Our collaboration with Heifei University began in early summer, when they reached out to several iGEM teams asking what software iGEM teams were using in their projects. The Heifei iGEM Team is made of software specialists, who are not very familiar with how synthetic biologist’s research and design genetic constructs. The software they are designing is aimed at helping synthetic biologists. With our team members having biology backgrounds and experience in designing genetic constructs, we decided to test Heifei iGEM’s software and give them our feedback. This helped Heifei to assess how user friendly their software was, and what its usefulness is for synthetic biologists.We tested their software in October by using it to look up information on parts we were using in our project. The information on genetic parts, and the recommendations the software provided helped us to come up with a design for a kill switch. The ability of their software to narrow down and refine searches was immensely helpful in deciding on a genetic part to use; when there are hundreds to choose from, often scattered in different databases, a tool that can narrow the options down would save time and effort.We found Heifei iGEM’s software to be very useful, it was significantly easier to have all the genetic parts in one single place; one where we could look at information about one specific part, see relationships between 2 different parts, and receive recommendations for other parts we could use. Using the software to design genetic constructs and research genetic parts would save time and effort. It is faster and easier than having to sift through several different databases to find genetic parts. Furthermore, the software provided not just a DNA sequence, but recommended similar parts, provided a description of the part, and showed us papers with more information on the genetic part.
Wiki, Poster, and Presentation Collaboration
To help overcome the language barrier that many non-native English speaking iGEM teams face, our team offered to help Heifei’s iGEM team with writing and editing their wiki content, designing the poster and presentation, presenting their project to the judges, and answering questions. Through the summer, we stayed in contact with Heifei iGEM. We gave their team a layout to follow as they worked on writing wiki content (see below), in addition to tips and advice based on our experiences. As they worked on the wiki, we edited and proofread their wiki content to clarify main points and make it easier for readers to understand.Through September, Heifei iGEM and us further discussed and worked together on their wiki, and began to talk through the poster and presentation. We gave tips and advice on how to plan out the poster and presentation. We sent Heifei a poster template we created, with explanations of how best to layout content in the poster. We also sent a document with explanations of laying out the presentation-Background and Introduction, Objectives, Methods, Results, Conclusions, and Future Work-and what content should be in each section(see below).In October, we had two Skype calls with Heifei iGEM. In the first, we discussed edits to be made to the wiki content, the design of the poster, and the design of the presentation. We walked their team through the process of laying out the sections of a poster and a presentation, explaining how to organize their content in a way that is concise and clear. Their team practiced parts of their presentation that they had, and we practiced how to answer questions from the judges. In our second call, they continued to practice talking through their presentation. We had created a list of questions for Heifei iGEM that the judges may have for them, and helped them practice answering those questions to be better prepared and to help overcome nervousness.
William and Mary iGEM
Last year, William and Mary iGEM created a synthetic biology teacher curriculum, with a range of hands on activities for kids of all ages, from elementary school to high school. In all four of our extensive public outreach events, we used activities from William and Mary’s curriculum. At all of the events, the activities were extremely popular, kids and adults alike learned a lot, asked great questions, and had fun with the hands on activities. - 2015 Loudoun STEM Day - 2015 Tolbert Elementary STEM-mania Night - Building with Biology Event, hosted at the Ashburn Public Library - 2016 Loudoun STEM DayWe found these activities to be an excellent starting points for the many dialogs we had with parents and some students about genomes and how we now have the capability to change those genomes, and what the implications of that would be. In these dialogs, we strived to get across the point that they, as much as scientists and policy makers and regulators can be and need to be participants in shaping the genetic engineering technology developed. With regards to mathematical modeling, John Marken from the William and Mary iGEM has helped us greatly with Matlab, which we were using for our mathematical model. We were having difficulty writing Matlab code to extract model parameters. Through many emails, John gave us invaluable advice on how to approach the optimization, constraints, and gave us code segments to write the iterative routine for the optimization. We are very grateful to John for his assistance.
University of Virginia iGEM
We contacted UVA iGEM in June and had a phone call meeting. At that meeting with Madeline Stone, we talked of ways we could help each other out. UVA iGEM was creating an E.coli kill switch for their project and we were doing our own research for a yeast kill switch. Even though the two designs were going to be very different, they gave us some very useful tips and feedback on how to approach a kill switch design. We completed a survey on biocontainment that University of Virginia sent out to iGEM teams.
LMU-TUM Munich iGEM
We encountered Munich iGEM’s 2013 survey when we were researching how to write a survey. Liking their approach, we contacted them and got their permission to base some of our survey questions off their survey. We created our own survey with theirs as a guide, and distributed the survey during public outreach events.We participated in their team’s outreach by completing the 2016 Munich iGEM survey on “entrepreneurship in iGEM”. We supported their further by meeting via Skype to further discuss entrepreneurship in iGEM.
Industry Collaborations
Armstrong World Industries
Our collaboration with Armstrong has continued since 2015 iGEM. However, continuation of this relationship was not automatic, our team had to prove to iGEM VPs and senior staff that that our past year’s work and intent for future work had merit worthy of continued collaboration. We prepped hard for our meeting at Armstrong global headquarters in Lancaster, PA, knowing we had one hour to make our presentation and pitch before senior staff, technical experts, and a VP. This was a new experience for us. Armed with our PowerPoint presentation, we focused our pitch on our approach to their problem, corroborated it with experimental results, and ventured into ideas and rationale for further work towards a future implementable solution. The Q&A and discussions that followed contributed to the strong impression we left them with on the potential for exploring synthetic biology as a viable solution. Later, this was followed up with an year of collaboration; with written funding proposals and Armstrong’s generous support of our iGEM team with $5,000, email communications with Mr. Paul Hough our main contact at Armstrong and communications with other technical experts, Mr. Craig Hoosier, Mr. Thomas Woolley, and Mike McCarty.
United State Gypsum (USG)
As we were researching the butyric acid problem at Armstrong’s plant in the context of the use of recycled and renewable materials, we sought insight on the extent of this problem in the rest of the industry; we wanted to know if this problem was limited to Armstrong or if other manufactures also experienced the same issues, or if they had a different set of problems. It was important for us to know this as we were looking for solutions that had industry-wide applications. Consequently, we reached out to United States Gypsum, the second largest manufacturer. Explaining our iGEM research that was associated with Armstrong and our overarching goal for finding biological solutions, our communications with Dr. Paul Shipp (see Industry Communication) provided valuable information that we did not previously have, thus providing affirmation and guiding us in the focus of our solution design.
Collaborations in Education
Much of the details of the content presented here has been covered in the Human Practices section of our wiki, but we recap the main points here with a focus on the collaborative relationships and joint work.
Farmwell Station Middle School
Our collaboration with Farmwell Station Middle School evolved from last year when we made presentations of our iGEM research in science classrooms. Our own experiences through middle and high school led us to believe that the ideal target age group for engaging students to explore the sciences by inquiry and doing, is middle school. Middle school students have gained some exposure to scientific experimentation and are eager to try new things. We first contacted Farmwell’s principal, Mrs. Sherri Loya, who is always seeking ways to benefit her students. Mrs.Loya was fully supportive of incorporating Building with Biology activities into Farmwell’s 7th grade biology curriculum. The 7th grade team of science teachers, eager and hardworking to support their students’ learning in new and different ways, was equally important to the collaborative work we have begun at Farmwell.Incorporation of Building with Biology activities to supplement a new genetic engineering component of the school curriculum. The expected outcome are; to enhance inquiry into the topic of synthetic biology while learning about its basics, to further explore this topic through conversations about its applications from perspectives of societal and environmental benefits, safety, etc., and to encourage students to think about problems they see and consider solutions that may include genetic engineering.Mentoring and Advising Program to support co-curricular independent science research projects of students. Already begun, we are supporting the teachers by sharing our research expertise through prepared materials to help guide the research process and by meeting with students. We seek to encourage, motivate, support and foster long-term interest in being thinkers and problem solvers.
Stone Bridge High School
When we reached out to our County’s Science supervisor’s office in early August requesting lab to continue our iGEM work, Mrs. Jennifer Chang promptly put us in touch with Dr. Janet Cascio, an AP Biology teacher and the school’s Independent Science Research teacher. Collaborating with Dr. Cascio to share her lab space at Stone Bridge and use the lab’s equipment has been an essential part of moving our research project forward. Additionally, working with Dr. Cascio has been invaluable; she accommodated our schedules for before-school lab work in September and October and always made herself and the lab available during the school summer holidays in the month of August. Together, we worked through a starch/yeast measurement problem we initially had, and provided us with additional aerators for doing prototype testing with the Armstrong samples. Our collaboration with Stone Bridge was characterized by our common passion for doing research, learning new things, and solving problems.
Loudoun STEM Day
We have collaborated with the hosts of Loudoun STEM day, the Northern Virginia Community College, as facilitators and exhibitors at the the 2015 Loudoun STEM Day and the 2016 Loudoun STEM Day. Working with Loudoun STEM Day’s energetic and efficient coordinator, Laura Siko, the Broad Run iGEM team has had the opportunity to engage with our community on a large scale.With interactive learning activities centered around William and Mary’s synthetic biology teacher curriculum, and the Building with Biology kit activities that facilitated dialogues on synthetic biology, our collaboration with Loudoun STEM Day has resulted in outreach to over 700 people. Through these 2 collaborative Loudoun STEM days, we have succeeded in extending STEM learning, getting feedback from the public about their views on synthetic biology, and having useful and important conversations with the public about genetic engineering and its implications.
Building with Biology - Public Engagement Project in Synthetic Biology
We collaborated with Building with Biology, a synthetic biology project funded by the National Science Foundation and led by the Boston Science Museum, American Society for the advancement of Science, BioBuilder Foundation, Science Museum of Minnesota, and the Ithaca Science Center. Intrigued by Building with Biology’s goals of creating conversations between the public and those in the field of synthetic biology, we applied to receive a physical kit of activities to be used at public venues and schools, in order to create these conversations. We have used their well designed activities, and the thoughtful, comprehensive guides to each activity, that included questions for sparking debates on the topic of synthetic biology. The public forum activity in particular was highly effective in stimulating deep discussions about the safety and ethical concerns of synthetic biology. Collaborating with Building with Biology has provided us with lessons on how to better engage with the public in discussions about new technologies in synthetic biology, and their risks and implications.
