Collaborations
Overview
This year, we have collaborated with a total of eight teams to improve various aspects of our project, from our laboratory work to science communication. Starting from podcasts, newsletters, and all the way to London-wide in-person workshops, our collaborations this year have placed a strong emphasis in promoting the iGEM community spirit and spreading synthetic biology awareness.
CLS_UK
Newsletter
We collaborated with the CLS_UK team on the educational outreach aspect of both of our projects. This entailed writing an introductory article for their newsletter, on topics including synthetic biology as well as iGEM overall. Having heard positive feedback from the team, we understood that their classmates and lower years received this short article well and it nourished their interest for synthetic biology, and in participating in the school iGEM team in the future. This also helped us boost our educational outreach and public engagement.
Symemco Talks Podcast
Our team collaborated with CLS_UK on our Symemco Talks podcast episode. Here we discussed what challenges they face as the UK’s only High School iGEM Team, what it’s like leading a team of 30 A-Level students and how iGEM has influenced their future educational parts. This was broadcasted over Spotify, therefore reaching a global audience, inspiring other High School students to potentially collate their own team as well, hopefully making the competition more diverse.
Linkoping_Sweden
Podcast
In this particular podcast episode we were joined by Linkoping_Sweden about the link between diagnostics and therapeutics in the context of neurodegenerative diseases. We discuss accessibility, preventative medicine and the impact of synthetic biology on the future of biotechnology. Here we wanted to bring more attention to each of our projects, bridging the gap between diagnostics and therapeutics, specifically focusing on Alzheimer’s disease.
NYCU_Formosa
Podcast
We also collaborated with NYCU_Formosa on a podcast episode. Here we explored the importance of bridging the gap between art and science, with the purpose of gaining new perspectives on topics we hear about every day in the lab, and opening these conversations up to the more artistic audience. We chose to discuss BioArt, expanding our demographic not only internationally, but career wise as well. This episode appealed to more than just scientists, also catching the attention of artists, who focus on exploring scientific concepts using visual mediums. This episode also helped introduce our partnership on the workshops, and announce our BioArt competition.
The Chroma Campaign
NYCU_Formosa also took part in the Chroma Campaign and Accessibility Series. They adjusted aspects of their feed in order to better fit the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines by using the guides we created and published on our Instagram, making their content more accessible to those with visual and auditory impairments.
Guides
Furthermore, the NYCU_Formosa Team troubleshooted our guides prior to their publication, allowing us to optimise our engagement and ease of comprehension of the information on them.
BioArt Workshop
We have held four workshops in collaboration with the NYCU_Formosa iGEM Team on the topic of BioArt. This theme was chosen because science communication teams on both sides were passionate about opening up the field of synthetic biology to people from a wide range of backgrounds, for example those who do not have a direct link to STEM and may be looking for a way to break into the field. The primary objective for these workshops was to bridge the gap between humanities, arts and sciences, making complex research topics in the field of synthetic biology accessible to all.
The workshops were attended by more than 70 people, with feedback forms at the end of each session proving those who participated left the sessions feeling inspired.
In the initial session, the guest was Kyuang-Yi Ku, a renowned BioArtist in Taiwan. He spoke about the importance of destigmatizing taboo topics and public engagement with regards to particular cultures, as well as his own work and exhibitions in London and Taiwan. This helped adjust our language on social media, creating a more positive discourse surrounding synthetic biology.
The second workshop was set around how to market complex scientific information to different audiences. We were joined by Gill Brown, an illustrator focusing on communicating neuroanatomy through the visual arts. The first half of the workshop took the format of a lecture about Dr Brown’s career path and the importance of the arts in science, while the second half was an interactive session where Dr Brown took us through the ideation process and used Adobe Illustrator to start creating our own pieces! This not only helped them understand complex topics within synthetic biology, as well as the pathophysiology of AD, but it also encouraged them to use more creative mediums to view the research in a different perspective.
In the final workshop we encouraged a free flowing discourse and networking session from the participants where we launched a BioArt competition, with the winner’s work being displayed in an online exhibition.
UCL_UK, ICL_UK, and CLS_UK Team Presentation Workshop
Leading up to the iGEM 2022 Grand Jamboree in Paris, the KCL iGEM 2022 team hosted a Team Presentation and Public Speaking workshop with Elaine Powell, a Forbes award-winning Professional Public Speaking coach. UCL_UK, ICL_UK, and CLS_UK. Within our event, we first described the specific requirements of our Jamboree presentation, the judging criteria used by the Judges during our Judging session, and the recommended structure of iGEM presentations. Elaine presented detailed advice on finding our ‘hook’, how to display scientific data in an interesting way, how to compose your body language in front of an audience and more. Additionally, we hosted a mock-iGEM Jamboree session afterwards, where teams had 30 minutes of guided preparation to create a 5 minute presentation.
Before our session, 66.7% of attendees had not even started working or thinking about their Team Presentation for the Judging session. Following the feedback from Elaine, 100% of attendees ranked the session a 4-5/5 in terms of its inspiration to further improve their presentations. Additionally, 100% of attendees stated that this workshop advantageously benefitted the way they will approach the Grand Jamboree Session. Overall, the London-wide workshop we hosted was extremely invaluable for several teams in improving their perception and methods to work towards the Team Presentation deliverable in late October.
Bilkent_UNAM
Project Promotional Video
Bilkent_UNAM significantly helped us in the production of our promotional video. They troubleshooted our script, using recent literature to help us ensure that our statistical evidence about AD was correct and up to date, meaning our audience stays accurately informed. As well as this, Bilkent_UNAM also dubbed the video in Turkish, writing a transcript for subtitles too, meaning our video was even more accessible than intended, not excluding those who speak Turkish from watching our video, which introduced our therapeutic and project as a whole.
Wet Lab
In return for their assistance for the promotional video, our team left comments on their protocol for enzyme digestion, transformation as well as Flow Pressure liquid chromatography. By doing so our team helped ensure that the protocols they had planned to implement could successfully be used.
Unfortunately, Bilkent_UNAM pulled out of the 2022 competition season.
Queens_Canada
We collaborated with the Queens_Canada team to spread awareness on Indigenous Peoples in science, with a focus on Canada. Here we created an informational stream of posts regarding Indigenous beliefs surrounding Alzheimer’s as well as the different kinds of research that have been prevalent amongst their communities.
Patras_Greece
For World DNA Day 2022, we collaborated with Patras_Greece to spread awareness of the importance of DNA in science. To achieve this, we had a group of our members take a photo holding the letter ‘C’ for the base Cytosine which was later combined with other nucleotides to create an overall virtual strand of DNA. This made it easier for younger, budding geneticists to better visualise DNA.