We want to thank both team Stockholm and team Linköping for their efforts in organizing these events! You did an amazing job, and we greatly appreciate getting the opportunity to join these events. These days were not only useful for our project, but also a lot of fun!
Collaborations with multiple iGEM teams
When looking for possible collaborations with other iGEM teams around the world, we mostly focused on finding projects with overlapping or similar topics to ours. However, among the Aboa team members from Finnish city Turku we had previous connections and wanted to collaborate with them on some level, even though they had a very different project focusing on plant diagnostics. We managed to find a common ground with them throughout the general synthetic biology methods our teams used and geographical proximity, with both our teams located in the European Nordic region. Throughout the summer we had several Zoom calls with the Aboa team, where we discussed the possibilities of our collaboration. Since both of our teams had difficulty with getting BioBrick insertions to work and everyone had different previous experiences, we discussed alternative approaches such as Gibson assembly or Golden Gate assembly and whether these methods could help us achieve our goals. Our discussions were informal and held over traditional Swedish fika with coffee and pastries but showed to be very valuable to both parties. Having an outsider view helped us get more distance and see our projects and problems more clearly and with better perspective. Both of our teams were overwhelmed with unsuccessful experiments and heavy workload, and sharing these experiences lifted some of the weight when we realised that we are not the only ones struggling. As a part of our collaboration, we practised together our project presentations for the Nordic iGEM Conference (NIC), which was held at the end of the summer. For this practice our different projects proved to be an advantage because we could easily spot when the other team used some technical terms without previous explanation. When immersed in the project for many months it was easy to forget that some information is not common knowledge, and it will in fact require more explanation. During these practice presentations we improved them for better comprehension by the audience and felt ready for presenting the project to other teams at NIC.
Throughout our work this summer we formed a partnership with a team new to the iGEM world. The iGEM team from Riga University conducted a project using a yeast expression system for total synthesis of crocin. Seeing as synthesis of crocin in a eukaryotic expression system had formed the focus of the Uppsala Team 2021 iGEM project, PETerminator paid it forward to Riga. The goal of our partnership was to facilitate information exchange between projects that could move lab and subgroup work forward. We shared protocols and tips for lab and subgroup work over four meetings throughout the summer. Team PETerminator was able to provide tips on primer optimization for the crocin crusade in Riga. It as a blast to work and compare notes on our respective projects in synthetic biology!
This year we had a brief collaboration with team Lund by contributing to their SynBio Dictionary project. We collected five terms related to both synthetic biology in general and our project and wrote down their definition in an easy to understand format. This dictionary will be distributed at the Jamboree by team Lund and also be made accessible online for future teams!
DRIVHUSET Workshops
This year, we set up an intense workshop and asked team Stockholm to join us. The day started with a lecture by Filip Reineby, a business developer working at DRIVHUSET Uppsala, who has also studied rethorics, communication and leadership. The lecture discussed different techniques in communicating, pitching and holding presentations. He also provided us with a model to use in order to organise a short and effective pitch, which could for example be useful when we reach out to companies. In order to put theory into practice, we had a brainstorming session where we tried to come up with the perfect pitch for our respective projects. We then presented in front of each other and gave each other feedback. This workshop gave us tools to organise and pitch a project, but also some very valuable tools for presenting in general. Being able to sort out the most important points to bring up when presenting something, whether it is an iGEM project or an entrepreneurial idea, can be tricky, especially if a lot of hard science is part of it. How do you identify and adapt your presentation according to your audience? What darlings must you kill in order to clarify your message? We feel like this workshop taught us how to answer these questions, which is not only helpful for when we present our project to stakeholders or for the judges of iGEM, but also for future presentations and pitches. We were also able to spend some time with fellow iGEM:ers from team Stockholm, which was a nice addition to the otherwise informative day.
SiC - Swedish iGEM Conference
We participated in two conferences hosted in sweden. The first conference was the Swedish iGEM conference (SiC) and the second conference was the Nordic iGEM Conference (NiC). The SiC was hosted for the first time ever and was organized by the iGEM team of Stockholm. At this conference we heard two lectures by the PI’s of iGEM Stockholm as well as a lecture hosted by a business coach of Karolinska Institute (KI) innovations as well as a presentation to further advance our presentation skills. Later in the day the four attending iGEM teams had the opportunity to present their project and get some feedback which was especially valuable since this conference did take place early in summer. The other day was spent with a Stockholm tour and a surprise stay in a cabin in the Stockholm archipelago. This day was mainly fun but also valuable to get in contact with other teams to share contact details and much more.
Images were taken by the iGEM Stockholm team.
NiC - Nordic iGEM Conference
The annual event for the Nordic iGEM teams NiC. This year's NiC was arranged by iGEM Linköping. The first day was filled with rewarding guest lecturers of a researcher at Linköping University, a representative of the iGEM HQ and a company called BioArctic which specializes on modifying treatments as well as biomarkers and diagnostics of neurodegenerative diseases. The day ended with a workshop hosted by two iGEM ambassadors on biosafety and security. On the next day we were introduced to the projects of the participating Teams and also introduced our projects to one another. We gave feedback to the presenting team and good feedback on our project. This interaction helped all of us to reflect again on our project and get new ideas and angles to think about it. The Day was concluded with a grill buffet in a nice hotel. The third and last day was dedicated to a nice city rallye with fun activities to give us an impression of the city as well as further strengthen connection between the Nordic iGEM teams.
