Newsletter

Connecting the world.

Newsletter
Part Version
Team Version
Contribution
Discussion

Newsletter this year aims to provide a more convenient, more user-friendly and more systematic access to link all the teams. Here, teams all around the world introduced their projects, shared details of experiments, asked for help and replied to requirements from counterparts. We excavated the quintessence of past work as the shoulder, standing on which the following teams could see further.

This year, we published two versions by different classification. One consists of 5 main issues: introduction, collaboration, human practice, survey and discussion. The other is categorized into teams. The former classification serves as a map. Readers can easily get what they want to know in the shortest time.

What’s more, Newsletter we have released not only gives assistance to teams participating in iGEM 2016, but those who will take part in iGEM someday. To explore a handy way, we can help the public have a brief but well-defined understanding of what iGEMers aim to do. Besides, to assist those fresh iGEMers, Newsletter could transform into brief reference to help them comprehend what we have done and what they will do. It’s also a good address list containing diverse ways to get contact with other teams.

Part Version

Introduction consists of two modules: team introduction and project introduction. Twenty nine teams are invited to show their projects and introduce themselves here. We provided a quick access to get familiar with other teams. They came from all over the world. What should be pointed out is that this year we developed teams from India, South Africa and Japan for the first time. It’s worth believing that the influence of Newsletter is enlarging and this part could help everyone who takes part in Giant Jamboree find the team or project they interested in.

There are 24 teams taking part in the issue. To understand a project better, human practice will show more beyond technology. It’s obviously easy to get an iGEMer or the professional known what teams have done, but tough for everyone over this range. So teams have consulted and shared their experiences with constituents and policymakers in their own cities and countries in a more creative way, not merely by interview, but other by social media ways and activities. As a traditional event in iGEM, Human Practice makes it possible for team members get out of lab and devote themselves into education and propaganda, which finally achieve all-round development.

Discussion mainly introduces something about safety, health, ethics, etc, which relates to the project. It also shows that the iGEM teams have a connection with the society, not boxed up by lab. It’s well-known that synthetic biology could promote the social innovation, while sometimes it may also trigger the public panic. To avoid this, we concentrate on discussion to demonstrate that what we have done and used cannot be threaten and wicked to a great extent. Just like Human Practice, Discussion also provides a broad platform for every iGEMer to have a deeper thought about their project, which could be also helpful in their future scientific researches.

In this part, 24 teams released their questionnaires, in order that they can receive more answer sheets from readers. Though it’s possible for every team to send e-mail to others so that they can enlarge the range and amount of valid questionnaires, dealing with numbers of e-mails can be niggling. By comparision, a list of links will be more convenient and helpful.

Nineteen teams joined this part. We built a universal platform across local and global scales. Each iGEMer can get in touch with the teams listed here for collaboration. We collected their contacts, including facebook, twitter, email and wechat making it more convenient to develop a partnership among iGEM teams. Collaboration does not just equal to work which needs to be completed to get a higher prize. A tighter collaboration means a deeper comprehension of each other. In this part, everyone can find the weakness of their project or point out miss in others, which is meaningful for our future work.

Team Version

In this version, our typesetting was designed to base on the team. Readers can see all the details of an iGEM team including project, human practice, collaboration, etc, following the content. In this version we made our newsletter a gallery of all the teams. After looking through the team version, the characteristics of total 46 teams are clearly shown in front of you.

Furthermore, the purpose to design two version is evident: assisting every readers find useful information as quickly as possible. You can find the team you interested in, and also look up things in one aspect. Still, we are trying to find a more efficient way to satisfy more readers. If you have any opinion, don’t hesitate to contact us and we’ll deliberate it. From the beginning of planning to order manuscripts and classify them, we have completed a large amount of work. To our relief, we received a great number of pages. It also makes us proud to help iGEM and other teams as much as possible. We sent Newsletter by email to every team and QQ Group, iGEM China Community. We also released this news in our official Facebook and Twitter, hoping that we can inform as many teams as possible.

Contribution

Discussion

Ⅰ.What we have done

A wide platform for more teams
As the number of teams participating in iGEM are increasing every year, it’s also hard for the fresh iGEMers to find suitable collaborations. Therefore, our Newsletter can play the part of a collaboration list in their seeking procedure.

A broader range for more communications
It’s mentioned above that teams from India, South Africa and Japan take part in Newsletter for the first time, which also means that our Newsletter has connected teams in increasing regions in the world tightly.

A deeper thought for more affairs
Beyond introducing what their projects about, teams also present their extension of the project, including Human Practice and so on. Especially in Discussion, we talk about what may concern the public.
The aim of Newsletter is not merely playing the part of assistance in iGEM, we also hope that it could be a propaganda of both iGEM and synthetic biology. Besides, insisting for three years, our Newsletter gains maturity step by step. Our team members also acquired great experience from getting manuscripts to typesetting.

Ⅱ.What we will do

Invite more teams
As a platform, our Newsletter needs to invite more teams in order to present as much information as possible so that we can satisfy more kinds of readers. It’s also our expection that we can have a long-term cooperation with teams who have participated in Newsletter over two years.
Wish more team could join us!

Figure 1. World Map of Newsletter Cooperators in 2015

Figure 2. World Map of Newsletter Cooperators in 2016

Add more media
To give a more impressive and creative Newsletter, next year we hope that we can add some videos or other media in it. Trying to create a website especially for Newsletter, we hope that everyone could read it anytime.

Use more languages
In the future, hoping that more people, including students, the professional and the public can read our Newsletter. So it’s essential to provide multi-language versions.

Add more media
Since everyone has different reading habits, we are trying to improve Newsletter. An online opinion book will be created so that we can collect as many suggestions as possible. We’ll also appreciate it if people who care about iGEM and synthetic biology contact us and give some advice.