KORHS
Team-Team Collaborations
On June 23rd, team Korea_HS held its first collaboration meeting for iGEM 2022 with team NU Kazakhstan. In this meeting, NU Kazakhstan mentored Korea_HS by providing useful dry lab resources for protein modeling and its variations during protein folding, as well as a step-by-step process on protein modification through websites such as the AlphaFold Protein Structure Database and the Worldwide Protein Data Bank. These websites provide models of any proteins and their general functions. The AlphaFold Protein Structure Database in particular was useful to Korea_HS in building a digital model of our desired unique protein and to determine how it folds in order to determine its compactability and strength. NU Kazakhstan also advised us to experiment with changes made to the genetic coding of the DNA in order to strengthen the DNA. Finally, NU Kazakhstan also advised us to be wary of acids by creating sulfide bridges. This information was used by Korea_HS to explore different tertiary protein structures and determine how they would affect our wet lab process.
The collaboration with NU Kazakhstan was vital to Korea_HS’s experience with collaboration as we were able to receive valuable feedback from NU Kazakhstan and gain exposure to a typical collaboration interaction.
On September 4th, KCIS and Korea_HS had their first collaboration meeting. We began by explicitly introducing the main idea of our project, data storage by DNA. KCIS iGEM suggested that we read the article Could all your digital photos be stored as DNA? by Anne Trafton. This article described a pre-existing model of DNA storage and encouraged us to explore Korea_HS’s experimental purpose and future applications by taking inspiration from the suggested article. We were able to implement this information in our SDG projects and in our future projects. Korea_HS's previous main goal for this project was to make better and more efficient DNA Storage by DNA, but after reading the article, the main goal shifted to connect with Global Health Problem: such as massive greenhouse gas being produced when hard drives and SSDs are being used. In addition, KCIS iGEM presented their human practices projects, which centered around obesity awareness and methods to help reduce the ongoing obesity epidemic. Some of their project ideas included physical public appearances through conversing with randomly chosen people on the street. This inspired Korea_HS to complete their sticker poll activity in Apgujeong.
Overall, meeting with KCIS iGEM helped our team develop our project’s information more efficiently than before and inspired Korea_HS to pursue human practices in a new approach.
On July 9th, Korea_HS had its first collaboration meeting with ASIJ Tokyo and had two meetings. Unfortunately, due to the mass difference between the Korea_HS project and ASIJ Tokyo, ASIJ Tokyo couldn’t give specific suggestions about our project. However, ASIJ Tokyo and Korea HS discussed how to make a great environment for networks, conferences, and webinars. Since all the members from the Korea HS were new, not many knew exactly how webinars and conferences work and most of the ASIJ Tokyo members were in their second year, many knew how to handle large meetings. The two teams discussed networks and conferences, specifically with ASIJ Tokyo advising Korea_HS on the formatting of international conferences to make the event as collaborative as possible. Few suggestions and advice that ASIJ Tokyo gave to Korea HS team members were: to plan thoroughly before starting the webinar, constantly promote the webinar, try to make some type of icebreaker before starting the actual webinar, and make sure that everyone are participating and included during the webinar. ASIJ Tokyo's support has significantly impacted our handling of meetings, networks, conferences, and webinars.
Overall, Korea_HS’s interaction with ASIJ Tokyo was helpful in terms of discussing the creation of a comfortable and interactive environment for other teams in order to promote a supportive relationship.
Korea_HS held its first collaboration meeting with Gems Taiwan on July 2nd, 2022, and had a total of two meetings. Since GEMS Taiwan was tackling the agricultural issue of Panama disease in the banana trees of Taiwan, they were able to provide feedback to our project’s application on specific environmental and health issues that may come with it. They also advised us to connect with Global Health to research more information. Furthermore, when discussing our progress report about the wet lab and its medal criteria, both teams provided constructive criticism on each other’s rough draft of the Experiment Wiki. For instance, they suggested that we include pictures for our Experiment Wiki in order to provide a visual reference to our procedure.
The meeting with GEMS Taiwan really helped Korea HS with making our Experiment Wiki documents. By having more pictures in the Experiment Wiki, the Experiment Wiki page is more vividly expressed, and the critics made the Experiment Wiki document more chronological and well understandable to other readers.
On July 15th, Korea_HS met with Thailand RIS. We were able to provide logistical help to each other. We assisted in reaching out to other iGEM teams besides Instagram, such as Slack, WeChat, and more. Thailand RIS also suggested we read An Introduction to DNA Data Storage by A PUBLICATION OF THE DNA DATA STORAGE ALLIANCE. Thailand RIS suggested we use this material as one of our backup options, as this paper may contain more information that Korea_HS couldn’t find. One of the downsides of using DNA storage instead of digital storage Korea_HS is the maintenance simplicity. With the current technology and advancement of cellular storage methods, regular checkups will be necessary, which can put off bigger companies from switching to DNA storage over digital storage. Korea_HS’s human practices team utilized this information in their interviews. We also advised Thailand RIS to utilize Slack, specifically its channel number five, in order to announce their projects, in addition to the active use of Instagram to promote them.
This meeting helped our team to expand our knowledge of our project and helped the Thailand RIS team to expand their communication and interaction with other iGEM teams.
On August 9th, Korea_HS held the first collaboration meeting with CCU iGEM, a university team in Taiwan. CCU iGEM advised us on our human practices efforts by giving us ideas to make synthetic biology more accessible to the public through games and hands-on projects. Korea_HS’s human practices team used CCU iGEM’s feedback to create their at-home tomato DNA extraction kit. CCU iGEM gave feedback on how they would do if they packed the At-Home Tomato DNA extraction kit. They said that they would pack tomatoes in a vacuum bag instead of the normal zipper bag since the vacuum bag would last longer. And having tomatoes last longer, it would make the delivery process so much easier since, during the summer, foods rot faster. In addition, CCU iGEM proposed an indirect collaboration of a “CookBook Project” in which Korean_HS would have to share a particular cuisine specific to South Korea that is both healthy and delicious. Korea_HS proposed a large direct collaboration of their “iGEMers’ Badge Project,” where iGEM teams, including CCU iGEM, would create a badge that represents their iGEM team.
On July 10th, Korea_HS met ICT Mumbai and held their first collaboration meeting. The two teams found a significant resemblance in their topics in both their wet labs and dry labs, specifically in protein modeling and gene encoding. As ICT Mumbai had similar topics as our team, we decided to collaborate as a mentor and a mentee. To share feedback and check the wet lab and dry lab progress, both teams met each other regularly. During each session, ICT Mumbai advised Korea_HS members of the basic experimental tips and technologies that we could use. Also, ICT Mumbai participated in one of the direct projects of Korea_HS, the iGEMers’ Badge Project. They designed a badge that represents their project, including a DNA and RNA strand. ICT Mumbai supported us by giving us feedback and information about our wet lab and dry lab procedures and actively participating in our direct project.
Direct Collaboration Initiatives
This year, team Korea_HS decided to do an Instagram Reels Project similar to last year's project. We decided to continue this project because it would provide an opportunity for other iGEM teams to promote their projects through us and create a coll. By spreading our project, it will also be spreading the goals that we are trying to achieve. Therefore, we decided to make this project where each team had the opportunity to introduce themselves and their projects. Each video was 60 seconds long, and all the videos were posted on our Instagram page, and we promoted them by posting on our Instagram story.
We promoted the Instagram Reels Project by privately messaging iGEM 2022 teams, Slack messages, Instagram posts, and Instagram stories, and we constantly proposed this project during all collaboration meetings. Even though we have been heavily promoting our Instagram Reels Project, there were only a few participants: GEMS Taiwan, ASIJ Tokyo, and MetaThess. But we can never say that this project was a failure. By continuing this project, we could spread the participating teams’ goals and fantastic project ideas that could inspire others or educate those who watched the video. Regardless of the participant volume, we achieved our primary goal. And all thanks to GEMS Taiwan, ASIJ Tokyo, and MetaThess for participating in achieving the main purpose of the Instagram Reels Project with us.
This year, Korea_HS started the iGEMers’ Badge Project. We decided to do this project mainly because we wanted to connect with other iGEM teams and meet them in person in the Grand Jamboree. We have met with over 10 teams and interacted with over 50 teams through social platforms. Though our team didn’t have the opportunity to work with them, we still wanted to make sure that we had connections with them in the Grand Jamboree. We privately messaged each iGEM 2022 team, proposing our projects to all the teams we collaborated with, and advertised our projects on Slack, Instagram, and WeChat. We received submissions from 17 teams in toal: UBC iGEM, Thailand RIS, Stony Brook iGEM, Starchstem iGEM, Mingdao iGEM, McGill iGEM, iGEM Thessaloniki, iGEM Patras, iGEM MetaThess, iGEM IISER Pune, iGEM IISER Mohali, ICT Mumbai, Fisherly, Empire Gene, CSMU Taiwan, CCU Taiwan, and ASIJ Tokyo. Team Badge Project and were ready to hand out the badges on the first day of the Grand Jamboree!
We chose this project not only to connect with other iGEM teams, but also to give iGEM 2022 teams a memorable experience. Having their own team badge during the competition will be a very precious and valuable memory for them and to us.
During the collaboration meeting with ASIJ Tokyo, ASIJ Tokyo proposed the continuation of the Northeast Asia Joint Collaboration Network with them from iGEM 2021. Northeast Asia Collaboration Network was a conference open to all competing iGEM teams in Northeast Asia with the purpose of presenting their projects and collaborating with one another. We gladly accepted the offer. After the meeting, Korea_HS and ASIJ Tokyo talked through social media platforms and emails discussing the logistics of the Joint Collaboration Network. We made an Instagram post and advertised similarly to the badge project and the Instagram Reels Project. We also created a Google Form in which people could fill out and register.
Unfortunately, there were not enough teams who were from Northeast Asia to participate on this Collaborative Network. Therefore, we changed the network to the International High School Network, in which more iGEM 2022 high school teams could join and collaborate with other teams. We planned the Network with the main goal of making a supporting and inclusive community during the meeting. The network consisted of two different parts: Team Presentations and Exchange. The main goal of this event is for high school iGEM teams to support and collaborate with each other without limitations due to a lack of collegiate level knowledge. We also wanted all the participants to give some sort of feedback after each presentation. Whether it was a question or a suggestion to the presentations, we also did a menti meter to give thoughtful complementation to the presentation. On September 25th, we held our network, where participating teams discussed their projects and gave each other constructive feedback on certain aspects of their projects. Teams were able to make new connections and deepen already created ones.
Indirect Collaboration Initiatives
This year, Korea_HS collaborated with many different teams, and CU Egypt was one of them. CU Egypt asked us to make a short video about Alzheimer’s disease in Korean and gave us a script written in English. The members of Korea_HS thus translated the script into Korean and recorded the video. After recording it, we shared the original version of the video clips so that CU Egypt could edit it. CU Egypt’s video helped to inform the general public about the detrimental impact Alzheimer’s disease has and CU Egypt’s response to help determine the causes of Alzheimer’s disease and how to help cure it. Through this project, Korea_HS received education about Alzheimer’s disease, its cause, and further developed on the possible areas of collaboration.
Korea_HS had an opportunity to participate in McGill, Queen's, and Cornell University iGEM teams’ Educational book project. We chose our team’s favorite bacterium and researched the basic information about the bacterium. Then we filled out the google form with the information about the bacterium so that they could use the information when making their bacteria book. This book project provided a meaningful opportunity for Korea_HS to present the diversity of bacteria.
While contacting other iGEM teams, we were able to contact iGEM Patras and participate in their project. They asked us to participate in the translation of their Educational Comic, "Synthetic Biology Mischief!" which required us to translate the comic written in English into Korean. We translated it and shared it with iGEM Patras. By participating in this project, we were able to learn new knowledge of synthetic biology. But not only we gained new knowledge, we were able to participate in spreading the information to multiple parts of the country where they could also learn new knowledge.
Korean translated version
With an interesting collaboration with GEMS Taiwan, Korea_HS participated in translating other iGEM team’s infographics, which contain their general information and project, to spread awareness and share with the communities. Our team translated a total of 6 iGEM teams’ infographics: Ming dao, Dusseldor, CCU, KCIS, NYCU, and Gems Taiwan.Especially, through this project, communities who are incapable of speaking English will be able to understand the different problems iGEM teams are currently trying to solve through the translations.
After Thailand RIS challenged Korea_HS to a This or That challenge on Instagram, in which the team had to answer which traits the team had and challenged three other teams to participate. This was a great opportunity for the team to introduce themselves and interact with other teams before the Grand Jamboree.
Korea_HS has been contacting 2022 iGEM teams in order to advertise and connect with other iGEM teams. While we contacted the Taipei Wego iGEM team to participate in one of our collaboration projects, we were also able to learn about their collaboration projects. Their offer included podcasts, magazines, posters, and so on. Our team has decided to participate in the podcast project. We wrote a script for the podcast answering the given questions. The questions were: “ What is your team’s inspiration for the project?”, “ What is the purpose and the significance of your project?”, and “ How does your project impact society?”. For other people to be able to understand our projects, we wrote our responses precisely and very informatively. Once we recorded, we shared our work with Taipei Wego, which edited and posted our work to Spotify.
This year, Korea_HS collaborated with CCU iGEM. During the meeting they offered us the opportunity to participate in their project, CookBook Project, and to share one of our nutritious korean cuisine dishes. This project aimed to demonstrate that people can prevent cardiovascular disease by eating delicious and healthy foods. Korea_HS made an infographic about Miyeok Guk— seaweed soup — and how the ingredients that are included are helpful to prevent CDV.
Near the end of August 2022, Korea_HS collaborated with Cambridge iGEM, a university team, in participating in the Virtual Quiz Cambridge iGEM hosted. During the quiz session, the members of Korea_HS cooperated to solve questions made by Cambridge iGEM and learned interesting facts related to biology.