We discussed the topic selection with CUHKSZ and they gave us some suggestions. At the beginning, we had two topics: directed evolution of bromelain and lignin peroxidase treatment of melanin, and they suggested that we would better choose the former, and questioned whether the latter could achieve the bleaching effect under mild conditions. After that, we formally established the partnership.

We discussed the experimental part. We haven't done the experiment yet because of the pandemic, but they have, so we were basically talking about improving their experiment. For example, they did not get the desired results after doing qPCR. We analysis comprehensively may be that the results obtained by qPCR are not stable, the extraction of total RNA is not successful, and the selection of internal reference is not appropriate，or the primer dimerization causes the obvious mixed peak. They can repeat the experiment, or find a better internal reference, even optimize the primer. We suggested that they use RNA-Seq, but they did not adopt it based on cost considerations. They also shared some problems that we may encounter: the promoter is too strong to cause inclusion bodies, which affects the enzyme activity. We also fully considered their suggestions in subsequent experiments and discussed about hardware.

We did an online presentation to high school students about synthetic biology and what we were doing. You can see more details in the Education & Communication Page. In addition, we had a lot of discussion on wiki design and experimental results.

We got in contact with SJTU-BioX-Shanghai 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. Our advisor kindly have a conversation with them 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.subtilis as the chassis. We then exchanged our possible bacteria selections and basic design proposals in a further contact. We helped each other a lot in this regard and ultimately established a partnership in the late of May.

Because of the severe pandemic, we were only 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 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 learned that they also chose WB800N as their chassis, which is for producing targets proteins without degrading them. We later host a small-scale online meetup and exchange the common tips for cultivating the bacteria.

We had several difficulties in the wet-lab work due to the pandemic here in Shanghai, because undergraduate students from Tongji were not allowed to enter our university, let alone the laboratories. We had no choice but to postpone their wet-lab experiments until the beginning of the autumn semester in late August. So we got help from them with their 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 their project, were also shared with us. 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 had a close relationship in the wet-lab and dry-lab alike as we were grabbing the time to carry out subsequent experiments but their university was stuck in an accidental suspension due to a small outbreak of Covid-19 on campus. They were planning to employ knowledges in direct evolution to enrich their project and our team just did excellent in this regard. So we briefly and patiently introduced direct evolution strategies used in their project and this helped them a lot when they use the websites and software recommended by us 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 project and they were always there to encourage us under the inconvenience and sudden interruptions.

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 mainly in Shanghai who once experienced working online to share with us their difficulties and their solutions. If you are intersted in the manual written by our 6 teams, please turn to Contribution Page to learn more details.