Description – About Life science and biotechnology society
The Life Science and BioTechnology (LSBT) Society is a society that mainly focuses on the biotechnology branch of the biology field. In other words, we mainly learn about the function and mechanism of experimental techniques such as gel electrophoresis or polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Since the majority of the biotechnology field comprises modern biological concepts, we aim to explain the concepts as clearly as possible by breaking it down into smaller parts. As part of our approach, we try to be as much as interactive with the members of the society as possible. Henceforth, we always play small games and exercises every session, and the programmes are mainly experiment centred. For example, we have done a strawberry DNA extraction experiment and learnt about the characteristics of DNA after looking at the experiment. From the experiment, we also have discussed the possible applications of DNA extraction in the biology industry. Finally, our society always has annual events such as a visit to Jeju University and visit to academic conferences organised by the Korean biology associations.
Lecture 1 (Cloning) – BS303 14th of October 1:10 ~ 1:50
Cloning human DNA has been an issue for a while due to its ethical concerns. To know more about cloning, LSBT society has prepared a lecture about cloning and a debate session at the last 10 minutes to hear some students’ voices about cloning. Since we had a wonderful chance to have Dr Earl and Dr Davies who have deeper knowledge and understanding about cloning than we do, two guests are invited to join our session and enlighten the students with their knowledge. The lecture was led by the chairs, Jason Lim and Tony Son, and the lecture included short information about how cloning is done; cloning can be done in four steps. A nucleus from a somatic cell is removed. The extracted nucleus is injected into an egg cell which has no nucleus. The chemical treatment causes the egg cell to behave as a fertilised egg. The egg, in turn, goes through cleavage, then the organism with the exact same gene forms. After the explanation of the process, the audience was divided into two groups to have a debate regarding cloning. The main argument from the pros was about ethics and safety issues and that from the cons was about the further development of the quality of human life.
Lecture 2 (Cladistic) – BLT 16th of October 8:10 ~ 8:40
The LSBT society has presented a Sejong lecture about the classification system to the year 7s on Thursday tutor time. The lecture was primarily planned to be about ‘Cladistic’, however, it requires some basic knowledge about the classification system so the topic has changed to the classification system. The lecture was delivered by the chairs of the LSBT society, Jason Lim and Tony Son, and the presentation was made by secretary and publicity officer, Subin Seo and Taehyun Kim. The level of the lecture was not so demanding. Instead we made the lecture much easier than any other Sejong lectures to encourage a full understanding of contents. In the beginning, 7 levels of the classification system (kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species) were explained by the use of morphology. Through the paradigm shift from morphology to DNA sequencing due to the foundings of DNA technology, the way of classifying organisms has changed and it is done more accurately and precisely. After the lecture, candy was given to the students who answered the given questions. Even though the topic was challenging for year 7s, they managed to understand and answered the questions correctly.
Activity – In front of Library 17th of October 1:10~1:40
On the 17th of October, LSBT society ran an activity with the topic of Cladistics. The activity was based on the lecture given by LSBT chairs to year 7 on the last morning of the science action week. Students could do 4 activities, guessing the common name of species only with their binomial name, guessing 2 species that are most closely related among 4 species, describing what the cladistics is showing and drawing cladistics only by looking at the computer-generated output (written by society on python) that shows the difference between the DNA sequence of Cytochrome C protein of two species. Students who got the right answer could get one or two Chupa Chups. The paradigm shift behind this activity is the shift in classification system from morphology-based to DNA-based as technology develops. This was demonstrated clearly in the activity with the example of dolphin and shark being the most distant species from each other, with the most difference in their DNA sequence, despite their similar morphological appearance.
