Introduction
Our team’s partners this year are iGEM Crete and iGEM Toulouse_INSA-UPS. We met the teams at different time periods and through different circumstances. The two partnerships, admittedly a challenge, worked on different levels, complementing each other without canceling each other; we did our best to strengthen both of them without harming one and without giving unfair priorities. The partnership with iGEM Crete was formed in the middle of spring, a bit before the Aegean meeting, where we met a couple of Crete's members in person. The partnership with iGEM Toulouse was a very exciting opportunity that occurred later, over some online collaborative meetings where we all saw the potential to work together on a new level.
During the year, we exchanged different materials and experiences with the teams as we had some similarities with each. Moreover, we collaborated with both teams on the Human Practices aspect of our projects, carrying out educational actions, meetings, or exchanging feedback on the communication of our projects. Some of the biggest differences that made each partnership unique were that we assisted iGEM Toulouse_INSA-UPS with their supporting entrepreneurship, shared common educational posts on our social media, or troubleshot dry lab issues in modelling, while with iGEM Crete we approached the bioethic aspect of our projects, analysed our fundraising strategies and ended up sharing a common sponsor approach. We are very thankful for the help both teams provided us with. New friendships were shaped and we are looking forward to the after-iGEM continuation of our partnership.
Crete
Overview
In early April, even before this partnership started, our teams had coffee together ! A few members of our team come from Crete, so during a common trip there, we decided to go out for a coffee with a couple of iGEM Crete’s members. We discussed our projects extensively, exchanged opinions, and had a really great time. After that, we were very excited to introduce the rest of the team members of both teams. And that’s the beginning of our common journey to the iGEM competition.
A few days later, after the in-person introduction of some members, our team had an online meeting with iGEM Crete so that we could get to know each other and present our projects. We had a lot of fun and constructive conversations. Then, iGEM Crete suggested that we see the movie "The Platform", as their project is related to the food crisis. One night free of meetings, our team gathered to watch the movie. After that night, we couldn’t but schedule one more meeting with iGEM Crete to discuss the movie. It took an hour of discussion, but that’s how a partnership was shaped! Afterward, we co-organized some actions and meetings, and more importantly, we exchanged our wet and dry lab experiences.
iGEM Crete develops a diagnostic project competing in the iGEM Competition’s “Conservation” track. Despite the fact that our projects appear to be unrelated, we collaborated and assisted each other in almost every aspect of our projects. We dedicated many hours to this both-way relationship, and we now really feel that we can count on each other for everyday life issues.
Wet Lab
Competent E. coli cells
During Interlab experiments, we faced some issues making competent E. coli cells. After trying some different protocols that didn’t work for us, we contacted iGEM Crete to explain our situation, and they provided us with a protocol to carry out the procedure. We tried it successfully multiple times in the lab and managed to complete the necessary experiments for the Interlab on time.
Midori Green
Due to the fact that our lab space was limited, we weren’t able to dedicate a bench just for ethidium bromide use, as the safety protocols suggest. As we faced this safety issue, iGEM Crete suggested during one of our weekly meetings that we use Midori Green instead of ethidium bromide so that we could reduce the danger. Thanks to them, we chose this alternative and managed to conduct our experiments safely.
iGEM Distribution Kit
iGEM Crete informed us that they faced some issues receiving the iGEM Distribution Kit 2022. However, they decided to use a previous year’s kit because they needed a specific sequence, but they faced some issues regarding the quality of the DNA. So, we sent them our kit from a previous year in order to have an alternative in case the part of interest in their kit wouldn’t work.
Troubleshooting
During the year, we all faced some difficulties in implementing some protocols of Theriac and Atropa, so we suggested to each other a different approach to the protocols, such as changing some concentrations or time of incubation. When both of the teams had finished their experimental processes, we had a meeting to analyse the results and assess our proof of concept.
Human Practices
Our teams had constant contact in the Human Practices field, too. We shared a survey through our social media about "Bioethics in STEM", and that was the beginning of a series of actions that we organised together. The results of the survey got us thinking more about the application of bioethics guidelines at an academic level. Thus, we had an Integrated Human Practices meeting with Mrs. Stavroula Tsinorema, Professor of Modern and Newer Philosophy and Bioethics. At this meeting, we got feedback on the bioethics aspect of our projects and had a conversation about the importance of bioethics and why a researcher is obligated to think about the arising questions of a project. We found out that there are a variety of opinions when it comes to bioethics by people with different backgrounds. This meeting was the reason for some of our later actions and events. At first, we created a booklet with information on bioethics so that it can be easily understood by everyone. We also decided to send a letter to our university’s bioethics committee and get some feedback on both team's projects regarding their future implementation. To take it a step further, we had an online debate titled "Should the rich buy the best genes?" showing the need for bioethics in STEM and medicine.
Moreover, we exchanged feedback a lot during our cooperation and ideas throughout the year on our separate Human Practices actions. A few members of both teams met again in person at the Aegean meeting. While there, besides having the time of our lives, we also had some troubleshooting, mostly about our human practices. iGEM Crete gave us the idea of participating in “Researcher’s Night” and we couldn't help but consider the idea and finally participate! At the same time, iGEM Crete was concerned about how to familiarize small, isolated communities with their project.We recommended that they first contact the president of such a small community. This was a helpful idea as the world will more easily trust someone that they admire. They contacted the president of Kallithea Kalambakas directly and had a constructive conversation on how he could help them inform their community.
Fundraising
Both teams are self-funding, so we had to find sponsors to implement our projects. We helped each other in contacting sponsors, hoping to get some extra funds. It seems this worked out well as some companies sponsored both our teams. We also shared a common sponsor approach, in which we ended up after a couple of fundraising meetings. We first presented our project to each potential sponsor via a phone call, and then we contacted them through emails, giving more information about our project and a sponsorship proposal. We decided together on the sponsorship proposal based on the amount of money for the sponsorship. And, of course, we considered our promotional actions for them. In addition, members of the fundraising subteam of iGEM Crete visited TIF, and together we approached sponsors both from Greece and abroad.
Wiki
The wiki developers from both teams, with continuous communication, had troubleshooting meetings. iGEM Crete guided us on the approach we needed to take to implement our idea for our wiki home page. We discussed a lot about the design of each wiki page and its technicalities. When both wikis were uploaded, we reviewed each other's wiki and gave feedback on the aesthetic.
Toulouse_INSA-UPS
Overview
During the summer, we held dozens of meetings with teams from all five continents, enthusiastic to meet the other teams and shape collaborations. When we first met team Toulouse, we were intrigued by the differences in our projects. At the same time, we were inspired by the potential of both projects, we were impressed by the capabilities of iGEM Toulouse’s members and we saw the multiple possibilities of helping each other complete our objectives. That pressed us to take on the challenge of attempting to collaborate in a deeper lever, forming a partnership.
Team Toulouse and team Thessaloniki work on allergies and on glioblastoma treatment respectively; both projects belong to the field of medicine and the approach we both chose makes them also specifically fall under the category of precision medicine. The Toulouse team’s project aims to detect the patient’s IgE that will recognise and link to a recombinant allergen- the exact allergen they are supposed to detect, while our project aims to target specific miRNA molecules (overexpressed in glioblastoma cells) that our mechanism will recognise and link to, bringing about a series of events that cause the therapeutic effect. Moreover, we shared common goals like the effort to employ artificial intelligence in our projects, and common values like the endeavour to communicate science to children, and many more.
Project
Wet Lab
As team Toulouse was working mainly with proteins, while we were working mainly with nucleic acids, it was next that we would not be able to work together on our main protocols and experiments. However, the one experimental procedure we did have in common was the interlab, so we capitulated on that. After we both conducted the first experiments of the interlab (for Day 1), team Toulouse sent us their transformation protocol which we reviewed and benefitted from comparing to ours. After having had problems with one of the filters and thus “losing” a part of our results, we shared this experience with iGEM Toulouse. Throughout the partnership, many were the times that we held some constructive discussions on our stumbles, our success, and even our tears over some poor dead transformed E.coli we failed to protect…
Dry Lab
Since our dry lab’s tasks were also pretty different, we focused mainly on troubleshooting. We also held a meeting after we had completed the modelling part. We presented our work to each other in detail and had an extensive discussion, step by step, to make sure there were no obvious misconceptions.
During the final weeks of September and the days of October up to the wiki freeze, we held a couple of wiki meetings to work with each other and we also continuously exchanged feedback through our group chat on Facebook Messenger.
Outreach
Human Practices
Our project kept progressing rapidly during the summer and as we delved deeper into scientific papers, more and more questions arose. Greece is a small country, so naturally, the number of scientists is finite. This led to the need of reaching out to foreign scientists, especially when the question intriguing us was too specific and only very few scientists in the world had any expertise on the subject. Team Toulouse was a great help in this issue, as they reached out to experts in France multiple times, in an attempt to bring them in contact with us. The other great benefit we reaped from our partnership was the fact that team Toulouse is situated near Oncopole, the Cancer University Institute of Toulouse. This enabled them to bring us in contact with experts from the campus; nanotechnology experts were one of the specialties we wanted to approach, along with psycho-oncologists. Specifically, iGEM Toulouse connected us with clinical psychologists Dr. Sophie Lantheaume whose answers they translated for us from French to English, and Dr. Yasmine Chemrouk, who they brought us into direct contact with.
Education
Both our teams shared a common objective: communicating our projects, synthetic biology and science in general to people of all ages. Teaching a bit of basic synthetic biology to kids was the highlight of our efforts. In order to do it better, we combined these efforts with our partners. We drafted an educational plan for visiting primary schools and high schools in our countries. This would consist of a presentation about our project, including a few words about the iGEM competition and synthetic biology, a Kahoot quiz and a laboratory experiment. A member of the Toulouse team and a member of the Thessaloniki team made the Kahoot quizzes together, creating some questions for a quiz for high school kids and some questions for a quiz for ages under 12. As a laboratory experiment, we planned on doing a simulation of a bacterial transformation, for which reason iGEM Toulouse sent us a protocol made especially for this simulation for kids (unfortunately we weren't able to perform it so we demonstrated cultures with microorganisms from door handles, fruit etc instead). In addition, we used our social media platforms to educate people on some aspects of our projects, as will be explained in detail in the designated paragraph.
Our partners decided to do a video series on allergies, which they would upload to YouTube. They aimed for perfection, so they asked us to review those videos before they uploaded them, something we gladly did. Apart from the useful insights we got about allergies, we tried to be the most impartial judges of their work. Some of the feedback was minor changes such as pointing out a similarity between two medical terms, while other suggestions were more on the funny side, like the suggestion to avoid accidentally making a certain gesture that could be interpreted as slightly offensive in Greece and other Eastern countries.
Entrepreneurship
Both our teams work on projects that would find application in the medical field. This fact, along with the fact that members from our team had experience in entrepreneurship competitions and a couple of awards between us, gave us the ability to assist our partners on their road to setting up their supporting entrepreneurship. After having extensively discussed what iGEM Toulouse envisioned in one of our very first meetings, we held a meeting where we explained to them how to set up a business model canvas and helped them with their SWOT analysis.
Social Media
Social media has been a great tool for communication of science all along the progression of our projects. Having that in mind, we decided to upload some common educational posts on our social media regarding the common aspects of our project. We created those posts together, splitting the work in half. A member of one team would do the research and write up the description of the post, while a member of the other team would work on the graphic design and on the next post, they switched the jobs around.
