Team:Waterloo/Collaborations

Collaborations

In difficult problems, success is made more probable and easy by multi-team involvement. Waterloo has participated in both bilateral and multilateral collaboration activities.

Bilateral

We have collaborated with the new Ryerson iGEM team in building their wiki, providing web construction technical support by: generating graphics, co-designing their pages, holding basic coding tutorials, and directed the team to helpful resources.

Toronto approached us to build the platform for one of their human practices project, creating an immersive directory of synthetic biologists. It will be an ongoing collaboration between our teams, with the support of Ontario Genomics. We have created the directory’s user authentication system and a simple mailer for newsletter, as well as made arrangements with one of our advisors to oversee the continuity of this project in future iGEM seasons.

Our lab also supplied Dalhousie Halifax NS with the pJC8 cosmid and associated protocol to assist in the construction of their metagenomic library.

We were asked to fill out and share a number of surveys, and did so for Virginia.

Multilateral

oGEM

Five Ontario iGEM teams (Ryerson, Toronto, McMaster, Queen’s, and Waterloo, in partnership with other Ontario universities) have regularly met over the course of the season to refer contacts, and consult each other about protocols, tools, and business.

In addition, we collaborated in showcasing the iGEM Competition and synthetic biology at the 2016 Canadian Society of Microbiology Conference in Toronto. We held presentations of our projects and initiatives, as well as opened a booth for questions and paraphernalia during the poster session.

We have also been planning an appearance in Genomics in the Park to advocate for investment in youth and synthetic biology through iGEM with politicians. We will be discussing the impact the organization has had on its participants and reassert our dedication to exploring the human practices of our science.