Team:UNebraska-Lincoln/collaboration

image

Collaboration

The emphasis that iGEM places on collaboration allowed us to improve our project and connect with other young scientists. We appreciated the opportunities this provided us and understand that it is a reflection of how the scientific process works in the real world. Over the course of the summer, we collaborated with four different teams: Missouri S&T, WashU/Penn State, The University of Virginia, and the University of Georgia. As this was our first year as an iGEM team, we also received assistance from the WashU/Penn State team, who quickly became our good friends and mentor team.

In July, we attended the Heartland Synthetic Biology Meetup, hosted by Missouri S&T. We helped Missouri S&T and Washington University host a public forum discussion on synthetic biology and host an educational event for children.

Our collaboration with the Virginia iGEM team consisted of us assisting them with a survey about biocontainment. This survey will be used to create a pamphlet for future iGEM teams that provides them with information about biocontainment and help make informed decisions in order to improve their practices. Improved biocontainment also serves the dual purpose of inspiring more trust from the public. The team created a badge that is now proudly displayed at the bottom of this webpage.

Finally, we helped to characterize the expression of an mCherry gene from the University of Georgia iGEM team. They sent us cells that had already been prepared to express the gene and we used our plate reader to take measurements of the fluorescence of their cells. This was all part of a larger multi-team collaboration effort meant to gather measurements from multiple sources in order to standardize their results.

Additionally, the Washington University St. Louis / Penn State iGEM Team provided us with water samples. We plan to use these samples to test base nitrate levels and to potentially simulate a real-world environment for the testing of our system. They also provided us numerous contacts for potential sponsorship and mentored us throughout the summer. Our teams had similar project backgrounds, and so we were able to discuss our results and exchange ideas.