Overview
This year, we had a wonderful experience in partnership with the Wego_Taipei team.
Since the very beginning of our iGEM journey, members from both teams were very interested in each other's project. It was convenient for both teams to interact and communicate due to close distance between our labs. At first, both teams shared inspirations and presented their target issues and project outline with one another. We aimed to develop fluorescent indicators that provide automatic and precise detection of bacterial culture growth status, while the goal of the Wego_Taipei team was to engineer a phosphate-consuming bacteria to combat eutrophication. Although our projects belonged to different categories and both teams intended to design different constructs, we still found common ground and discovered the possibility to establish a long-term partnership after having in-depth discussions.
Discussion About Engineering Designs
During our partnership, we held several virtual and in-person meetings to share our experimental progress and exchange thoughts about our projects. Our first collaboration plan came up when we shared their idea of applying SsrA degradation tags to reduce the half-life of fluorescent proteins. While both of our projects involve the use of fluorescence as sensors, tags could increase accuracy in indicating essential timepoints within the bacterial growth curve. The Wego_Taipei team re-designed their polyP sensor version II containing mCherry carrying a C-terminal SsrA to improve the efficacy of the polyP sensors.
Our second collaboration was arranged because both teams would like to test whether their plasmid construct is functionally effective. The Wego_Taipei team would like to check whether accumulation of polyP and expression of AsPhoU would affect bacterial lifetime and growth status. Meanwhile, we would like to test the efficacy of their fluorescent construct by expressing their plasmid in other bacteria. Therefore, both teams came up with an experimental design, which involves transforming the AsPhoU vector into the engineered fluorescent DH5α strain, and comparing color change over time in both groups: with and without the AsPhoU vector. Although this experimental design has not been put into practice due to differing time arrangements between teams, it is definitely a valuable experience for all team members to cooperate and brainstorm on a common project. Beside the marvelous collaborating designs and advice to each other, our collaborations also included providing the Wego_Taipei team with restriction enzymes and the E. coli Nissle 1917 strain.
Collaboration in Human Practices
Beside the critical idea sharings which helped both our teams improve and get inspiration in our wet lab, the Wego_Taipei team also invited us to be the first guest of their Human Practice Project, Eutro in Vitro. It was a podcast program which invited different iGEM teams in each episode sharing their team project. It aimed to let more people notice the issues and spread public awareness of synthetic biology and iGEM through the podcast channel. During the in-person recording, both of the teams had a great time sharing our project and the social impacts we expected to make in our local society. After the in-person recording together, the HP members got to share the Human Practices projects of both teams, and share the experience of promoting our plans to the public, especially through social media. During the Human Practices collaboration, both of us had a great time discussing and sharing ideas with each other.
To view other events we've done to engage the public in synthetic biology, please visit the Education & Communication page!
Discussion About Hardware of Dry Lab
We also had a deep communication on our design of the devices. We were planning to implement our product in industrial production, especially the recombinant protein expression production. In our plan, the engineered E. coli would be cultured with other E. coli in the culture tank and be served as a growth phase indicator for the researchers. But we would like to design a tool that could limit the range of activities of our engineered E. coli, because we hope to raise the concentration of the engineered E. coli in a certain part of the tank to detect the colors of the bacteria more accurately, and reduce the potential risk of interfering with the overall bacteria in the tank. And this was exactly what the Wego_Taipei team did this year. They made a device which allows the liquid to flow past, and limits the bacteria in the filter they designed. Therefore, both the device team members have discussed the ideas of the device design. During the discussion, the Wego_Taipei team introduced their design to us, and we shared how we would like our product to be used in the industry. The thought for us to design a filter, just like what Wego_Taipei has done, to put all the engineered E. coli inside in the culture tank was inspiring and interesting to both of us. We kept sharing the coming-up ideas and the pros and cons of using such methods. Through the discussion, the Wego_Taipei team got to think beyond the implementation of their project that they have planned, and we gained a lot of useful information about how we may put their design into real use.
We cherished the opportunity to have a partnership with the Wego_Taipei team. Every online meeting, every discussion and every collaboration have given both our team members great inspiration and advice throughout our projects, and broadened our horizons of how synthetic biology can be applied in our world.
