fires. However, due to some ethical issues, we were afraid that our product might affect the environment in other unwanted aspects. So we hope to use our fire retardant on human made buildings, furniture or for common house fires.

What motivates you to do research?

I am really into biomedical science because I wanna be a doctor in the future. I find research really interesting and I feel like it is a great opportunity for me to write and combine all the stuff into a research paper and for more people to know about our work.

Was it hard to convince other team members to continue the research?

I think it was quite easy since we all are highschool students and everyone has a love for science - that's why they joined iGEM. iGEM is not just a research project, it is not like other science competitions. It involves some human practices, or business development. So I also learned a lot in this competition. I think others did too.

How did iGEM impact your career development?

It helped me to take a glance at the research world. It also motivated me to think that being a doctor or pursuing medicine is not my only option. Doing laboratory work can also bring a lot of impact to the world. Also it made me stand out in university applications.

PuiChing Macau 2019 iGEM team giving an educational talk to secondary school students

Did you learn a lot from this experience?

Of course. I mentioned that iGEM is not a competition just about research but also a lot of communication. For me, as a team lead for two years, I learned a lot from this. As all of us [in our team] are highschool students, who just like bio. Many of them don't know how to develop a website. So I, as a team lead, learned by myself to do all the work. All-nighters. So I have fair memories of learning other stuff and how to lead the whole team. And this experience has shaped who I am today.

What were the biggest difficulties that you faced while writing the paper?

I think for me it was that I didn't know how to express the content in a more scientific way and how to combine all of the background information into the introduction paragraph and a discussion part. But our seniors from the university, like Leo [Chi U Seak], helped me a lot during the process. He has taught me a lot about how to write in a scientific way, how I should express that instead of just saying the result in a boring way. And how to write the figure legend is also very important, which I didn't know how to write in the past.

The team designed a game booth designed to raise awareness of fire use and fire-retardant materials

As a highschool student I was not familiar with the peer review process. So first I was struck. But luckily I had just a minor review and only had to add and explain something on my results. After that I got the news of being published in the research paper.

What advice would you give for high school iGEMers that want to write papers

Read more and you will know how to express yourself in a more scientific way. Also through the reading process you will learn how to structure your research paper, how to write it and do a figure legend.

What do you want to say to all current iGEMers?

Enjoy iGEM and you will learn a lot!