Assisted Living Home Care

XJTU-China

https://2022.igem.wiki/xjtu-china/partnership

Because we were the first two teams to participate in iGEM in Shaanxi, China, our two teams had been linked since the previous competition. We had made contact in the establishment stage of this year 's project. In the following several exchanges, we gradually established the relationship of deep cooperation. Due to geographical advantages, we could conduct offline face-to-face communication.

The first encounter this year

In July 2022, we hosted 2022 Northwestern China iGEM Meetup and got an enthusiastic response from XJTU-China. At the meeting we learned that they were working to produce an engineered powder of blue light-induced synthetic herbicides and EPS, which was very useful for protecting the environment. At this meeting, we looked forward to future cooperation and hoped to cooperate in experiments and human practices.

 

XJTU-China’s presentation

 

Group photo of offline participants

Our HP Cooperation Journey

After the Northwestern China iGEM Meetup,we co-planned two joint events with XJTU-China:hyperspace-time post office and a charity sale. Through these two activities, we ha dsuccessfully spread and popularized synthetic biology and iGEM in two schools. Many students were becoming more and more interested in synthetic biology and iGEM. You can click there to know more about this.

 

XJTU-China’s event photo

Help each other with experiments

In July, we conducted a number of transformation experiments which didn’t have anticipative results. Our analysis of the results might  be the quality of the carrier we purchased.So we asked them if there was a pSB1C3 carrier that could be lent to us to help us solve this problem. They generously gave us the carrier to help us overcome this experimental difficulty.

 

Carrier photos

HP communi cation

Before the deadline of wiki submission, we summarized some problems on the wiki page and had an exchange with them. Then we made a summary of the activities of the charity sale and hyperspace-time post office. Through this exchange, we solved the problems encountered in the wiki and collaborated more deeply on HP activities.

 

Photographs of offline participants

Our contribution for northwestern of China

This year our team proposed to supplement the northwestern part library, which is a gene library jointly constructed by iGEMers from Shaanxi. XJTU-China was willing to join in this work. You can click there to know more about this.

 

SZPT-CHINA

https://2022.igem.wiki/szpt-china/partnership

The previous deep cooperation had laid a deep friendship between SZPT-CHINA and our team. After inquiring about their project this year, we found that their project ha d certain similarities with us. So we established this year's deep partnership. This year, we had deep cooperation in experiment, human practice,education and so on. Due to the impact of COVID-19, our communication is online. Each of our online communication was recorded and uploaded to the official account.

This is the stories about us —

The 4th Northwestern China iGEM Meetup

The 4th Northwestern China iGEM Meetup in July 2022 was our first official offline event. Although SZPT-CHINA is located in Shenzhen, this event was also a rare opportunity for communication between the teams.So we invited them to participate online. They were also very delighted to communicate with us.

SZPT-CHINA online photo

Weekly meetings

On July 29, we had the first formal communication online. We learned about each other's projects. Besides, SZPT-CHINA asked us for help that they hoping we could help them contact glutathione related companies. Most importantly, we decided to hold an online meeting once a week in the future in order to learn about each other's progress and communicate in time.

 

First Exchange Meeting

At the meeting, we shared the progress of each other's projects and the confusion that many activities could not be carried out due to the epidemic. And we helped each other solve the problems that the project-related companies could not get in touch and the wrong growth of strains in the experiment. The following is our weekly meeting minutes.

Baimei Gene Co., Ltd.interview

On July 30, we interviewed Professor Dai, technical director of Xi'an Baimei gene Co.,Ltd.SZPT-CHINA learned that Baimei Gene Co.,Ltd.was also doing glutathione testing, which was of great help to their project. So they contact ed us for an online interview with Professor Dai. After learning about SZPT-CHINA 's project, Prof. Dai proposed some suggestions for their project and also answered their questions.

 

SZPT-CHINA’s presentation

Interview with YAKULT

SZPT-CHINA visited and interviewed YAKULT. Due to the privacy of the factory, we could not directly contact the company for online interviews.But we learned from this visit in the weekly meeting with SZPT-CHINA about the culture conditions of active lactic acid bacteria, the production process of fermentation broth, the transportation and preservation of products, etc. These let us further understand the probiotics.During the visit, SZPT-CHINA found that not all probiotics could survive and function in the gastrointestinal tract, a problem might also be encountered in our project.So they suggested that we simulate the gastrointestinal environment for strain screening.

 

Photos taken during the visit of SZPT-CHINA

Experimental interview with teacher Zhang Rongrong

On August 5, our experiment encountered great difficulties. The strains we needed to use had not been cultured, which made us very anxious. At the meeting, we asked them this question. SZPT-CHINA helped us find their instructor Zhang Rongrong to answer this question.

After getting the answer, we adjusted the antibiotic concentration of our experiment and successfully cultured the target bacteria finally.

Into the world of synthetic biology

We participated in the five-school joint science lectures on " Into the world of synthetic biology " host ed by SZPT-CHINA. Each team gave a wonderful science lecture on synthetic biology from the aspects of cosmetics and cultural relic restoration. Our team popularized the application of synthetic biology in the diagnosis of tuberculosis and cancer. You can click there to know more about this.

Five-School Seminar

After the end of the five-school joint science lectures on "Into the world of synthetic biology”, we held five-school seminars. This meeting introduced the projects of each team and discussed their respective projects.You can click there to know more about this.

 

We would like to express our gratitude to SZPT-CHINA who accompanied us along the way. We encourage each other and sincerely hope that both of us will get good results.

 

DKU_China

https://2022.igem.wiki/dku-china/partnership

 

 

Logo of DKU_China

 

Under the introduction of our instructor, we found that DKU _ China was also understanding the problems of intestinal flora and heavy metal poisoning.We immediately had aliaison meeting. We exchanged the project direction of the two teams in detail and discussed the links and division of labor that can be cooperated.After the meeting, we selected the relevant team members from the two teams to form a small team, which was responsible for the tasks that the two teams need ed to complete together. Since then, we had weekly meetings to communicate timely solutions. In-depth cooperation in modeling, hardware, extended northwest part library and HP.

Hardware

After understanding each other 's project content, we found that both sides had hardware requirements. So DKU _ China designed a hardware for our two teams through 3d modeling--a biosafety box for sampling, which could be used for fecal sampling in non-experimental environments. You can click there to know more about this.

 

Hardware pictures

Modeling

Due to the lack of students who were good at mathematical modeling in our team this year, our modeling had always been very weak. After they learned about this problem,they specially arranged members responsible for modeling to assist us. We also reached a long-term cooperation in this part. DKU_China helped us build a model to compare the difference in bacterial growth between laboratory conditions and a portable detector for intestinal microbleeds under household conditions. We mainly provided bacterial OD values and time to help them fit the curve. In the first modeling, the result was not successful due to errors in our experimental manipulation. So we improved the deficiency and started the second experiment. This time, from modeling we learned two useful results which indicate the success of our experiment. You can click there to know more about this.

Expand northwest part library

This year, our northwest part library was really facing the whole country. A nd DKU _ China, located in southeast China, was willing to join this work. They contributed BBa _K4494197 - a toxin sequence for bacterial suicide that can be used as a suicide switch. You can click there to know more about this.

HP

DKU_China had helped us enrich the content of the brochure on intestinal health, which included information on intestinal flora and heavy metal poisoning. You can click there to know more about this.

Together with DKU _ China, we had a special lesson for Beijing No.22 Middle School. In class, we talked about some basic knowledge of synthetic biology, our project, what is iGEM and how iGEM affect the world. You can click there to know more about this.