Intro
We believe that contributions to future iGEM teams is the simplest example of the collaborative
spirit this competition promotes and encourages. Our team has done a great deal in brainstorming and implementing ideas
which can both benefit our project and assist future teams in reaching their project's full potential.
Education
Escape Room
We designed a virtual escape room about synthetic biology, on which you can read more on our Escape Room page. Members of our team were welcomed into three schools, in which they first gave a simple lecture as an introduction to synthetic biology and then they guided the students in solving the escape room. Overall, about 600 students from all over the country solved it. In addition, we sent the escape room to all iGEM teams via Slack. The success this escape room received lead us to the realization that it could be used by other iGEM teams as a tool to bring the community in on their project, something that this competition strongly values. Moreover, the escape room is a great way for teams to get together and be more involved in the community of iGEM as a whole.
3D DNA Model Puzzle
We designed a 3D puzzle of DNA strands using SolidWorks. The purpose of this puzzle is to be used as a simple educational tool for children to learn biology and specifically synthetic biology, for the purpose of increasing their exposure to this topic. We successfully printed the puzzle, and verified that it functions correctly. Our team offers the SolidWorks Part model of the puzzle for all teams to download and print. This puzzle can be used as an interactive tool for educational purposes, which in return can contribute to the project in the education and human practice departments.
Click to download our 3D DNA model from our GitLab:
Synthetic Biology Lessons
Since synthetic biology is not a field which middle school or high school students are usually exposed to, we saw a great opportunity in the scope of this competition to introduce this field to schools and get student more involved. Thus, members of our team prepared synthetic biology lessons. The content of those lessons is simple and is written in way which makes it fun and intriguing to both teachers and students.
Our team provides those lessons as a contribution to future iGEM teams. They are a great way to incorporate schools, and the community in general, into their iGEM projects, a topic which teams can later expand upon in the human practice department of their project.
See for yourself! Download the lessons here :
For children's workshop
For teens' workshop
Parts
Our project included three main circuit designs, the Xim design, PT design, and OraCell design. In each one of them we used new parts, which we added to the iGEM registry for all future teams to have the opportunity to use.
We added 12 basic parts, and 8 composite parts, 20 in total.
Visit our Parts page for more details:
In addition, we made a contribution on BBa_K1442039 part; We optimized the sequence for E. coli, and added the new sequence as a new part (BBa_K4179005).
Competition
Guide to Attend to People with Attention Deficits
As part of our educational activities throughout this project, we got the chance to prepare lessons, workshops and fun activities for children and youth (Education). The experience was very fruitful; however, the majority of class settings we have been in, included a handful of kids who didn't engage with the activity, either due to attention deficits or learning difficulties. And thus, we raised the question as a group, how do we attend to those people?
To find an answer, we reached out to Revital Kirshberg, a family and ADHD coach. She was very helpful in explaining and providing us with guidelines about how to best approach children and youth with ADHD. By following those guidelines, we rewrote our content to better suit people of that population. We emphasized interactivity and teamwork in our activities and put extra efforts in making sure that the content is as clear and comprehendible as possible.
We put together a guideline document, which can be easily used and implemented by future iGEM teams, allowing them to optimize their educational and public engagement activities and convey their message more effectively, reaching everyone involved in the venture they wish to accomplish.
For more about the adjustments we made based on those guidelines visit our Education page.
Click here to read the Guidline Document.
Measurement Tool
In this project, we want to introduce the biosynthesis pathway of decursin into bacteria. Thus, our proof of concept is essentially showing that we were able to successfully produce decursin in the genetically engineered bacteria we worked on. To be able to evaluate the success of each step of the pathway, we needed to detect and quantify the different metabolites in it, and the best way to do so is HPLC, which means that we were heavily reliant on the availability of HPLC, as well as the availability of an expert who can operate the device. Not to mention, HPLC is not an affordable tool, and is inaccessible to many iGEM teams.
Our team tried to take different approaches and think of an alternative for HPLC. We eventually came up with OraCell. A Luciferase assay-based mechanism, which takes advantage of decursin's effect on the existing Hippo pathway in mammalian cells. The special element in this measurement tool is that decursin is not the only metabolite which has this effect, there is a list of metabolites which cause the same effect on the pathway. Thus, this tool can be beneficial for all teams interested in measuring said metabolites.
We are offering the OraCell design as a contribution to future iGEM teams working with metabolites included in that list.
We had the honor of collaborating with team Latvia-Riga, who needed a tool to measure a metabolite they wanted to produce, crocin, which exists on the list of metabolites suitable for our measurement tool. We are waiting for a sample from their team, and will test crocin using OraCell.
Read more on our OraCell page:
