Japan Meetup
Information on Collaborators
Four Japanese iGEM teams collaborated.
ASIJ_Tokyo, TokyoTech, UTokyo, and Waseda_Tokyo
Why we collaborated
All teams wanted to communicate with other iGEM teams in Japan and to exchange information about this year’s project.
When & How we collaborated
Japan meetup was held twice and both were conducted online.
May 22
The first Japan meetup was held. Each team gave a presentation on their project and its progress.
August 18
The second Japan meetup was held. Every team shared more detailed information and changes about their project. Afterwards, we exchanged ideas and opinions on various topics.
What we offered
We introduced this year's project, Optopass, optogenetics passcode system for yeast.
What we got
It was a great opportunity to share projects and to start new collaborations. The interaction with the Japanese iGEM team will be of great significance for our activities in the coming year and beyond. This meetup was very meaningful.
Thanks to Waseda_Tokyo for organizing this wonderful event!
ARS
Information on Collaborators
13 Asian iGEM teams collaborated.
Why we collaborated
All teams wanted to communicate with other iGEM teams in Asia and to exchange information about this year’s project.
When & How we collaborated
June 28
The meetup was held online. Participating teams shared an overview of their projects and progress with each other, followed by an exchange of opinions.
What we offered
We introduced this year's project, Optopass, optogenetics passcode system for yeast.
What we got
It was a great opportunity to share projects. All of the projects were very fascinating and very inspiring. Thanks to the opportunity to interact with teams not only from Japan but also from other Asian countries, this will be of great significance for future international collaborations.
Waseda_Tokyo
Information on Collaborators
Team name: iGEM Waseda_Tokyo
Project title: "Cell Freedom ～ expanding the possibility of cell-free system ～"
Project summary: The Waseda_Tokyo team produced biosensors using a cell-free protein synthesis system. Cell-free systems are protein synthesis systems that do not use living organisms and are made from biological "parts" and genes. This has the advantages that the reaction system can be freely designed, operation is easy and safety is ensured. Biosensors are systems that sense the presence or absence of a target substance. When the sensor's target substance is not present, the regulator protein binds to a specific DNA sequence, thereby repressing downstream transcription; when the sensor's target substance is present, the regulator protein binds to its target substance and the downstream gene is transcribed. The Waseda_Tokyo team uses these biosensors to detect heavy metals, toxic organics, and hormones.
Why we collaborated
We iGEM UTokyo initially considered the possibility of utilizing the Waseda's cell-free system in our experiments. However, after several meetings, we decided that we should focus on the synergistic effects that could be generated by exchanging our educational materials and knowledge, and collaborated on the development of Genochemy.
Waseda_Tokyo initially considered the possibility of utilizing UTokyo’s dCas9 system and cell fiber. However, later they noticed that the dCas9 system has too many obstacles to realizing it, and they do not use cell fiber this year. Thus they focused on education as well.
When & How we collaborated
May 8
The first meeting was held. We discussed the possibility of a wet collaboration. For the education collaboration, it was suggested that a guidebook and an app would be feasible.
May 20
The second meeting was held. The feasibility of collaboration between UTokyo and Waseda_Tokyo on dCas9 and photoreceptor systems in wet was discussed. We discussed whether the Waseda team would produce substances in yeast, and if so, whether we could collaborate on the substance production part, which is the goal of our cryptosystem.
May 21
We held a meeting about Genochemy. A plan to jointly develop some of Genochemy's functions was established.
June 5
In this meeting, it was decided that cooperation in Education would be the main focus of the collaboration.
August 19, 25 & 26
Three meetings were held in preparation for the summer Education workshop.
August 27
We co-hosted an Education workshop "Summer Symbio Course".
For more information, see our Education & Communication page.
August 28
We reviewed the feedback we had received from the participants and shared our suggestions for improvement for the next opportunity.
What we offered & What we got
Education
In August, UTokyo and Waseda_Tokyo co-hosted the "Summer Synbio Course". This course provided step-by-step explanations for high school and university students interested in synthetic biology and iGEM, from basic biological knowledge to examples of synthetic biology applications and actual iGEM projects. UTokyo and Waseda_Tokyo used a combination of slides from their previous Education courses to enhance the educational material used during the lectures. Slides were jointly prepared to explain the basics of biology, an overview of synthetic biology, and the iGEM project.
The Genochemy developed by UTokyo has helped to deepen the understanding of what the iGEM project is about, not only for UTokyo but also for Waseda_Tokyo and the other teams. Waseda_Tokyo has expertise in group work on the theme of combining SDGs and synthetic biology, which enabled us to set up an effective discussion and more interactive interaction between iGEM members and participants.
Genochemy
We collaborated on the development of a graph drawing function for Genochemy. We asked a member of the Waseda_Tokyo team to find a library for graph drawing and wrote code together to implement it. Currently, Genochemy is limited to the simulation of virtual organisms, but after the competition, we plan to cooperate in developing Genochemy as a tool to assist in the design of gene circuits in real-world micro-organisms.
Collaboration on the lecture at Japan Biology Olympiad
Information on Collaborators
iGEM Tokyo Tech and iGEM Qdai
Why we collaborated
To introduce iGEM to outstanding biology students so that they can learn about iGEM and become future leaders of synthetic biology and to introduce specific projects of Japanese iGEM teams to them so that they can realize that the biology they are learning can actually be what we can use to solve social problems.
When & How we collaborated
On October 2nd, an Education event was held online for students participating in the Japan Biology Olympiad 2022 to learn more about synthetic biology. For the details, see Education & Communication page.
What we offered
Japan Biology Olympiad (JBO) is a contest in which junior and senior high school students from all over Japan compete in solving biology problems. The top 2% of the students who made it through the preliminary rounds went to the finals.
For these very talented biology students, an online event was held with several iGEM teams to introduce them to iGEM. There were 26 participants, including the Japanese representatives of the International Biology Olympiad.
After explaining what iGEM is, the participating iGEM teams (iGEM UTokyo, iGEM Tokyo Tech, iGEM Qdai, iGEM Tsukuba) explained their projects in turn.
Since the students had a basic knowledge of biology, we explained the project's deeper technical aspects so they could experience the advanced applications of the technology. UTokyo team introduced some specific gene circuits and the function of photoreceptors and recombinases.
We then broke into breakout rooms where participants could ask questions and interact with each other on a project-by-project basis.
What we got
The education was made more effective by the collaboration. It was a great opportunity to interact with other potential future iGEM members from an early stage of their academic careers.
For more information, see our Education & Communication page.