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iGEM Freiburg 2022 presents
chAMBER
With our own database INCLUSIVE - Incorporation of Non-CanonicaL amino acids to Utilise SIde chains with VErsatility we want to facilitate the work with non-canonical amino acids, their aminoacyl tRNA synthetases, and the complementary tRNAs for both future iGEM teams and the scientific community as a whole.
There was never a toolbox in iGEM before which fully focused on compartmentalization in bacteria. We did change that by providing the bacterial microcompartments we worked on and established as biobricks plus sharing the information we gathered working on them over the summer! For a full overview and detailed information about all components, visit the chAMBER toolbox and our parts page.
With the advent of Alphafold and other AI programmes, 3D structural modelling is getting better and more accessible to everyone. To take a step in the direction that truly every scientist and budding scientist like us can get into 3D modelling and pursue more advanced topics like molecular dynamics, guidance is needed to learn these software skills.
Our approach to help future iGEM teams is the following guideline, in which we show how to get started in both Alphafold as well as PyMol and learn the basics for each software.
We did spend quite some time this summer on the topic of research integrity. During interviews with stakeholders, a seminar with an EMBO associate and the results of our survey asking researchers about the topic, we learned about many aspects one should pay attention to, for doing proper research and follow good scientific practises (visit human practices for more information). We think, it’s an essential skill every scientist should build up. Therefore, we did not only included the feedback we got into our own project, but we summed up and specified a list of advices, which we think can help future iGEM teams to make their project follow good scientific practises and ensures research integrity.