Team:William and Mary/Collaborations
We spearheaded an RBS characterization effort across three different teams - ourselves, University of Pittsburgh iGEM,
and Alverno College iGEM - using three different biological systems: one in-cell, two cell-free solutions. We sent a
blinded version of the RBS library to University of Pittsburgh’s iGEM team, who then proceeded to characterize the
RBSs in the cell free system S30. We also sent a blinded library to the high school team Alverno, who characterized
them using Richard Murray’s TX-TL cell free system. Our collaboration brought about the first time in iGEM, to our knowledge,
of measuring the entire RBS community library over a variety of induction conditions. Such rigorous characterization of the
RBS library, and iGEM parts in general, is necessary to ensure the validity of the use of those parts. Particularly with the
RBSs, this characterization allowed us to have greater confidence in their ability to tune the amplitude of any given transfer
function. These parts were critical in securing a portion of our circuit control toolbox. They also provided the teams we
collaborated with the ability to use them in their own genetic circuits. Further, such rigorous characterization encourages -
and often requires - collaboration between teams.
We also collaborated with the high school team of Broad Run iGEM. Broad Run iGEM had used activities from our 2015 educational
outreach activity booklet in their outreach events. Our main Education and Public Engagement project is the creation of
learnsynbio.org, which is a collection of educational videos and materials for high-school age STEM students. We worked with
Broad Run to facilitate the incorporation of the LearnSynBio module into their advanced biology classes. We also provided
guidance and advice on the development and implementation of their mathematical modeling in MATLAB.
We also participated in the Interlab Study.
Collaborations
