iGEM Meetup in GBM Conference
Towards the end of summer, we were able to join an iGEM Meetup. We were invited to the annual conference held by the Community for Biochemistry and Molecular BIology in Düsseldorf by iGEM Team Düsseldorf. Granted, that this conference was not catered for us undergraduate students, but we still took the chance since we were not able to join previous iGEM Meetups due to lack of funding and available members.
At the conference, not only did we hear a lot of interesting research, we observed first hand how researchers network and learn from each other. From that we employed the same thing. On lunch breaks, we got to talk to other iGEM Teams and learn a lot about their project and the management of the team itself. From this chance to exchange information, we learned how we could improve our own project. From how to communicate with the industry for sponsorship or just how to improve team work.
Public Engagement
For public engagement, we mainly chose instagram as a preferred platform. This is a great tool to reach younger generations, to educate or simply communicate information in a precise and concise manner, while still staying “hip or trendy”.
With the help of the hashtags, we even got the attention of an internet artist, who eventually collaborated with us in our project. Said artist has not only helped to animate our promotional video, but they recently even offered to make a video to post on her platform. This has not been posted yet, but you can find the preview below.
Friday’s for Future
On the 23rd of September, we went to join a Friday’s for Future demonstration. There we get to observe people’s stances on the current climate crisis, their awareness and knowledge of the subject and their overall opinion. We didn’t get to do a proper survey, but we did have a few interesting conversations. Unfortunately, most people seemed to focus more on the political side of the crisis rather than environmental. Ever since the start of the energy crisis due to the current political situation between Ukraine and Russia, most Germans’ lives have been very much impacted negatively. From rent to food price inflation, not just energy prices. So when we introduced our project to them, most of them had a very enthusiastic outlook and wished us much success.
Most young people under the age of 18 seemed to know the problem only superficially. The concept of biofuel may not be a foreign one, but due to lack of knowledge, their opinions seem to oscillate between one side to another.So while a few university students have the opinion that more research needs to be done and more support must be provided by governments, younger people or much older ones have a black or white view on this matter.That we should just implement more biofuels, especially after the top 10 worst celebrities’ private jets CO2 emissions article went viral. One even expressed their opinion on veganism very strongly, that it was one great way to reach carbon neutrality.
A proper survey should be done in the future as it would be very helpful to gauge people’s understanding of the problem and what they think the solution(s) entails.
Contacting Experts
Patricia L Walker, PhD Candidate at Washington University in St. Louis, Bayer Graduate Fellow
In her current work in the Pakrasi lab, she utilizes two strains of the cyanobacterium Synechococcus elongatus which share an average nucleotide identity of 99.9%, but with notable growth and stress tolerance differences. She utilizes techniques in genome analysis, mutant construction, photosynthesis analysis, and transcriptomics to identify the genetic and molecular basis for the difference in light tolerance. The holistic approach allows her to explore the interconnectedness of circadian regulation, stress responses, energy production, and carbon/ nitrogen balance.
Early on our project cycle, Ms.Walker’s publication is one of the research papers out there that helped us understand more about this S. elongatus and played a major role when we decided to use S. elongatus for this project. After reaching out to her expressing our interest in her project and the specific strain she is working on, she donated us some cultures from her lab.
Dr.Khaled Selim, Scientific Group Leader at Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen
Research interest: Research interests: Molecular and structural mechanisms of carbon/nitrogen metabolisms; Cell signaling with special emphasis on PII signal transduction superfamily (PII and PII-like proteins) and second messenger signaling; Multicellularity and developmental processes in cyanobacteria.
After Dr.Selim’s talk on linking CO2 homeostasis with diurnal metabolic switch in cyanobacteria, our team member Matias reached out to him to present our project and get his opinions. They exchanged their experiences in working with S. elongatus and discussed ways in solving certain issues when working with the strain.