SJTU software is the first team we establish a partnership with. Since we had the natural advantages of locations and shared resources, it is convenient and efficient to promote our collaborations further and supports each other from the very beginning. We have helped each other with nearly all kinds of work and experiments during the journey, from the spring to the fruitful autum.

The partnership first started in late April, much before we determined our formal project in the last days of June. Apart from what's mentioned above, we are also the reminder of each other and this is really helpful! We exchanged information and suggestions regarding the basic design of projects, as well as sharing messages for all kinds of iGEM activities or resources available to us in our college.

Our communication began in late April. At that time, the cooperation was mostly on a strategic level where we would decide the meaning of project ,chasing for fun, innovation and social value. Our dear fellows in SJTU-software definitely inspired us to develop Odyssey through several contact in social media. We shared ideas in our brainstorms on anything that was interesting and potentiallly where our project derived.

Our close communication can be desuced by what presented at last— it seems our project on DNA data storage were more like to be a software team's choice whilst their project of exploring the metabolic pathways of Actinoplanes is somewhat to be more 'wet-lab'. However, that's also the reason why we helped each other a lot in the following months!

On May 1st , thanks to an online meetup hosted by CPU, we communicate with many other teams from China, introducing our projects to the rest of iGEM community. Since SJTU-Software dismissed a meetup notice and miss the chance for presentation, we helped them to introduce their work in our charting room, which was held by each of the speech-given team for answering questions.

Both of us had an interesting conversation with iGEMers around the country. For the rest of May, we were both busy in promoting and exploring out projects. We firstly reached a basic conclusion and had a deep conversation with SJTU software , establishing the primary version of our cooperation----collaboration in wet lab and model design.

Before the end of spring semester ,we kept up with each other about our project schedule thourgh several meetings in June.

The SJTU-software focused mostly on the model design and the software development.Their work on DL-ecGEM of Actinomycetes was impressive in recommending targets of modification but lack the design of wet lab experiment to verify their contribution . Coincidentally , our project had the strong need to optimze the proteins we used , such as Dsup and melanin binding peptide and in turn, we were able to offer experiment platform at the same time. As a result, we made a proposal to specify our cooperation in modeling and wet lab. Though the unexpected pandemic smashed our plans , we still made a progress in both of our works.

In July we have lots of communication in regard to wet-lab. We proceeded in our collaboration plans in summer and woyld like to hear the suggestions from each other. Therefore, we started another meeting in the middle of July, sharing our experiences in the cultivation of Bacillus Subtilis as they would like to cultivate actinomycetes for the verification of their model system. They had no experiences in doing experiments and they have found a standard protocol from the website. Some of our team members check their protocols and help them to determine the materials and instruments they shall use.

Under our suggestions, they decided to search for professors working in this field in our university first before they bought the strain commercially. Besides, as they didn't heve enough experimental conditions and operations , we proposed several advice in accordance to our laboratory conditions, and we agreed to help and coach them to cultivate their microorganisms and do some preliminary experiments in our lab once they got the strain.

Meanwhile, they provided us with lots of information about modeling, inspiring us to look for some bioinformatic strategies to consider our modelling work.

The most of our experimental work was going to an end in September and we felt lucky and honored to have our dear fellows in SJTU-software standing by our side. A sudden out break of the pandemic in our university crushed our experimental procedures at the beginning of September and we were anxious about our project. SJTU-software shared the same anxiety with us as we were on the same campus. It was then that they suggested us to do somewhat outsides the lab. We thought of improving our part Dsup proteins by firstly conducting dry lab experiments like predicting the hotspot for mutation and check its binding affinity with softwares and websites.

During the modeling process, we encountered all kinds of difficulties when using Hotspot wizard,Rosetta,and Alphafold to meet our demand.It was for their patient guidance that really motivated us to complete our work. Besides, thanks to SJTU-software, they got in contact with prof.Yuhang Zhang (See in Human Practices.) and both the teams had a pleasant conversation with him. We disccussed problems regarding protein structure and functional improvements, both our team and SJTU-software learned more about protein design strategies.

Before the end of our project,we were still looking for ways to deal with our remaining issues such as biosafty, experimental delay due to the pandemic and so on. Once again,we turned to SJTU-sofetware for help.

Moreover, we cooperate in our wet lab for our verification experiments. It turned out to be a precious experience of offline meetup when the COVID 19 was still there in the early October.

It is rather exciting to meet all our friends in Tianjin who also works on the field of DNA data storage. As our most substantial partner , TIANJIN made a deep influence on our project in all kinds of way.

We first met with TIANJIN was on the meeting in May 1 when their project about Micro NuWa shed a light on our project decision. Back in May,we were still not sure which project we should choose as our final cause. It was their interesting multi-target editor for DNA data storage that really opened up our mind. After this meeting, we decided to communicate further at once.With another meet-up coming by, we started our long-lasting partnership.

In the following days of May, we also connected each other through WeChat to discuss experimental design issues and exchange experience on basic techniques. They are always helpful and patient to solve our problems.

When we were writing the protocols for our experiments , we exchanged our ideas to a great extent. For example, during our design for the verification experiment of information integrity ,we were suggested by their fellows to set control groups to ensure the experiments' reliability.

Meanwhile, we probe into the meanings and the future of DNA data storage as a way to reflect on our projects. We conducted regular discussions and exchange the latest news about DNA edit tools. Tianjin always share with us the updates on this technology since their university is advanced in this field with famous scholars working in the department.

These new ideas really inspired us on how we conducted our project. For example, in one of the group meetings, they mentioned a book telling stories on intercontinental transportation of information stored in DNAs by butterflies. This reminded us on our interstellar transporting of information and we were then inspired to explore our stories anout this new application scenario in this regard.

Not like our meetups with other teams, we can always disccuss things more professional since both the teams are familiar with what DNA data storage is. Besides, we are both trying to store information in the genome, so it is important for us to determine what to choose. We recommended the music (So Long and Thanks for all the Fish) to them!

In the summer vocation, we became more close to keep in touch with each other and established our collaborations in wet lab and project design.

In a casual conversation, we discuss the possibility of combining both of our projects together, thus we can efficiently encode and change the code of DNA information in the universe! We were amazed by the idea, and explore it further.

In their project, the sequence they inserted into the organisms contained a great numbers of repetitive ones. As a result, they found it hard to stabilize the structure and we realize that if it could be transported with our system, the fragments which is already difficult in keeping stability especially need extra protections. Therefore, we wondered whether our designs could help them to protect their special fragments. Both of us were amazed by the idea. So we mailed them our plasmid pDG1730 and they inserted their highly-repetitive sequence inside to construct a new part and mailed back to us. Unfortunately, the following experiments were interrupted by the sudden outbreak of Covid19 pandemic on the campus.

Not like our collaboration with other teams, we canBesides, by The new application of DNA storage for ancient murals through online conference and E-mail.

Apart from Wet lab, we also collaborated with each other in other areas, like Scientific communication & education.

On 27th July, the DNA data storage bluebook was published, two famous scientists as well as the members of Chinese acadamy from both ouf our univerity were involved in the edting of the bluebook. We immediately shared with each other about its content, and in the following months, when we thought about how to populaize the DNA data storage to the public, we would think of the bluebook again.

Our team have dedicated into popularizing DNA data storage from the very beginning since it is such a significant technology that shall shape the future of our world. Our team once conducted a survey among the public to investigate the ordinary perception of DNA data storage.We shared the surveys results with Tianjin, and both of us agreed to collaborate with each other in this field.

In the middle of September, Tianjin shared with us a ground-breaking paper published on Nature Communication concerning the DNA data storage in which the researchers store the ancient Dunhuang Frescoes inside DNA by de novo strategies. The research soon spread rapidly in China and people became more curious than ever on DNA data storage. We both agreed that this could be a good chance for us to conduct education work.

Inspired by the DNA storage bluebook as mentioned above, we decided to coauthor a more comprehensible and biref handbook for iGEM communities and the public to get to know about DNA data storage. And thus, our little brochure is born! ( Interested in our handbook? Check our education page to download! )

Besides, inorder to have an open dialogue and wider audiences, a series of Wechat Pushes regarding DNA data storage were released daily for promotion on this topic. Besides, we also collaborate on sending audiences who has subscribed our academic posters on a daily basis for a week to provide more professional informations regarding the technilogy.

All these ideas of how to popularize the topic, how to get access to wider audiences and the operations in reality were all under the close collaborations and insoirations we gained from each other !

We got in contact with Tongji_China much earlier than the time we formally established a partnership. At the early of april, we were trapped on campus due to the suspension in Shanghai and tried to explore some interesting topics for the summer. Their advisor kindly have a conversation with us on how to manage an efficient iGEM team with all the members participating and enjoying.

At May, 2022 teams from both school firstly meet in a nationwide meetup. Through the presentation, we found that both the two teams were planning to use B.sutilis as the chassis. We then exchanged our possible bacteria selections and basical design proposals in a further contact. We helped each other a lot in this regard and ultimately establishd a partnership in the late of May.

Because of the severe pandemic, we were onlt able to conduct an online meetup even if both of our universities were situated in Shanghai. We have organized an online meetup to introduce both of our projects, (since we hadn't decided our project until the late of June).

Since we both working on B.subtilis, we connect with each other later on the social media, exchanging information and sharing our experiences in conducting experiments.

At the end of July, we happened to learn that they also chose WB800N as their chassis, which we alsoused for producing our targets proteins without degradating them. We later host a small-scale online meetup and exchange the common tips for cultivating the bacteria.

Through the meet-up, we know that they encountered serveral difficulties in the wet-lab work due to the pandemic here in Shanghai. Undergraduate students from Tongji are not allowed to enter their university, let alone the laboratories.They had no choice but to postpone their wet-lab experiments until the beginning of the autumn semester in late August. So we offered to help them with our experiences of culturing WB800N strain.

For instance, how long it usually takes for the bacteria to grow into their logarithmic phase. Other protocols on B.subtilis, tested successfully amid our project, were also shared with them. These include commonly used operations such as how to produce competent cells, do electrotransformation and lyse cells to extract proteins for quantification.

In September, we still have a close relationship in the wet-lab and dry-lab alike as they are graping the time to carry out subsequent experiments but our university is stuck in an accidental suspension due to a small outbreak of Covid-19 on campus. We are planning to employ knowledges in direct evolution to enrich our project and Tongji team is just an excellent expert in this regard！

They briefly and patiently introduced direct evolution strategies used in their projrct and this helped us a lot when we use the websites and softwares recommended by them to build up some models!

Apart from the great helps we gained from each other on we-lab and dry-lab as mentioned above, we still tried to do some contribution to the rest of iGEM society. As two teams suffered a lot under the shadow of Covid-19 pandemic, we had both confronted a lot of difficulties. We regularly noticed each other with the updates in the prokects and they were always there to ecourage us under the incovenience and sudden iterruptions.

However, we gradually realized that in the post-pandemic era, dealing with difficulties such as how to promot online work efficiency? how to reduce time cost when working in a team ? And how to conduct meaningful human practices might be useful and inspiring for future teams!

Therefore, we have launched an activity for teams all around the world who once experienced working online to share with us their difficulties and their solutions (intersted in the manual writen by 6 teams? click here! )