Attributions

iGEM at Tel Aviv University

(The Conceptualization Process)

At our university, the iGEM project is built as part of an annual course. During the year, we had weekly meetings led by our principal investigator Prof. Tamir Tuller and our advisor and tutor Matan Arbel who is a former iGEMer. In the first semester, we divided into pairs and presented to the team projects of former iGEM groups from all over the world. This helped us to better understand iGEM and to meet with some optional concepts of synthetic biology for projects. In addition, we met with Karin Sionov, the captain of the TAU iGEM 2020 team. She explained to us about IGEM, its rules, medals and criteria. This was a great intro into the world of IGEM and its sets of rules, and we are really grateful for her making time for us.

Afterwards, each one of the pairs was asked to come up with an idea for the project and to present it to the team. We brainstormed the different ideas and consulted with academic advisors. We presented our preliminary thought process and project ideas to our advisory committee, composed of Prof. Martin Kupiec, Prof. Itai Benhar, Prof. Ori Gofana and Prof. Avigdor Eldar. We reviewed the strengths and the weaknesses of each project and talked about the feasibility of achieving POC within the time of the competition. Eventually, Shai Cohen and Nitai Ad-El’s idea was chosen by a majority of votes.

During the first semester we had safety and lab training work with our tutor Matan Arbel. In addition, we had a couple of classes going over the basic understanding of molecular genetic work and especially the cloning process. This was done in a theoretical manner first (engineering parts, cloning in plasmids, working with benchling ect.) and then in a ‘wet’ manner, where we went to the lab and practiced cloning in E.coli using IGEM standards parts and plasmid. We then verified our cloning using PCR. All in all it was a couple of really fun and informative days in the lab, and we are really grateful to Matan for that!

In the second semester we began to work on our project. First, we splitted to sub-teams of Model, Biology, Human practices, Wiki and Funding. Each sub-team had a meeting once a week, in addition to the weekly team meetings with Prof. Tuller and Matan, for synchronization and guidance. During the year we constantly talked and got advised from our principal investigator and tutor, especially when faced with challenges in the lab.

The Team

Our team was divided into sub-teams of Model, Biology, Human Practices, Wiki and Funding. Each member decided which teams he wanted to participate in, according to his background, skills and wishes, while each one could join more than one team. Each sub-team has a team leader, while the entire team has a captain.

Our team captain – Efi Moree, was responsible for the synchronization between all the different sub-teams and for the ongoing communication between the team members and our PI. He was also monitoring our compliance with all the requirements for the competition during the progress of our project. Apart from leading, Efi participated in all sub-teams and contributed greatly to the Model team and the Biology team in the daily work.

The Model team, first led by Rei Mendel and later by Yehuda Landau, was responsible for all the engineering parts in the project, including development of our different models and their features after doing a thorough background research which included reading of many scientific research articles. In addition, they were responsible for building and developing our software tool.

The Biology team, led by Nitai Ad-El and Dor Breier, was responsible for all the wet lab work, including the planning, design and execution of the experiments, analyzing the result, characterizing parts and maintaining the lab’s cleanliness. The lab manager was Yoav Navon and he was responsible for ordering all the materials needed for the experiments.

The Wiki team, led by Tal Tzfoni, was responsible for all the wiki design and coding. In addition, the division of responsibility for writing the wiki pages content among all the rest of the team members. The wiki team was also responsible for designing the presentations and for creating the promotional video.

The Human Practices team, led by Ilan Edelstein, was responsible for planning and scheduling the meetings with all the researchers and advisors we contacted and consulted with through the year. They also organized public engagement events and an educational event and were responsible for posting updates on our social media accounts.

The Funding team was led by Yoav Navon, who was responsible for contacting relevant organizations and companies for fundraising and donations of lab equipment and materials. The team was also responsible for presenting the presentation to the potential investors.

Name Teams
  Efi Moree     Team Leader (Captain), Model, Biology, Wiki, Funding  
  Tal Tzfoni     Wiki team leader, Model, Funding, Human practices  
  Rei Mendel     Model team leader, Wiki, Human practices  
  Yehuda Landau     Model team leader  
  Nitai Ad-El     Biology team co-leader, Wiki, Human practices  
  Dor Breier     Biology team co-leader  
  Roee Ovadia     Model, Wiki, Human practices  
  Yoav Navon     Funding team leader, Biology, Human Practices  
  Yulie Hagani     Model, Wiki  
  Ilan Edelstein     Human Practices team leader, Biology  
  Kobi Mashiach     Biology, Human Practices  

Our Instructors

Prof. Tamir Tuller is our Principal Investigator, and this is his fourth year leading the TAU iGEM team at Tel Aviv University. He led our first semester weekly meetings and through them helped us to get to know iGEM better. After choosing our project, in the second semester, he provided us constant guidance and feedback during our weekly meetings and advised us as our main advisor in everything related to the model, biology, presentations and more.

Matan Arbel was TAU iGEM 2020 Biology team leader, and this is his second year as the team tutor and advisor. He provided us with biological and lab support and guidance, helped us to better understand iGEM and gave us a lot of helpful feedback.

Lab and Modeling Support

Steering committee - Prof. Martin Kupiec, Prof. Avigdor Eldar, Prof. Uri Gophna and Prof. Itai Benhar for serving as our steering committee members and providing us guidance and professional feedback throughout our project.

Prof. Dan Peer’s Lab, Prof. Martin Kupiec’s Lab and Prof. Uri Gophna’s Lab supported us throughout the work on our project, especially the wet lab work, allowing us to use their labs’ equipment.

The Zoology department of the George S. Wise Faculty of Life Sciences in Tel Aviv University for providing us a class to run our weekly meetings throughout the year.

The members of Tamir Tuller’s lab – Dr. Zohar Zafrir, Dr. Yoram Zarai and Dr. Alon Diament for providing us general modeling support.

Human Practices and Collaborations

We would like to thanks all the people who participated in our Human Practices work and agreed to meet with us:

Creative Support

Shahar Galor for animating our promotional video.

Rob of Audio ID for narrating our promotional video.

Yuval Reiss for helping in English writing and proofreading of the promotional video script.

Funding and Equipment Support

  • The Iby and Aladar Fleischman Faculty of Engineering, Tel Aviv University
  • The George S. Wise Faculty of Life Science, Tel Aviv University
  • Edmond J. Safra Center for Bioinformatics, Tel Aviv University
  • The Sagol School of Neuroscience, Tel Aviv University
  • The Ela Kodesz Institute for Medical Engineering and Physical Science, Tel Aviv University
  • Lonza
  • Merck (Sigma-Aldrich Israel)
  • BioAnalytics
  • Addgene
  • Thermo Fisher Scientific
  • Rhenium
  • Twist Bioscience
  • IDT (Integrated DNA Technologies)
  • NEB (New England Biolabs)
  • HyLabs
  • Mercury (Merck Millipore)
  • Tamar Laboratory Supplies Ltd.
  • Ornat Biochemicals & Lab Equipment
  • Wix

Entrepreneurship Support

Ramot – Technology Transfer Company of Tel Aviv University for helping us with the provisional patent application.

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