Guanajuato Mexico (GTO_Mexico)

This year, we collaborated with the Guanajuato Mexico team in developing a curriculum as an introduction to synthetic biology for first year university students. This curriculum covered the basics of biology, synthetic biology and applications. Specifically, we designed a lesson plan on the ethics of synthetic biology followed by a debate on the justification of using synthetic biology in a real case study. This helped to expose the students to different viewpoints on the applications of synthetic biology and what we should be aware of as scientists in designing these biological systems. We were able to present this curriculum including our lesson plan to a group of first year students in Guanajuato.

Not everyone in the class shared the same perspective on synthetic biology and genetically modified organisms. From this collaboration, we gained a better understanding of the perception the general public held on the usage of synthetic biology. We learned that a large fear is due to safety and contamination to existing infrastructure. This helped our project by reevaluating some of the project requirements we initially established. It also helped us find a way to better communicate our research to the general public. The students also expressed interest in participating in future iGEM competitions after we educated them on synthetic biology applications.

Link: Guanajuato Mexico’s Wiki on our collaboration

Rice University

We contributed to the Humans of Syn Bio Project by adding stories from members of our team about how they became involved with iGEM. Through this collaboration, we were able to help create a network community among iGEMers by sharing our stories. We were able to learn the difference stories of iGEMers across the world and the reasons why they became involved.

Link: Our post with Rice University

aGEM Workshop

In addition, we helped organized the Alberta iGEM (aGEM) competition in collaboration with Mindfuel and GeekStarter. This competition helped to prepare the Alberta teams for the international iGEM competition by mimicking the presentation layout expected at Jamboree and meeting with well known iGEM judges such as Megan Palmer and Todd Kuiken. It included the three collegiate teams in Alberta: Ingenuity_Lab, University of Lethbridge and us. It also included the high school teams of The Breakers, Lethbridge High School and UrbanTundra. Through this collaboration we were able to help mentor the other high school by preparing them for the Jamboree and what to expect during the presentation as many students were new to the competition. We also were able to share protocols with other teams on wet lab work we had done.

Through this collaboration, we gained a better understanding of the needs of other iGEM teams and how we could contribute to their projects. These presentations really emphasized the strengths and weaknesses of all teams and how we could better improve upon different aspects of our project before the Jamboree. We also got a chance to meet and network with the other teams and discuss our interests in synthetic biology.