BiofactionVienna, Austria

Markus Schmidt, Camillo Meinhart, Olga Radchuk

Synthetic Biology

What we doTechnology Assessment

Public engagement Art-Science

BackgroundSYNMOD…

• is funded by the European Science Foundation

• applies a synthetic biology approach to the design and production of novel antibiotic molecules

• aims to produce novel antibiotics from existing peptide modules

The story• Define and re-combine lantibiotic peptide modules to detect novel antibiotic activities.

• Assemble post-translational machinery of reduced complexity to incorporate in any microorganism.

• Implement the machinery in Staphylococcus carnosus to produce preparative quantities of a variety of novel lantibiotics.

SYNMOD GAME Target audience:-high school students-everyone interested in synthetic biology, medicine and biology Aim of the game:-help players memorize the names and 1-letter codes of 20 standard amino acids;-provide additional information on the structure, functions, interactions, and the biological role of the amino acids-explain the modularity of lantibiotics synthesis-provide a “first-hand” experience in the synthesis of biologically active molecules with real-life outcomes-stimulate interest to synthetic biology and motivate players to learn more about it

Game designImplementation: Biofaction

Idea Dr Markus SchmidtGraphic design Camillo MeinhartProgramming Gerold Meisinger

Game elements: Drag-and-dropTechnical form: 2D graphicNumber of players: 1 player at a timeLevels: 5Time to complete 1 level: 15-20 minTime to completethe game: 80-120 minDistribution: Available for free download at AppStore and Google Play

Game environmentSlot machine environment

-question marks to indicate peptide modules-several pre-assembled modules provided-a bug to kill-TEST button to test a lantibiotic-RESET button to reset the whole game

Amino acid environment

-a set of amino acids to assemble a module-shapes-hints to place amino acids correctly-BACK button to return to the slot machine environment

Future work• add a 30-seconds introductory film• add hints on how to play (for the 1st level)• introduce level-by-level progression and progress screen• introduce gradual difficulty• add introductory screen for each bug• conduct the 2nd playability and usability evaluation study• conduct the study to test the knowledge acquisition