In Vitro 2022
The 2022 In Vitro meetup and competition was organized by iGEM Concordia and McGill iGEM for Canadian iGEM teams. In Vitro was held in Montreal, Quebec, and was intended to bring Canadian teams together while also giving us a chance to collect feedback on our projects from a wider audience. Teams traveled from across Ontario and Quebec to participate. iGEM Guelph collaborated with 6 other Canadian iGEM teams through the In Vitro competition, where we also won first prize, tied with iGEM Queen’s!
Throughout the In Vitro competition, and following it, iGEM Guelph worked with other teams to improve our work and contribute to the work done by other teams. Teams such as iGEM Toronto and iGEM Laval are working on projects similar to ours, that involve insect pest management. Our three teams had faced many similar challenges, and were able to give each other advice on how to handle various problems with our projects. We were also able to work with teams who had different strengths from ours, such as iGEM Queen’s which has a very strong engineering and modeling department. Queen’s team members were able to speak with us about our ideas and give us feedback on how we could strengthen our mathematical and statistical modeling, and helped us to brainstorm ideas for what a mechanical engineering component of our project could look like. Lastly, Waterloo iGEM worked with us after the competition to exchange fundraising ideas. They helped us to build our bank of financing options for our project this year, and for future years!
Mentorship - Thailand RIS
iGEM Guelph has also had the opportunity to collaborate with team Thailand RIS iGEM, who is a high school team participating in the iGEM competition for the first time. They are also working on a pesticide, one with massive potential for combating bacterial wilt in a variety of crop plants. We met with them and had the opportunity to compare our work and exchange ideas for future directions and improvements.
As this is their first year in the iGEM competition, we also discussed some of the challenges they faced navigating the competition for the first time. iGEM medal requirements can be confusing even when you have past team leaders to act as advisors, so it’s understandable that they experienced some difficulties. We were able to clear up some confusion surrounding parts pages and medal requirements. Thailand RIS was an inspiration, and our team was so happy to meet with them and offer what advice we could!