For the Level-Up collaboration, we helped the ULaval, Thessaloniki, Stockholm, and Patras iGEM Teams in their goal of making synthetic biology more accessible to everyone - independently of their background knowledge on the topic. For this, the teams prepared four different pamphlets with four difficulty levels.
Our team contributed to the project by translating the texts into German, Greek, Spanish and Persian and distributing the pamphlets at our university and during various educational activities.
The project was a great way of making science, particularly synthetic biology, more inclusive. Everyone interested was able to find out about iGEM, the objective behind and the benefits of synthetic biology in the language, and the level of difficulty they were personally most comfortable with.
Figure 1: Some of our translated templates in German, Greek, Spanish and Persian for the Level Up collaboration by iGEM ULaval, iGEM Thessaloniki, iGEM Stockholm and iGEM Patras
Team mascot
Every great team needs a mascot - a little lucky charm representing the projects and groups. So Estonia_TUIT organized a collaboration in which each team would be able to introduce their mascot as well as their project in this year's competition.
Our mascot is (how could it be otherwise?) a little spider. The spider represents our endeavors of producing spider silk and creating wound-healing patches. It was those spider-patches that earned our mascot the moniker: Spatch.
Figure 2: Template of our mascot Spatch as well as our project idea for the Team Mascot collaboration of iGEM Team Estonia_TUIT
Collaboration with Team Münster
For the Ruhr-University Bochum, it was the second year of participating in the iGEM competition. Therefore, as seasoned veterans in the trade, it was only natural for us to smooth the way for other teams that competed for the first time this year.
Last year, in our first year of participating, we were very fortunate to be mentored by the TU_Darmstadt team. Thus, we were happy to try and aid other groups like we were helped in the past. IGEM_muenster was a fantastic team to collaborate with.
We tried our best to answer any questions a first-time competitor might have in various Zoom meetings and hope to have eased the beginning of their project by sending an iGEM-kit. We also greatly enjoyed exchanging ideas and motivations for our projects with another team.
Figure 3: First meeting mit iGEM Münster
Team Surveys
Our team also participated in various surveys to help other teams and learn some new things.
IGEM Thessaloniki offered a fascinating survey inquiring about our knowledge of glioblastoma. It was particularly interesting to learn about the survival rate and the diagnostic tools for detecting this specific type of cancer.
The iGEM team of the FSU decided to use this year's project to tackle a problem that immediately affects them: the decline of the Floridian manatee population. We happily tested our knowledge of algae and manatees in their short survey.
DUT_China created a questionnaire to give insight into our general knowledge and opinion on CRISPR/Cas 9 library screening.
Infinite iGEM art space
This year our team also responded to Estonia_TUIT's invitation to create a piece of digital art related to our project. It was a fun way of expressing our creativity while also displaying this year's work.
Figure 4: Artwork related to our project for collaboration on creating endless art space organized by iGEM Team Estonia_TUIT
