Washington
In June, we met up with the Washington iGEM team over Zoom. Both teams shared their projects and gave any guidance that may be involved, such as determining a combination of which biomarkers to detect for their project. By looking into different simulations or assays, we were able to troubleshoot some difficulties that Washington’s team was having along the course of their project. Along with this, we exchanged different methods to code and design our online presentation of our project. By working together, we were able to speed up the development of each of our wikis.
Wright State
We also hosted a virtual meetup with Wright State that eventually led to a collaboration with The Boonshoft Museum of Discovery and the Center of Science and Industry (COSI) in June. While our projects this year were quite different, we were able to find a way to work together by collaborating at local science museums. We met throughout the summer months to discuss our ideas for our presentations and experiments at the museums. Eventually, we got far enough along that we reached out together to both museums to set up our event. We understood the importance of having a focus on synthetic biology while also speaking about our own projects. For both museums, we came up with a series of activities and displays that would teach the audience about synthetic biology. At the end of our display table we would also then have activities specific to our own projects. Each activity could be scaled to different levels of understanding and ages, making sure all types of audiences are engaged and learning. So we teach about synthetic biology and what it is and then show how each of our own projects use synthetic biology to be successful. Because Boonshoft is by Wright State in Dayton and COSI is by Ohio State in Columbus, this was a great opportunity for us to support each other and branch out to an audience we might not have otherwise had. We were able to bring awareness of synthetic biology to a large population while also detailing our projects and their importance.
Sheffield
The Sheffield iGEM team contacted us to work together on their project: constructing a V. natriegens bioreactor for directed evolutionary growth. During this meeting, we also discussed various aspects in creating our models for our two bioreactors. They also shared some resources that would help us such as temperature profiles for the bioreactor and using a general mass balance to help model the bacteria population.
TU-Dresdan
We met with TU-Dresden’s iGEM team and learned about their project of creating a bioreacted bandage for chronic wounds. After learning they wanted assistance with engineering phages to incorporate AMP, we discussed forming a possible collaboration with our wet lab team in order to establish a method of phage engineering as well as producing Biobricks.
Queen's
We collaborated with Queen’s iGEM through social media outreach by celebrating International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples with a special post on our Instagram account. Other iGEM teams including UBC Okahagan, Patras, Rec Chennai, and King’s College London also took part in this initiative using the #IDWIPqGEM2022. By creating a post about Susan La Flesche, the first indigenous woman to earn a medical degree, we were able to teach users a bit more about a Native-American scientist.
