iGEM has become a great source of information and resources thanks to the participation of thousands of students from all around the world. However, each team and project have a very high level of complexity, which is why useful contributions keep appearing each year. In our case, what we found more challenging about navigating through the competition was knowing how to start, manage a team, plan a project, and keep track of our progress. For this reason, we created a guide designed to help future iGEMers build their team, protect their projects, and make the most out of their resources.
An iGEM project requires time and dedication, to get out of your comfort zone and to face new situations like the ones you would face when you start a new job. We know that it is a difficult process, trying to build a team having little to none experience. This guide pretends to give a series of steps and key points to consider when you create a team and develop a project. It was designed with the knowledge obtained in the length of two years of work by trial and error and gathers all our key lessons. Our goal is that, if you want to start and iGEM team or to adjust your dynamics and you do not know how, you can use this document to go step by step. This guide expands in the themes of running a team in the daily bases, beyond the exposed in the iGEM rules and resources. We recommend reading the rules previously to have a general context of the subjects we abord so you can complement with the all the other requirements requested by iGEM HQ that are not mentioned in this reference (specifically around the collaborations with other teams). All that is exposed in the present document are recommendations made by the iGEM ITESO team.
The most important part in forming a team is gathering the right people to raise the work that the project is going to imply. You might have the initiative to create a team, but that you don’t know the amount of people necessary to accomplish all the work you need. That’s why we recommend a recruitment process open to the general public, to give the opportunity to the whole community to be a part of it and not just your direct acquaintances. When you start an iGEM team, the focus in finding a team member is not someone who can do everything, but someone who has disposition and commitment to the project. The general goal is to develop a project with synthetic biology that looks over the social good. The specific goals will be determined after you have a stablished team. We suggest this in order to really integrate, even if some people have the initiative to create the team, the job would be by and for everyone. You search to create a united and solid team, that does not replicate the harmful conducts that we can see in the current world. To create a better world starts from the team’s dynamic.
Before you begin, you need to consider that iGEM has a list of requirements that you need to comply to get a medal: a wiki (webpage), a project promotion video, human practices, lab work, collaborations, implementation, engineering success, biosafety requirements and other types of forms related to the team’s progress (like the team roster).
Additional to this you must select three areas to develop excellency in them (in order to get a gold medal). IGEM offers options such as a wider human development, the improvement of a genetic existing part, the project modeling, the proof of concept, camaraderie, education and communication among others. For more information on the subject
It is important to know this before starting to look for people for your team. Even when it is a project centered around synthetic biology members of many areas of knowledge can participate. To have a multidisciplinary team is a key decision that would have a direct impact on how much you would accomplish inside the project and the quality of the deliverables. We suggest searching for members in these areas:
With time we realized that some key qualities for any member of the team:
The interview process might be long, but we recommend developing key questions and to observe their dynamics when working with other people in teamwork. It is important to keep the selection process impartial.
The interview process might be long, but we recommend developing key questions and to observe their dynamics when working with other people in teamwork. It is important to keep the selection process impartial.
A good PI is one of the most important parts of team building. You need to look for someone who is as committed to the team as any other team member. There will be times where keep up motivation will be difficult, or where there will be conflicts that are beyond your capabilities. Therefore, you should have an PI that acts as an authority figure within the team. Trust is key to give it a power of this level within the team. In the student members of the team the general decision of issues related to the development of the project must be maintained. PI acts in situations such as:
The overall objective is a PI from which one can learn beyond synthetic biology, like social skills, networking, time management, about the workplace, etc. A hand of trust where you don't know how to act that comes from a person equally passionate about the project. In our experience, a PI that contributed to our meetings and dialogues resulted in better organization and maintained as a formal project. As a team, it´s also important to look for how to remunerate a professional who contributes so much to the team because his starting point is different from that of a student. One way to do this is to see if your college can pay for extra hours spent working with you.
For instructors, select people who have the time and availability to evaluate their work closely. Evaluate in which areas you have less knowledge or require more training and look for people who can cover the roles based on that. We recommend searching within your university to facilitate the work and can also support with direct topics with the university. Instructors and PI also serve to support and give formality to the project, take it into account when selecting them, as well as issues with whom they can be linked, or what resources they can offer to the project.
In order to select the problematic, we suggest using a different approach. To each team member it would be assigned as a first task to investigate an existing problem in their city in which they think synthetic biology could have a significant impact. Each person will investigate and perform a short presentation of the problem (around 3 minutes), and how it impacts their community. After this, the most interesting affairs for the team would be voted upon to select 3 or 4 problems. Once selected, small work teams would be built to perform more detailed research of each problem and to propose a preliminary way to solve them or a first creative solution in order to see a possible mean to do it. This would not necessarily be the final one, it behaves as a first approximation that would help identify the ways you can apply synthetic biology in their area of interest. This process allows to select relevant issues for all the team, where all are interested in working.
Starting with a well justified subject to work on, allows us to have more creative liberty when it came to find a solution. It was also important to give the community a significant update that responded to the current needs.
A recommendation is to establish previous parameters to the creative sessions. These parameters can be the stablished problematic, some limitations of the people that would use the solution, or few points that as a team you agree not to approach. These boundaries allow to explore more creative routes or to find inspiration with an objective in mind.
We recommend building a team of professionals or professors with experience in the areas of the selected problematics. We search for experts that know about the issue from all angles: social, economic, scientific, environmental, or any other that as a team you consider important. Once gathered, summit a session in which you present them the ideas that you have in which they can bring to the table their area of expertise about what to and what not to do about the subject. This step allows to corroborate if the selected topic is feasible to work with, not only from the scientific point of view.
For example, we were interested in working with bees, with the correlation between depression and intestinal microbiota, with the pollution of an important body of water in our state and with the berry's cultures. In the session with the selected committee some perspectives were approached about to how we could conduct the investigation and the implications in the theme of regulations. For example, talking about the problematics of depression, it was mentioned that working and collecting human samples, as well as the use of personal and clinical data was a delicate subject and that our university had limitations about working with biological samples in the laboratory. When we presented the idea of working with the body of water, we were said that in order to be able to experiment we would need to replicate the lake’s conditions in a tank in our university or in a research facility. Another of our proposals implied the genetic modification of a fungi, in which we were told that from a technical point of view It was complicated. Around agriculture, we were commented upon about the social and labor difficulties faced by the field workers and that getting involved in that would require care. These perspectives helped us rethink which was the way that as team we wanted to take, being conscious of the social, normative and technical obstacles we would face. It was also important to know what we could and couldn’t work inside our university.
From the beginning, we implemented a template called “resource bank”. This template is an Excel document where each member recorded any resource they had at their disposal. It started from spaces for team meetings, personal skills (singing, cooking, painting, programming, laboratory skills, digital design, courses we had done in any area of knowledge, etc.); if they had a car to move the team in activities, if they had a business (regardless of the category). The purpose of this format is to make the most of all the resources the team has. Once you know what the team have inside, it is easier to know where you can move to get sponsorships, to organize events, if you want to organize a giveaway you know what you could offer without a cost to the team. Knowing where you stand, and the strength of the team facilitates the process of seeing a course for each area of the project. link
The contact directory has a similar function to the resource bank. This adds all the relevant contacts that each team member has. These contacts may be relevant within companies, with knowledge that the team does not have, potential donors or sponsors, or that may offer services to the team, potential stakeholders, or people who may be interested in the competition or in the team. In doing so, it´s important to note that any contact may be relevant in the future. It is better to have more than limit the possibilities of support from the beginning. The format includes the record of the contact, phone number or email, and person of the team that has the link. link
Since we had identified and selected the problem, we developed a directory of stakeholders. A stakeholder is an interested person, belonging to an organization or company, who may have participation in the given organization (in this case in your iGEM team). This directory allows you to register people who might be or are already interested. And by including an additional section on whether you have been contacted or not, you can keep track of which contacts it is important to make more approaches and establish a relationship, either to seek possible sponsorship or to include it in human practices for project development. link
To have a successful project, you need to identify strong and weak areas as a team, and plan around that. We learned this after participating in the IGEM Design League, so we recommend evaluating for a league before going to the Grand Jamboree. Design League gives you the tools to gain fundamental theoretical knowledge and participating allows you to see their overall dynamics as a team and what to adjust for best results. Above all, being a 100% new team or where most members have not participated in the competition before, having a trial period like this is basic to see the reality of where there are standing and how to continue. It is also important to know how support other IGEM teams and what to request support, in addition to scheduling advice, courses and training form other parts with time.
With Design League we learned that we needed extra work in synthetic biology and mathematical modeling, as our knowledge was limited compared to the level needed. We also saw that our audiovisual content and human practices had potential beyond what we detected. Another way to do this is studying the work of previous years IGEM teams: see what they did, how you can do it, and what else they can contribute. We recommend talking both roads. After studying this, compare with the skills and resources available and take this information to select criteria of excellence. With opportunity areas applies the same idea. Detect where you have the least knowledge, see what other IGEM teams do and how to get there, search available resources, ask for advice or collaborations with other teams where relevant.
A requisite for good project management is the planning of the activities to be carried. We tried diverse ways, and the first planning process delayed us months, this method was to establish a deliverable and break down the activities necessary to achieve this report. The problem was that we broke down these activities into too small and specific tasks from start to finish of the project, this did not consider that there would be errors and did not allow to manage them. We recommend you use project management tools and software, currently there are many pages and applications that offer this service, we suggest you investigate them and choose the one that best suits your style of organization and work. The second planning process that gave us better results is the following: 1. Start of the Project: Define the goals you want to reach, consider the personal achievement objectives of each team member (why did they join the team?), and rely on the medal criteria established by IGEM to set objectives. This can be done by talking the manual where each criterion is defined and how to achieve it (available on the IGEM website), starting first with bronze, then silver, and then selecting 3 or more areas of excellence for gold. Subsequently, align personal goals to fit within these criteria. For this we leave you a Project Charter template for your team to define your project. link
2. Project planning: Define the activity to be conducted in order to achieve each of these objectives, it is a question of proposing specific projects that they should develop. For example, if you selected excellence in Human Practices, what do you want to do as a team to meet this criterion? For example, we selected excellence in education, we wanted to develop a project around feminism or indigenous inclusion. Knowing that this was what we wanted to achieve, we already had something to work towards. From each of these subprojects it is important to define which objective is linked, the members who will be developing the subproject, its deliverable or result and a tentative date of completion. 3. Execution: This is when you use the equipment management tools, add all the subprojects to these tools. We suggest at least one of the following:
Go step by step in weekly intervals, counting how much time is available to complete the project and if this is enough to finish what you want to do. Schedule IGEM deliverable dates and that to have ready for that day. With that information, act and above all do not waste time, nor leave weeks without anything scheduled that contributes to the goal. Build step by step each deliverable. It´s important to have a follow-up meeting (we recommend you at least one per week, but without falling into unnecessary meetings as they steal effective work time) where the equipment management tools are reviewed, the progress of activities is exposed, the activities that follow, if assistance is needed to complete an activity or some resource (money, laboratory facilities, etc.) new activities are created to further develop the sub-project, and ream decisions are made, Also, assign a responsible person per follow-up board to take note of the development of the meeting and share ir at the end of the meeting in case any member could not attend.
An iGEM team needs to be multidisciplinary. To make sure that you have enough people in your team, you should verify the areas that your project should cover. The mandatory areas for the medal requirements are:
Additional to this, it is vital to have a project management area. People whose work field are planning and organization of the project and its resources in general. In our case, this area was driven by industrial engineering students. The success we perceived by our team is directly related to the planning or management performed. Another non mandatory section we developed was entrepreneurship. The business focus in this area is linked to management and project implementation. Even if your goal as a team does not include the entrepreneurial excellency, this area improves to the viability evaluation of the project, helps create contacts and to showcase your team. We widely recommend taking this perspective into account.
We worked for a year with the common management of an iGEM team. A team divided into areas, with a leader by area and a core team that joins all the area leaders. However, we noticed that this management style kept us apart and disconnected among us, adding to the fact that many of the responsibilities fall on the leaders, making that some team members loose motivation and disconnected from the objectives. Our organization proposal is a management by projects. If there is a task, activity or deliverable, each one of these would be a project. For example, when looking for sponsorship this would be the area of work, to organize a reunion with a potential sponsor is a project inside the work area and this project would have specific tasks like preparing a presentation, make a memo, contact the sponsor or arrange the space in which the meeting would take place. Each of these tasks is performed by a different person, and the project leader would confirm that everything is done. The general goal of this management model is that you can collaborate in any area that takes your interest with specific tasks in any point of the project. This focus also has the objective that the work does not fall into a few people in charge, boosting teamwork and the personal evolution of each of the members. For this organization model, a commitment that must be done as a team member is to be aware and attentive to everything that is being developed, the active/past/future projects and the objectives you have for the competition. Additionally, that when you enter the team, you make a commitment to participate in projects that not only involve one area. Those who wish to participate only in one area is a “collaborator”. A collaborator could be any person interested in the project, but that wishes to participate only in one of the projects of the big one. When you are a collaborator, you do not need to comply with the obligations of the team members (explained later), but you would get your full credit for the performed task. Establishing the collaborator role allows to include more people in the project and make a stronger community.
Rules are fundamental to set the ground of what it is expected from each team member. To start with, there are the iGEM foundation values and the rules established by them (available in the iGEM website). The values they propose are integrity, good sportsmanship, respect, honesty, celebration, cooperation, effort and excellence. Our suggestion is to add the following:
To establish an informed commitment between all the participant parties, you must develop a commitment letter in which you explain all the settlements you agree when working with the team. This letter should include a definition of the team roles, the iGEM and team commitments, the values that rule the job, engagements with the institutions where you will perform the project, warnings and sanctions, a confidentiality and image use agreement, and a section about the intellectual property if it is relevant to the objectives. The part of the intellectual property is an important point that we consider since, in the future we are interested in creating a business from the developed work. If in your goals as a team is something you find attractive, you must define who, and why you own the idea, and you must clarify to those members who are not, this situation before they become a part of the team. For example, we develop the idea for BerryVax for iGEM Design League. The general concept and the value idea was developed from January to December 2021. The executed work, performed after, was an adjustment to an already existing concept and completing the other areas of the project. The members that entered the team after this date have an intellectual property of their work, but they cannot use the concept as theirs. Besides, in our penalty we included a section in which, if you are removed or resign from the team you give up to your intellectual property. This last part was decided as a team and works with our style of work, we recommend adjusting the rules to your perspective and considerations, and even receive legal advice if it is possible. We propose the following roles inside the team:
Professors who have a position of authority and are responsible for the team in an administrative and institutional level. In their tasks are included the team registration, biosafety certification, permit solicitation, besides giving advice and accompaniment to the team throughout the project. They have a direct relationship with the iGEM HQ and must go along with the team to the Jamboree. Defined by the iGEM Foundation as the General manager.
Student that participates in an official manner inside the team with a formal commitment with the team activities and the development of the project during its planning and execution. Participates in the team meetings and activities, give their knowledge and experience to the development of the team. Fulfill general tasks and maintains an active performance in the projects in which they are involved. Spreads the publicity content of the team. Is aware of deadlines, both internal and external (defined by iGEM HQ). If it is possible and if they perform considerable contributions to the project, they assist to the Jamboree. They communicate effectively their ideas and unconformities. Participate in the decision making around goals, objectives or problems that arise. Their name will appear on every product that is published in their time. However, this does not make them intellectual proprietors of an idea or used concept.
Member of the team that helps as a contact point between the team, iGEM Foundation and the institutions in which the project is developing. Carry out administrative functions of the team along with the management area. They must have biological knowledge and leadership abilities to communicate with character and assertively. Their leadership is oriented towards knowing the goals and guide the team to accomplish them. They have problem resolution skills. Responsible of supporting the team.
Member of the team with the responsibility of give follow up and direction to the performance of the activities of a running project. Collaborates with management in the strategic planning of the defined goals for the team. They manage to mediate administrative conflicts inside their project. Keeps continuity between what is been done and what it remains to be done.
Student that participates in a partial manner in the team during a limited time in specific activities of a determined project. Does not participate in an active manner in all the project activities nor in the decision taking outside of their area. Does not have the obligation to comply with general activities of a team member. Does not assist to the Jamboree. They are given an official participation certificate by the team with curricular value for their work inside the project.
Members of the team that participated in the first general design of the idea/solution and have a percentage of the intellectual property of the project idea.
Management Team members that take part in the general management of the project, giving follow up to the agreements between the members, making sure that the deadlines are met, organizing meetings, among other. They are entrusted with mediating conflicts between team members, and conflicts of the project management as well as the difficulties in the tasks at hand. Instructor Professor or researcher that provides support and technical training to those team members inside their area of expertise. Defined by iGEM Foundation as a Head Coach Adviser Person that provides additional support to the instructor and PI. Defined by iGEM Foundation as Assistant Coach. As commitments of the team members, we propose the following: Assist to all the meetings in which their presence is required, in person or virtually. In extraordinary circumstances in which they cannot assist, you must notify beforehand (except in emergencies) and must catch up with the talked subjects and the assigned tasks. Spread the publicity content of the team. Registry of the weekly activities in a record or the chosen organization tool. Learn and use the chosen organization tool. Comply with the designated general tasks. Participate in general activities Participation and spreading of events, donations and raffles. Working during the full iGEM season, including the summer. Comply in time and form with the activities inside the project, as well as being always participating in an open project. Translating tasks when it is necessary Consent letters, notice of privacy Usually employed in the health sector to inform the patient about their diagnosis, treatment, risks and benefits, as well as possible alternatives. We design an informed consent letter to release information about the involved people on the research and validation of the solution proposal, such as commentaries, video and audio recordings, photographs, etc. That would be used for the project development and possibly published as part of the corresponding deliverables for the team Wiki, also that their personal data would not be used with any aim different from the established in such letter. It is specified that the participation process in the research is completely voluntary. Consent letter: link
Information compilation It is important to have a platform in which all the documents generated are compilated: consent letters, commitment letters, signatures, etc. All these documents that bring more or less to the project must be in the same platform. This allows to have the last versions of a document always available and avoid losing information, also to have access to the information worked by other team members and have an effective organization of what we have and what we are missing. We recommend the MS Teams platform, since it allows to create folders, tabs, meetings, have chatrooms, among others that were key to our team management. Other cloud services might work as well.
At first it was decided to have a core team without appointing an official leader since we wanted to have the same hierarchy all within the team. Over time we realized that in this model we were losing guidance and there were still unnamed leaders acting without parameters of common agreement. We established key points that were important to us as a team: • All members must have equal weight in decisions • Same level of intellectual property and responsibility with the project • No one should send anyone or decide the course of the project without prior agreement among all team members Key qualities were established that are sought in a team leader: determination, assertive communication, character safety, affective time management, ability to delegate tasks, in addition to the values established for a team member. For us, the role a leader should have is: • Be responsible for administrative procedures: payment of registration/IGEM fees, direct resource management with the institution or university, request approval from the institution when necessary • Contact with management members of the institution or university where the project is developed. Person, you approach if someone outside needs something from the team, designated point of contact that you can channel to contact other team members if needed. • Always keep project goals in mind and make sure steps are being taken to meet each of them • Look out compliance with internal and IGEM HQ rules • Maintains team unity • If there is money, it ensures that it is managed responsibly and that all necessary payments are made • Resolve conflicts before scaling them to be addresses by the PI • Support point for more tam members It is important to stand out that being a team leader carries a big responsibility. While it is not the job of the of the leader to fulfill all the tasks within the team or the overall management of the team, it does involve more work meeting institutional requirements and other issues that arise within a team. There are key issues of grand delicacy that a leader deals with, in our case mainly around tax issues such as billing or money management that can only be handled by the leader and cannot be delegated. In addition, along the way many unexpected situations arise that add to the effort to maintain consistency and motivation in the team. This represents an emotional weight for the leader that must be considered before taking the position. While a leader has qualities developed before, he also continues to grow and learn leadership like other team members with their respective areas. Therefore, a PI that serves as a guide and support is vital, as well as dividing leadership responsibility between two people who complement each other.
We recommend that you join your team to your college from the beginning. Doing so can help them access facilities, money, or other resources more easily. Also, you need to do so before you start working to avoid breaking institutional rules. In some cases, they approve the use of the institution´s name as a team name or grant permission to use the establishment logo. In our case, even issues like our logo saying the name of the institution needed approval from an internal committee. Just as when seeking sponsorships, people in the institution must evaluate and approve it, and usually there are rules already established. Check ahead of time to avoid delaying equipment processes.
What for some teams can be a month of savings, in a Latin American context and adjusted to the salaries commonly received, are equivalent to 6 months or more pf challenging work. This makes sponsorship vital to complete the project. To remove the shortest time form project construction work, effective activities must be performed that take little effort but give high income. For example, an activity to do to collect money can be a conference or a course. However, the planning time is long and involves many additional points (spaces, diploma management, design of the exposed material, advertising to the activity, design, and sale of tickets, etc.). Activities such scuffles require less planning and are reduced to the effort of ticket sales and tax management of the money collected, plus they can have the same economic return (collecting the same amount of money as with congress). The point is seen how to invest as little time as possible and align it to your goals as a team so as not be distracted form the focus of the team that should always be the project. Another way to get money is through companies. Before you take this route, you should know how you would manage the money. From how you would spend it, to what account it would be deposited to and the tax aspects that this implies. Some universities allow money into their account if it is an institutionalized and official team. Evaluate this possibility with your university and the implications it has. You can also watch it with other student groups that already manage money to see the possibilities you team has. To start contacting companies we recommend the following process:
1. Find contacts. Either through the team’s resource bank or on platforms like LinkedIn. An effective way is to look for companies that are close to or interested in your project, as well as those that have an area of philanthropy that is interested in supporting independent science. You can also search for companies that can donate something in kind (laboratory equipment, flights, consultancies, something you can then sell to collect money, etc.) 2. Establish communication. You can go from a presentation email saying that they are interested in working with the company and looking for a possible sponsorship with them. Another way is through LinkedIn, send direct messages to people you find indicating the same point and wait for a response. Many will not answer, overestimate the number of people planning to contact. 3. Work together with those interested in sponsoring the team. Prepare a presentation of their work considering for the intellectual property of the team and not divulge vital information of their development. This presentation should contain who you are, what you are doing, how much money you need, and what you can offer in exchange for this money. To know how much money you need, make a final budget of the best-case scenario in financial matters. Considers costs of laboratory, research, human practices, collaborations, transfer to do validation interviews, necessary advice, trip to the Grand Jamboree, etc. Anything that costs the team and its members must be included in the budget. In our experience, the total cost of the project was around $50,000. To find out what you can offer in exchange for this money make a table of sponsorship levels based on the resources you have at hand and your strong areas as a team. We knew that our audiovisual content was excellent, so we offered this in return. Depending on how much money is given to the team, are the benefits offered in return. Other benefits you can offer in return (specifically in Mexico) is tax deductibility. Research requirements well and whether you can do so through your university. It is important to come to these meetings with an optimistic vision. Go for everything, but if it is not within the possibilities of the company to give everything you request, propose other modes of support. The idea is not to come out empty-handed from any meeting. Even if it’s a small support, everything contributes. 4. After the meetings, follow up closely. Appoint a person to be in touch with this sponsor and insist when you feel it is necessary. Getting a sponsorship needs determination. Don’t give up until you get a resounding no from the company. 5. If they succeed in obtaining the appeal, a letter shall be drawn up as a sponsorship agreement. It is a sensitive issue and is written like a contract, so they can seek legal advice if necessary. Carefully break down what will be given in exchange for sponsorship and delivery dates. Avoid over-committing or giving room for ambiguities. This contract is protection for both the sponsor and the team.
The situation of science in Latin America or in a developing country is very different to the one faced by teams in countries with a better political and scientific development. What it is more important to consider is that besides the work that a project entails in all its areas, you face conflicts that imply additional work. These additional tasks add time to the total need by the project, making that you need more than the double or triple amount of time to make it. The social context of your team affects directly to how it is performed, and the reality is that we are not in equal footing with other countries. Each one of the additional tasks that must be done, or even the extra effort for each member to complete them subtracts time that otherwise would be used to complete the project. This is not a reason not to participate, but it is necessary to take it into account when making the planning and recruitment, since you would need more time a people to complete the job. Important points to consider: Funding: it would be very important to complete the project, you must consider this from the beginning and make constant efforts to get the resource. Bureaucratic affairs: especially around the economic resources management and the internal processes in your university. To have money implies fiscal subjects that are necessary to remark, we recommend receiving advice about these topics in order to avoid committing a misdeed or fiscal fraud without knowing. If the money goes into the account of any team member, this could have implications to the person as well, such as the tax payments over the received resource. Take it into account as an additional expense. Receiving reagents or the iGEM kit takes longer and it is very probable that they do not arrive in time for your experimentation. Have other lines planned and act with a lot of anticipation (more than three months).
There are local and international calls that can contribute directly to the success of your project, such as validations or support in monetary resources or deliverable assistance. In Mexico there are state research or entrepreneurial prices developed by universities, government and companies. Applying to these was essential to obtain resources and prepare ourselves for the final presentation in the Grand Jamboree. All the team must be attentive to these types of competitions. We recommend designating a responsible person for searching and delegating the responsibilities that the competition generates.
Keep attentive to the tools given by iGEM. These could go from grants, advisory sessions, reagents or special programs that assist your project or members. During the iGEM season, multiple opportunities are offered, and it is necessary to have a responsible person to check the iGEM pages, identify the opportunities and share them with the team.
When starting a project, the direction will surely not be clear. They will not know if it can be patented or how, but it is necessary to protect it in case of the opportunity to scale your project. Care with whom you share the idea and what you say about it. Specifically, if they present it in an open forum or publish it on a platform, this can interfere with the patent process and make your project public. It is important to know that although it is a university project, it is still valuable and innovative. Be aware that your work has value and see it as such. Trust your idea and don’t give it away.
• Mental health is a topic that is directly reflected in the project. As a team member you must know how to ask for help when you are living a difficult time in your personal life. Not having the mental health needed to accomplish your tasks within the team is a valid reason to leave the project, and you should not be ashamed to ask for breaks or quit when you need it. However, it is necessary to have commitment and responsibility with the project, to leave when you need it and not at the last moment when your work not done affects the deliverables of the project. Responsibility to the team also involves taking care that the goals are met and not getting in the way of everyone’s success together. • We decided to develop this project in two years, one year for Design League and another for the Grand Jamboree. Doing so allowed us to get to know our team dynamics well, and our strong areas. However, maintaining consistency and motivation in an independent project is difficult and by extending it, we found that we fell into dead times because maintaining motivation for so long was complicated. These are long periods of unrewarded effort, which helps team members' personal development, but represents a daily challenge. It is an effective way to be a new team with a new project, but in the future, we would seek to shorten the project development time and reduce it to a year of work with breaks and planned vacations, as well as fixed work times. • It is necessary to consider that there will be mistakes and always have more ways of doing things. One does not have to put all the confidence that a resource will achieve the goal. Inevitably time will be lost, keep it in mind and make the most of the effective time. • Prioritize team integration. A better project is achieved when all members feel it is their own and not like working for someone else.
Finding a suitable biodegradable fungicide for our genetic circuit took a lot of research time, until we read about the chitinase in a few papers. Even though we found the chitinase part (BBa_K3686011) on the Registry, we decided to contribute and add new documentation from our research. This part of the registry is an update of the existing part made by the iGEM20_SZ-SHD team designed by YingJie Lei. Information was added considering the possibility of it being used as a fungicide since it has the ability to destroy the cell wall of various strains of fungi, such as Fusarium spp, Sclerotium rolfsii, Pythonium sp., and Rhizoctonia solani. This contribution has a significant importance because it helps to expand the library of registries. In this case, we didn’t found evidence on the iGEM Parts Registry of chitinase being used as an antifungal. This was only superficially mentioned. Therefore, we decided to add some examples to demonstrate that chitinase may be used as an antifungal. Although we couldn’t perform experiments on the laboratory, we obtained theoretical results, which we decided to publish, as they may be helpful for other teams as a theoretical parameter. This can be validated or refuted through wet laboratory experimentation. Additionally, the constant update of the parts’ information is essential, as several teams (not only us) may be using or researching a certain part and, through the literature, simulations, and experimentation, new information may be added, which can be useful for future research and to avoid the obsolescence of information.