Milestones

Milestones. The bioreactor stands open on a bench with its wiring showing, a laptop on top running the dashboard.

Highlights

  1. 2025DecWe meet for the first time
  2. 2026Jan–FebFive ideas become one
  3. MarSafety training, and our first seeds
  4. AprThe bioreactor idea arrives
  5. MayThree ways to grow a plant
  6. JunThe culture stays inside the loop
  7. JulOur own instrument reads a live culture
  8. AugIt all goes in the box
  9. SepWe take it to the public
  10. OctThe last trials, then the sprint
Contents

On this page

December 2025

A room of strangers, an introduction to iGEM, and no project. Everyone went away to write a pitch of their own.

  1. A long room of students at wooden benches on the first day of the season, with a laptop and a wired-up microcontroller board on the nearest desk in the foreground. Team Members meeting for the first time and learning more about iGEM.
    The first meeting. Nobody knew anybody yet.

  2. Members pitching their project proposal to advisors. Five students around a wooden table with laptops in a small meeting room, one standing beside a whiteboard.
    Pitching our own project ideas to the advisors.

January and February 2026

Five candidate projects went down to two, then to one: protecting plants from stress. The first roadmap split the work into four tracks, all pointing at a field test.

  1. A video call grid of team members and two guests during the first Human Practices meeting.
    Our first outreach meeting, with Ubuntu Social Enterprise, held online.

  2. A four-column project roadmap diagram headed Biosecurity, Model Establishing, Stress-response Switch Development and Stress Protectant Development, with colour-coded boxes for must-do, must-succeed and bonus tasks flowing towards a Field Test box.
    The first roadmap: four tracks, and a field test at the end of all of them.

March 2026

Everyone sat through lab safety training. Then we went to Professor Cheng Mei-Chun’s lab at NTU and came home with Arabidopsis seeds.

  1. Members in their first lab safety class.
    Lab safety class, before anyone was allowed to touch anything.

  2. Students gathered around Professor Cheng beside an open plant growth cabinet. First outreach outing to Professor Cheng Mei-Chun’s lab at NTU.
    At Professor Cheng’s lab at NTU, learning the plant protocols and taking seeds home.

April 2026

April changed the project. After talking to Dr. Verslues and Professor Chen Wen-Liang we dropped the earlier design for a light-controlled bioreactor, with a hollow-fibre membrane keeping the bacteria in and letting the protectant out.

  1. Visiting Dr. Paul Verslues at Academia Sinica.
    Visiting Dr. Paul Verslues at Academia Sinica.

  2. Online meeting with Professor Chen Wen-Liang who provided various pieces of advice including hardware and business plan. A schematic: stress induces a light sensor to switch on or off for heat, salinity and drought; green and red light arrows lead to three labelled chambers of engineered Bacillus subtilis; an arrow marked different protectants released in response to different stresses passes through a selective membrane into a block of soil.
    Professor Chen Wen-Liang online, on hardware and on the business case. The first bioreactor sketches came out of that call.

  3. A rendered diagram of the bioreactor: a peristaltic pump feeding an industrial hollow-fibre membrane cartridge with a labelled lumen and shell side, a heating blanket and PT100 sensor, a red and green LED spore stimulation wrap, and product streams going to a potted plant and to a hydroponics tray.
    Working out what the hollow-fibre cartridge would have to look like.

  4. Advisor teaching members about the Arabidopsis Plant.
    An advisor explaining Arabidopsis to the rest of us.

May 2026

We grew Arabidopsis on agar, in hydroponics and in soil to see which we could run stress assays on. The hardware team started breadboarding a photometer and a light plate because we could not buy either.

  1. The parts for our first hydroponics box. Our first Arabidopsis seedlings planted into the soil.
    A hydroponics box in parts, and the first seedlings going into soil.

  2. Plant incubator with Arabidopsis plants grown three ways: Arabidopsis grown in agar plates, hydroponic boxes, and potted soil.
    All three methods in one incubator: agar plates, hydroponic boxes and pots.

  3. The team gathered in front of a festival stage at the Taipei Expo farmers' event. Three students standing in a market aisle talking with a grower in a wide-brimmed bucket hat, one holding a phone to record notes. A student interviewing a stallholder at the market.
    Our first farmers’ expo, asking growers what stress actually costs them.

  4. Meeting with the World Vegetable Center where we received valuable feedback regarding our target market and connection to the real-world.
    The World Vegetable Center, on who our product is really for.

  5. Conceptualizing ideas for a spectrophotometer.
    Sketching a spectrophotometer we could build ourselves.

  6. Glass beakers of plants lit from behind by a strip of LEDs. Three students preparing plant cuttings in plastic bags.
    Testing the school activities on ourselves first.

June 2026

The first growth test in the hollow-fibre loop worked: the culture stayed where it was meant to. Plenty else did not. Professor Chang and Professor Chen came to pick the design apart, and we ran our first workshops in three primary schools.

  1. A plotted growth curve headed B. subtilis 168, all growth conditions overview, with optical density against time for normoxia, hypoxia, bioreactor lumen and sensor conditions.
    The first B. subtilis growth test in the hollow-fibre loop, with flask cultures alongside it.

  2. A square agar plate photographed from above, with two rows of Arabidopsis seedlings whose roots and shoots run sideways across the plate rather than down it, and a single yellow contaminant colony to the right. Two petri dishes side by side labelled 0.125 millimolar trehalose and 0.25 millimolar trehalose, both overgrown with white filamentous fungal contamination around the seedlings.
    Not every week is a good week: seedling plates set up the wrong way round, and a contaminated run.

  3. The team posed with Professor Chang in front of a slide.
    Professor Chang Jo-Shu on the bioreactor, and on our B. subtilis problems.

  4. A whiteboard covered in a hand-drawn system diagram headed BIG PICTURE, running from a bioreactor and B. subtilis through PCR, promoter, ribosome binding site and secretion, to a hollow-fibre membrane and a plant.
    The whole system on one board for the first time: reactor, bug, construct, secretion, membrane, soil, plant.

  5. The team posed with Professor Chen in front of the concept slide.
    Professor Chen Wen-Liang went through the lot: model, plants, protectant, hydroponics, circuit, reactor.

  6. A team member presenting a climate change slide.
    Our first education events, at three primary schools.

July 2026

The light plate went together, the pressure sensor started reporting, and the inline photometer read a live culture in the loop, about four times too high. That reading gave August its job. Outside the lab we spent a day on Ms Chen’s farm and a day at BIO Asia.

  1. Our first Junior High education event.
    Our first junior high school event.

  2. A student presenting on a wall screen to a man seated at a table.
    Dr. Daniel Viragh of the Berkeley Historical GIS Project, and a way to map Taiwan’s farmland.

  3. The group posed in front of a welcome screen. A bottle of CH Biotech protectant on a lab bench. Individual LEDs taped down in rows across a bench with handwritten labels, beside the black light-plate housing wired up with red and black leads and a breadboard.
    At CH Biotech, and back in the lab with one of their protectants to measure ourselves against. Then an evening sorting LEDs by brightness.

  4. A lab bench with a peristaltic pump, a hollow fibre column on a stand, an Arduino on a breadboard, and a laptop displaying a live oscillating blue and orange pressure trace.
    The pressure sensor sending live readings to a laptop for the first time.

  5. The assembled light plate apparatus: a black 3D-printed base with a white well plate on top, its grid of wells glowing alternately amber and green.
    The light plate apparatus, assembled, every LED matched.

  6. Students looking at a device at a stand. The team posed at an exhibition stand.
    BIO Asia-Taiwan, for a look at what the industry is doing.

  7. The inline photometer plumbed into the bioreactor loop on a bench, with a laptop beside it showing a rising orange optical density trace.
    Our photometer read a live culture in the loop. Against the Biodrop it read four times too high.

  8. Ms. Chen crouching in a dry bed with two students. The team and Ms. Chen posed together under a pergola. Students picking from a bean trellis.
    A day on Ms Chen Hui-Wen’s natural farm. Yes, we picked cucumbers.

  9. An online call with Professor Huang and team members in video tiles.
    Professor Huang Chieh-Chen online, on when and how much protectant to deliver.

  10. A laptop screen showing a live data dashboard with a rising curve.
    The reactor, live on a monitor.

August 2026

pH and dissolved-oxygen sensors joined the loop, the photometer was calibrated into agreement with a real instrument, and the whole rig moved into an old computer case. We also came back from NCHU with WB800, the strain the rest of the year ran on.

  1. An open incubator cabinet with shelves of clear plant boxes and red-lidded trays above, and the bioreactor, photometer and breadboard electronics running on the bottom shelf. A laptop on a dark bench displaying a long optical-density growth curve logged overnight from the inline photometer.
    Reactor, photometer and plants in one incubator overnight, logged by our own instrument.

  2. Students in farmer hats filming in a sunny park.
    Filming the promotional video in the park.

  3. Three students testing sensor probes at a bench covered in cables and bags of parts.
    First tests of the pH and dissolved-oxygen sensors.

  4. The team posed with two professors in a meeting room under a ReLEAF slide. A petri dish photographed from above, hand-labelled in marker B. subtilis WB800 with four numbered quadrants and the date 260806.
    NCHU, to pitch to Professor Huang Chieh-Chen and Professor Huang Tzu-Pi. We left with a plate of B. subtilis WB800.

  5. The bioreactor set on a green-lit table in front of a whiteboard. Hardware members and an instructor posed behind the bioreactor set.
    Behind the scenes of the video, with the reactor fully set up.

  6. Students facing a long wall of purple-lit growing racks. Students looking through round windows at growing plants.
    YesHealth iFarm, a hydroponic farm run entirely on controlled conditions.

  7. Students and instructors working on the bioreactor at a lab bench. The bioreactor set up on a lab bench.
    Pressure-testing the reactor.

  8. A high school classroom with students in uniform at desks, several microscopes on a bench in the foreground, and a ReLEAF member presenting a slide headed Synbio and iGEM at the front. Our first high school education event.
    Our first high school event.

  9. A hand-assembled overview of the model in four panels running left to right: the bioreactor with sensing and control, the genetic circuit producing protectant, transport and delivery across the membrane, and soil transport to plant uptake, each panel with a diagram above and its equations written below. Handwritten notes on grid paper headed protectant presence boosts growth under increasing stress, with a plot of predicted plant biomass against a stress index for control and treated cases, and a second plot of biomass over time comparing no treatment, reactive treatment and forecast-triggered treatment.
    The four stages of the model on one sheet: sensing, production, membrane, soil, with predicted biomass against stress.

  10. A student in a lab coat and gloves running a photometer calibration at a bench with a laptop and the sensor rig, while an instructor in a lab coat sits alongside watching. A student standing at a table using a screwdriver on the frame of an empty black computer tower case, with another student watching from the right.
    Calibrating the photometer against the Biodrop, and moving the whole rig into an empty computer case.

  11. Students looking into a plant growth chamber.
    Back at Professor Cheng’s lab with two questions about agar and aeration.

  12. A clear hydroponic box with a white floating seed-holder rack. Two students fitting the bioreactor into a black computer case. A student assembling a stress map of Taiwan on a table. Two students pointing at the ReLEAF poster. A team member rehearsing in front of a wall screen showing a slide headed 我們的產品, our products, with phone interface mockups, while a seated listener takes notes.
    The last week before the public forum: a new hydroponics box with a printed floating seed rack, a compact reactor, the map, and rehearsals.

September 2026

We ran our own public forum at the Taipei Water Garden market and put the project in front of farmers and strangers. In the lab a 10 kb plasmid finally went into WB800, and the light plate ran its first assay.

  1. Professor Chang Jo-Shu’s second visit to GEMS, where we updated him on our current progress and the challenges we were facing.
    Professor Chang Jo-Shu’s second visit, this time on what was going wrong.

  2. Team members on stage during the forum. A student explaining the bioreactor poster to a visitor. Public Forum event: Data physicalization booth. The team posed together at the market.
    Our public forum: the talk, the booth, the data physicalization table, and everyone who turned up.

  3. Two team members at an exhibition stand with an exhibitor.
    Smart Agriweek, where it became clear that young farmers were our first adopters.

  4. Attending the NCHU Symposium where we received feedback such as developing a deeper understanding of our experimental data and the ACCD mechanism. Attending the NCHU Symposium where we received feedback such as developing a deeper understanding of our experimental data and the ACCD mechanism.
    The NCHU symposium, and a reminder to understand our own data better.

  5. Meeting with Dr. Sattely and Prof. Endy, focusing on how we present our experimental design, controls, mechanism, and the role of ACCD in our system.
    Dr. Sattely and Professor Endy on how we explain our controls and our mechanism.

  6. A video call with Ms. Chen and team members, a slide about a LINE service for farmers on screen.
    Farmer Chen Ke-Wei online, telling us our price was one a farmer could live with.

  7. Successfully electroporated a level 2 10k+ bp plasmid into B. subtilis WB800 for the first time, allowing us to move forward to LPA testing. Successfully electroporated a level 2 10k+ bp plasmid into B. subtilis WB800 for the first time, allowing us to move forward to LPA testing.
    A 10 kb level 2 plasmid electroporated into WB800 at last, which opened the way to the light plate.

  8. The first light-control assay on the light plate apparatus, run by the Wet Lab. Tubes glowing green in the light plate apparatus inside an incubator.
    The first light-control assay on the light plate apparatus.

October 2026

We read the last assays, saw the last two stakeholders, then moved into GEMS for wiki freeze week and did not really leave.

  1. Our first mock judging session as a whole team, including splitting up into groups and learning more about the details of the judging session. Our first mock judging session as a whole team, including splitting up into groups and learning more about the details of the judging session.
    Our first mock judging, the whole team in groups.

  2. Double photometer calibration test using SiO2. Testing the air sensor and leaf sensor near the elevator, where temperature and humidity are less stable.
    A double photometer calibration against SiO₂, and the air and leaf sensors taken out to the lift lobby where nothing stays steady.

  3. Consultation with Director Wu Tsz-Hsien from the Miaoli District Agricultural Research and Extension Station to validate our field application and farmer outreach channels. Meeting with Lu An-Bang, founder of Agriweather, an agricultural tech company specializing in smart weather monitoring and microclimate data systems.
    Director Wu Tsz-Hsien at the Miaoli station on reaching farmers, and Lu An-Bang of Agriweather on microclimate data.

  4. A student in a lab coat crouched at the open bioreactor cabinet at night, taking a sample from the loop. A laptop on a bench showing the dashboard: a growth curve climbing on a dark blue panel beside live pressure and pH readings.
    The last night of lab work: sampling the reactor, and the dashboard still logging.

  5. The work room full of students standing and sitting at every desk, the nearest table covered in parts, cables and food. The whole team and the instructors lined up behind a long wooden table at GEMS. A student standing at the screen talking to the rest of the team, everyone turned towards the front of the room.
    The last stretch. Everyone at GEMS from morning until past midnight, writing on tables, sofas and the floor, kept going by other people’s parents.