Team:IngenuityLab Canada/Collaborations

Ingenuity Lab - dNANO

 

Collaborations and Community Outreach

Collaboration: SCU China iGEM team 2016

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In order to gain a better global understanding of intellectual property rights in emerging markets. Our team lead, Dawson, was in Chengdu, Sichuan, China in July to visit family relatives. While in China, he couldn’t help but seize the opportunity to meet with SCU-China iGEM team in person to exchange ideas. This eventually lead to a knowledge exchange where both teams researched on copyright, patent and trademark laws in the respective countries. In the end, we exchanged our information to compare and contrast the nuances in regards to IP rights within each country.

We realized that both respective countries had their differences in IP laws due to cultural differences, and we devised a mock business plan in order to accommodate for the differences in intellectual property laws to ensure our venture is successful in an emerging global marketplace.

Outreach: St. Elizabeth Seton Junior High with UrbanTundra_Edmonton iGEM Team

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Team member Mirat Sojitra presenting the concept of synthetic biology to junior high students at St. Elizabeth Seton Junior High, Edmonton, Alberta.

As part of our efforts to reach out to the community, our team collaborated with the local high school iGEM team. To celebrate this, we organized an event at a local junior high school, St. Elizabeth Seton, and introduced the concept of synthetic biology.

The children were not fully aware of how the properties of everyday items can be used to create scientific reactions. A protocol using household belongings, designed by the high school iGEM team, showed how it is possible to extract DNA from strawberry. This was very successful, with the junior high school students receiving hands-on experience. We were thrilled to collaborate with the high school team and also inspire the next generation of students by introducing them to iGEM and synthetic biology.