Team:Vilnius-Lithuania/HP/Gold
Gold Criterion
Meetings
From the very beginning our team established two equally important goals for the project: 1) finding an existing problem; 2) developing a theoretical concept to solve it. For this reason, we consulted with a number of specialists such as gastroenterologist and medical microbiologist, who advised us on theoretical and practical parts of our project. Most importantly, throughout the project timeline, our team kept in touch with clinical geneticists, one of whom is the leading Lithuanian physician specialising in the treatment of phenylketonuria. Read more
PKU patient‘s association and summer camp
As we are designing a product meant for a particular public, our most important task is to communicate with potential users: ascertain the necessity of our product and adjust its design to their needs. For this reason, we cooperated with association ‘Dalia’ - an organisation, which brings together all the PKU patients from Lithuania and several families from Latvia and Estonia. We were provided with all the relevant information on the disease, the patients and the available treatment. Moreover, our team participated in the annual summer camp for PKU patients in which we not only presented our idea, but also met the people who are likely to use our probiotic. The possibility to discuss our idea with affected people or their relatives were really useful for further planning of our project and also inspired us to try our best. Read more
Survey on probiotics
As a part of collaboration with Oxford iGEM team, we have conducted a survey on the probiotic delivery system in both United Kingdom and Lithuania. The survey contained several questions regarding people’s preferences in the appearance, intake method and frequency of the probiotics. The intention of the survey was to aid the design of a probiotic, which would meet the needs of the potential users. The survey provided us with the thorough understanding of the people’s needs regarding probiotics. It helped us to fulfill our project in the way, which is the most appealing to the potential users and this has always been our primary aim. Read more
Organisation of Synthetic Biology ‘SinBiO’
In order to establish a strong tradition of Lithuania iGEM team and to spread the knowledge about perspectives of synthetic biology we founded a non profit association - ‘Organisation of Synthetic Biology’ (Sintetinės Biologijos Organizacija) - ‘SinBiO’. It unites students who are interested in synthetic biology and are eager to contribute to raising awareness about it and possibilities it provides. Read more
‘Successful iGEM team’ survey
We surveyed 50 iGEM teams from previous years to gather some information about the team management in order to understand what is the best way to organise work in the team while trying to achieve best results. Results showed few consistent patterns which can be used by future iGEM teams. We also reorganised our team according to the results and divided it into subgroups to make work more efficient. Read more
Discussion cycle ‘Café Scientifique’
In collaboration with ‘Café Scientifique’ project ambassadors in Lithuania - Baltic Institute of Advanced Technology (BPTI), our team organised discussions cycle. The subject of each event was chosen in order to cover as many questions about life sciences as possible. 5 discussions were conducted – about Synthetic biology and GMO’s, Biotechnology in Lithuania, Human genome editing, Art and science and finally Rare genetic diseases. Around 50 people were participating in each event. Read more
