We made efforts to collaborate with other teams and foster mutual development in both their projects and our own. We spoke to several teams and assisted many others in their project by filling out their surveys. In addition, we created our own survey about biocontainment to distribute to iGEM teams and provided a collaboration badge for teams that responded (for the results of our survey and list of teams that participated in the survey click on the collaboration badge to the right).
We would like to acknowledge the following teams for collaborating with us throughout the course of iGEM 2016.
Broad Run High School
We discussed kill switch mechanisms at length with the Broad Run team. We also aided their team by providing advice regarding modeling techniques with Matlab software. We helped them successfully model their project by sharing our Matlab expertise.
CGU Taiwan
One of our team members, Sarah, spoke to Bill and Justine from the CGU Taiwan team. Sarah explained our biocontainment project to Bill and Justine, and they in turn presented their Leijuvant project to her. They had a great follow up discussion about biocontainment and whether or not it is needed for Leijuvant. It was determined that physical containment would best serve their purposes.
UMaryland
We had an excellent time visiting UMaryland for the the Mid-Atlantic iGEM conference. We presented our project and heard ideas from not just the UMaryland team, but also the UPitt, William and Mary, and Naval Academy iGEM teams. This was a great opportunity for all teams to share ideas and advice. Members of our team also hosted a dialogue regarding biocontainment. This gave other teams the opportunity to learn about biocontainment and ask questions about the different methods available.
Trinity College Dublin
Trinity College developed a unique and exciting website called “iGEM Academy”. The academy allows teams to share their work using video media. We submitted an animated short about our project and the more general concept of biocontainment.
Vilnius-Lithuania
We assisted Vilnius-Lithuania in their human practices. They created a comprehensive survey to determine the factors that contribute to a successful iGEM team. We discussed the questions amongst ourselves and responded to their survey.
XMU China
We assisted XMU China in their human practices. We completed a survey about antibiotic resistance in bacteria. This was a great opportunity because there was much we did not know about antibiotic resistance.
Tianjin
The Tianjin team created a questionnaire union comprised of themselves, Pasteur, Pittsburgh, ULV-LC-CV, Valencia UPV, and Virginia. Each team submitted questions regarding their individual projects. Each project was different, so the questionnaire was able to cover a wide range of topics regarding iGEM and synthetic biology.
EPF Lausanne
One of our team members, Raquel, interviewed with the EFP Lausanne team. The team hosted a newsletter featuring various iGEM teams. We were fortunate enough to be selected! Raquel spoke at length about her experience with iGEM and shed light on some of the lesser known fun facts about the University of Virginia. We received a badge (below) from EPFL for our collaboration with them.
Munich United
Munich United created a survey on entrepreneurship in iGEM entitled "Enabling Factors in Biotech." We completed the survey and received a contribution badge from Munich United.