Our team has been lucky to find several iGEM teams around the globe to collaborate in numerous ways. Both from similar and different backgrounds, we have arranged collaborations that have enriched and broadened our knowledge in synthetic biology. Thus, collaborations have made it possible to communicate and educate more people about our project. Sharing experiences with other teams has surely been a memorable experience. See below what we have been up to.
World lymphoma awareness day- September 15th: On the occasion of the International Lymphoma Day, September 15, we organised a collaboration with some of the closest iGEM teams, since our project is related to Burkitt’s lymphoma. Worldwide, more than 735,000 people are diagnosed with Lymphoma each year, according to data from the Lymphoma Coalition, a global network of 80 organisations in more than 50 countries that provide information and support to lymphoma patients. These numbers, supported by the Global Cancer Observatory (Globocan), show that lymphoma is the most common blood cancer disease among adults. So we had the necessity of helping to raise awareness of the need to invest in science and give visibility to these diseases. In collab with @igem.ionis, @cuhksbs.igem, @patras.med and @igem_tu_braunschweig
Summer Online Meeting: Since collaboration and exchange of ideas are critical in research and science, we organised an online meeting to meet our iGEM neighbours, with whom we share more proximity and culture: the Mediterranean countries. During July 23rd and 24th we gave space to the different teams from Greece, Turkey, France, and Spain to present their projects, share doubts and solve others' doubts. It was also a good opportunity to see the faces of some of the closest teams, and to exchange ideas in an easier way.
@igem_spreads_awareness_: This instagram account was created by @igem_tu_braunschweig and @igem.asij in order to educate about topics around cancer in cooperation with other iGEM teams. Thus, we did not hesitate to share our posts about Burkitt's lymphoma, Cart-T cell therapy and oncogenetics. Sharing is caring!
@igem.munich: This team's project has a similar objective to ours: to improve the quality of life of cancer patients. Since most of the therapies used today to treat certain groups of tumours have many side effects, one of the main interests of oncology is to eliminate these unwanted effects. That is why we have joined forces to create a series of posts related to oncogenes and other cancer-related topics, in order to raise awareness of what they are and the need to create new therapies.
@cuhksbs.igem: Under the hashtag #SynbiOOTD, they have asked for the collaboration of different iGEM teams to talk about different synthetic biology techniques or technology. The aim is to show in a simple way -through drafts- different technologies, and to emphasise how they help us (as a team) to solve a real problem. In our case, we have explained Golden Gate Cloning. It is a very new technique in synthetic biology that has served us in several stages of our project and we believe it can be a discovery for many people.
@msp_igem: With the aim of informing the general public about synthetic biology, the iGEM competition and our projects, they designed a puzzle book including word search puzzles from various iGEM teams describing their projects.
@patras.med: With the intention of meeting other teams and seeing some iGEM faces, this team from Greece made a collaborative video in which one member of many different iGEM groups presents themselves and the group, explaining briefly the purpose of the project. In our case, it was Jaume Ros who appeared.
@igemthessaly: Since the Greek people are not familiar with the scientific field and thus are not educated and up to date with the new trends and opportunities, they made a dictionary full of Synthetic Biology Terms. In order to make this dictionary accessible to the world, we translated many of the terms into the Spanish language, contributing to the social equality of the Spanish population most affected by the educational gap.
@patras.med: On the occasion of the World DNA Day, 25th of April, they organised a graphic DNA, built with iGEMers images holding the different DNA bases.
@igem_ffm_2022: Throughout the competition, we have created and strengthened a solid bond with the Goethe_Frankfurt team. Since our serendipitous first contact on the Slack general channel, fruit of a question regarding cloning techniques, we have reached each other on several occasions for help in regard to molecular biology. Concretely, we have been helping each other out with troubleshooting for Golden Gate assembly, competent E coli transformation and other molecular biology techniques.
La Pedrera Science Academy: Together with members of this association, we created the educational video series: Homemade science. They provided us with their facilities, located in La Pedrera-Casa Milà, in Barcelona, an emblematic building of the city, and also helped us with the video formats, recording and sound. Visit our YouTube channel here!
Fundación Josep Carreras contra la Leucemia: On the occasion of the world leukaemia day, this foundation shared a video of us on their social networks to raise awareness of our project.