We view iGEM beyond its competitive atmosphere and value opportunities to connect with other highly motivated students beyond our team’s borders. Most importantly, we helped establish iGEM at Texas Agricultural and Mechanical University (TAMU) as an annual program for new students to compete in. Beyond the scope of experimentation, we discussed a range of topics from competition deliverables to financing and grants. After great bonding, we connected through numerous opportunities.
Our team communicated with TAMU through virtual and in-person meet ups where we mentored with setting up an annual iGEM program at TAMU. Based on our previous experiences and our semester by semester program, we advised them on both a project development timeline and when to get deliverables done. We explained the class structure where we learn about iGEM, synthetic biology, and review literature to develop a project before the summer break where we conduct most of our wet lab research.
We then introduced our dedicated faculty structure, offering to put them in contact with Dr. Mishler and Dr. Barrick to talk about their role in assisting our team with the backend of our project and how they recruit new members every year. Giving them a behind-the-scenes look at how our program is run at UT Austin in addition to giving consistent feedback, our goal is to establish a long-term cooperation with TAMU that exists beyond this competitive cycle. We hope to bring iGEM to all of Texas schools, starting with TAMU.
We invited TAMU iGEM on July 17th to tour our lab at UT Austin and to see some bats!
Fig. 1. Austin UTexas iGEM and TAMU iGEM.
The day began at 12:00 PM with some delicious tacos as an ice breaker for everyone to get to know one another. After warm introductions and satiated appetites, our team invited the guests to tour our beautiful campus and our lab. At the lab, we helped answer their questions about iGEM as a whole and agreed to mentor their PETase project as well as guide their team to establish a yearly program similar to ours.
Our first topic was communication and education where we pitched ideas such as a coloring book for summer camp kids but ultimately settled on working together on a podcast to educate adults interested in learning more to help the environment. We then practiced presenting our respective projects to one another, gave examples of questions judges have asked in the past, and critiqued speech habits for smoother presentation.
We then answered their questions about formatting the Parts page and brought up examples of our team’s older websites.
After a long day, we drove down to South Congress for dinner and most importantly- the bats.
Fig. 2. Bats taking flight from under Congress Avenue Bat Bridge.
TAMU iGEM and our team both analyzed the use of bacteria to solve some of society’s greatest current issues. Thus, we organized a call together to stay updated with our respective projects and begin recording podcast episodes targeted to adult audiences.
Fig. 3. Austin UTexas iGEM members being interviewed for TAMU iGEM's podcast.
We participated in the TAMU podcast series and shared our perspectives on synthetic biology, ARROWE, and our team. TAMU then offered to help us with our Wiki page: to proofread our content, help with coding, and give advice with design.
While we discussed website design, we took inspiration from their Wiki page and added pictures of our team as background. We also proactively drafted our website during the summer, and in doing so, we had a strong foundation for future pages to be built upon.
Fig. 4. Brainstorming with TAMU iGEM.
Although working with TAMU has been primarily focused on mentoring their current project, our team has learned so much trying to communicate with a different team. Teaching also reveals holes in our own understanding to be fixed. For example, when helping TAMU with their Parts page, we also began looking at other team's Wiki pages for guidance. This experience has taught us that there is always more to glean from collaborating with others.
© 2022 - Content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.
The repository used to create this website is available at gitlab.igem.org/2022/austin-utexas.