Partnership with HUS_United:
In the process of finding a cure for lactose intolerance, one team really stood out in helping us out, that is HUS_United. With HUS_United, we accomplished more than we thought we could have ever done by ourselves. From work ethic, to sharing materials or even communication, HUS_United and HS_China have been really close team. As a collective, we constantly supported each other in our projects and held meetings to regularly track the progress of each team and give advices. The key factors to our collaboration’s success stems from 2 main points, which kept the connections between HUS_United and HS_China strong at all times.
1. Sharing a laboratory:
Seeing the same people everyday in the same work environment sure ties strong bonds, as HUS_United and HS_China first met each other in the same laboratory. HUS_United Sharing a laboratory with us had numerous unpredicted benefits. Both teams taught a lot to each other about the experimental procedures, different techniques and methods at executing a certain step of the experiment, or just simple cleaning and sanitary maintenance. Being able to work in the same laboratory as HUS_United taught us a lot about sharing equipment and following each procedural protocols accurately in order to not affect the other team’s result and progress. We also helped each other a lot on minor but important details. For example, when someone forgot to take out a test-tube from the centrifuge, the other team would help in taking the solution out to make sure that the experiment went according to plan. This really saved a lot of time for both teams as we could not even count the number of errors and repeats we would have done without helping each other out.The atmosphere was much more comfortable too when team members from HUS_United were in the laboratory. Apart from laboratory work, we also helped each other in writing the “safety” section, giving advice to each other on the precautions of the experiment.
Overall, HUS_United really helped us move forward in the experiments. Our collaboration in the labs built a base for further work in the future.
2. Communication:
Since collaboration worked so well in the lab, both teams agreed to attempt to work more outside the laboratory, by helping each other on the project design, the conceptualization, or even human practices of our respective projects. As mentioned in the introduction, HUS_United and HS_China held biweekly meetings, giving reports on our progress and advice to each other on how to improve the overall concept of the project and workflow. HUS_United did an amazing job at helping us understand better how human practices were done. On our side, we held individual meetings with leading members of HUS_United and helped them with managerial work.
3: Humanitarian practices Collaboration:
Although the points above showed that HS_China and HUS_United were really strong teams.
Here is a link to how they described it:
https://2022.igem.wiki/hus-united/partnership
Partnership with SMS_Shenzhen:
By chance, HS_China and SMS_Shenzhen meet each other as both teams worked on projects concerning lactose intolerance. This was the beginning of a long-lasting partnership that led to many successful collaborations between the two teams.
Communicating and sharing ideas:
Since SMS_Shenzhen worked on lactose intolerance, we shared a lot in common. SMS_Shenzhen was able to provide a lot to us, and we hope that the work we have done with them was enough to show our gratitude towards all of the ideas and tips that they have taught us. Although we focused on different sides of Lactose Intolerance, we performed regular brainstorm sessions on a bi-weekly basis during the summer. This really helped our hp team as we shared the data of our statistical analysis and compared the results we received. Comparing results with another team led to a lot of unexpected findings, as we anticipated that the data from the questionnaire analysis would be different as both teams asked different questions. However, we found out that the conclusions that we drew from the questionnaire analysis was quite similar. In those brainstorming sessions, we each came up with ways in which we could work in Human practices. The process was amazing smooth and a lot of the ideas that we shared came to realize itself (such as the design of flyers to target a wider community). Apart from discussion, the brainstorming sessions also allowed us to share resources, as we gave our guest speaker’s contacts to SMS_shenzhen, so that they too, could interview people in the field of lactose intolerance. Moreover, we also came up with the idea of helping each other out in the process of building our wikis, which was a great relief and benefit for both teams. The collaboration with SMS_shenzhen went so well that we did not want to stop, which is why HS_China has aided SMS_shenzhen in the conception of educational videos. Althougth HS_china’s contributions were not as large of SMS_shenzhen’s, we helped them into making the four animated educational videos that they have right now. At the end of the line, the collaboration with SMS_Shenzhen was great. Although a lot of ideas were not brought to completion, we definitely enjoyed our time spent working with this team. Below is a link to their wiki, find out how they described their experience of working with us !
https://2022.igem.wiki/sms-shenzhen/partnership