When great people come together, big things happen. For our collaborations, we exchanged contacts, sent samples to other teams, made a manual, a workshop, a comic book, and many other things. There are several things iGEM teams can work together!
Partnership, modeling manual, workshop, comicbook.
With UAM team we carried out many things together. We organized an agriculture workshop to diffuse our projects and educate on the technologies we use. It was an event to educate on the preventive measures in agricultural practices. We also created a mathematical model manual to introduce new teams to what they should be focusing on, platforms and tips. As a bonus, UAM's team took part into our comic book compilation.
UAM and Tec-Chihuahua maintained close contact during most of the season. Additionally, our complimentary work allowed us to generate results that made a big impact on our project. Thus, we got in talks to evolve our collaborations into a partnership.
Partnership, shipment of water samples, material exchange, donation of iGEM parts.
TecCEM and Tec-Chihuahua had multiple collaborations (that lead us to unify and begin a partnership) It all began when TecCEM asked us to send water samples so that they could test their water biosensor. Later on, both teams made an exchange of materials so we could perform our lab experiments. We sent them MS culture medium and they sent us Escherichia coli HT115, which we had a hard time finding. Lastly, they were kind enough to share with us some leftover parts from 2021 that we needed for our experiments. We could later return the favor by sharing them the parts they needed from our 2022 iGEM kit since they hadn't received theirs yet.
Partnership, contact exchange, model brainstorming, stakeholders and value chain definition, and lab experiments.
TecMonterrey_GDL and our team also collaborated big time. It all began with an exchange where they shared with us important agriculture contacts, which was crucial for the expansion of our project. In return, we helped them define their stakeholders so that they could develop a research agenda. We also took part in their value chain definition so they could mentally adopt the bigger picture on their project's impact. We assisted them with the model area because they were uncertain on what they should do. Finally, we helped them carry out some protein expressions they sent us. All these collaborations and our constant communication allowed us and them to grow into a partnership.
Featuring: Thailand_RIS, UNSW_Australia, Leiden, NYCU_Formosa, Leiden, CSMU Taiwan, REC CHENNAI, Lambert_GA, KCIS_Xiugang_Taipei, CityU_HongKong, iGEM Vienna, GYHS, AACHEN, TecCEM, UAM, Estonia_TUIT, NCKU_Tainan, Aboa, Biotech EC, UM_MACAU.
As part of our education strategies, we made a short comic book about our project. We made this to attract our younger audiences and awaken their interest in science in an interactive way. Nonetheless, we noticed this was an opportunity to include other teams in this project. By asking other iGEMers for a comic describing their own story, we were able to expand our learning experience. When their tales were ready, we shared them with children throughout schools in our community. Naturally, we also encouraged our collaborators to share this experience in their communities.
Check out our comic anthology!
And take a look at our spanish version!
Featuring: UAM & USP-EEL-BRAZIL.
This was our first collaboration with team UAM. After some sessions of brainstorming, we found an area we could focus on. We noticed that mathematical modeling is an area that represents a challenge for some teams. Often times because the team members do not have a math-oriented formation. Besides, we noticed this was especially true in Latin American teams (us included).
So, what could we do about it? We decided to create an introductory manual on the modeling of an iGEM project. This way, future teams can get an idea about propositions to execute in their projects. We also added some bioinformatic tools that could be useful to enrich their projects. Since we wanted to focus on Latin American teams, it had to be truly accesible. Thus, we made a spanish version of our manual. Furthermore, we later invited USP-EEL-Brazil to join our work by adding more information and making a portuguese version. This way, we are covering the most spoken languages in our region.
Take a look at our modeling manual!
siRNA analysis and software test.
Tec-Monterrey is a team from the same university as us but from another campus. We got in touch after a brief reunion we had with other Tecnologico de Monterrey campus. They developed a project which computationally designs siRNAs to silence specific genes. Hence why we got into contact. Using their program, they were able to analyze the binding efficiency of our siRNA and the target mRNA based on the Gibbs-free energy and the efficiency of hybridization. With these analysis, they can determine if the binding process will happen effortlessly via thermodynamic interactions.
After sending our designed siRNA and the gene we meant to silence (RXLR from P. capsici), we got our results back. Their software analyzed all the different siRNAs that could be designed against the RXLR gene. The results showed that our siRNA has one of the lowest Gibbs-free energy (-32.9 kcal/mol) from the available possibilities (Figure 1). This means that the binding process is very likely to occur spontaneously, which is a determining factor for its success.
Figure 1. Thermodynamic analysis of the binding between our siRNA and the target mRNA
Likewise, the in silico analysis showed a relative efficiency of hibridization of 93% (Figure 2). The software developed by the team analyzes thermodynamic properties of every siRNA and assigns it a value between 0 and 100. Since 100 represents a perfect site for hybridization, our siRNA has a more than an ideal value for hybridization.
Figure 2. Hybridization efficiency between our siRNA and the target mRNA.
This collaboration was a priceless joint effort for both teams. For us, it represented in silico evidence that one of our active compounds works. Meanwhile, our siRNA worked as a proof of concept for Tec-Monterrey's project. Thus, our collaborative work helped to strengthen and validate each team's work.
Audiobook.
The Hong Kong team contacted us to make a collaboration. They brought an idea that could impact the education area. The creation of an audiobook will help give young children (8-12 years) a first approach to science. That's how we started writting. Each team contributed with 8 stories in English and later we arranged the ilustrations to complete the book part.
We uploaded the video onto our youtube channel. Also we uploaded it to spotify as a bed time scientific story's compilation.
Contact exchange.
California UCSC reached out to us looking to expand their contacts in different countries. Working on a project about type II diabetes, they sought patients, experts, and institutions handling this problem. We gladly shared with them some contacts from our city. As retribution, they provided us with chilli producer contacts in California willing to have an interview with us.
Wiki guidance.
We reached out to Michigan State because we noticed they had some problems coding their wiki. After getting in touch, they were glad to receive some help in this area. We had a Zoom meeting where we explained some questions they had so they could keep working. Afterwards, we kept in touch via slack answering any question they had.
Promotional video translation.
Patras-Medicine team wanted its promotional video to be accessible to a wider audience. So they reached out to us and asked us for help on translating their video to spanish. Of course we agreed and we got to work.
