Apart from basic lab work we also established a dialogue with the public.
Our outreach included contributing to conferences, socializing and scientific events.
Beyond that we asked ourselves how to maximize the future impact of our project and made an effort to get as much feedback from outsiders as possible. This motivated us to evaluate the economic perspectives of our LIPs, as well.

Many iGEM teams create great ideas and great projects, but when it comes to the implementation and application in real life, it is also important to deal with the following questions: Would this project be applicable in reality? Would there be a market for this product? What opportunities are there to make the product more appealing to consumers? Apart from "Integrated Practices", it was also of great interest for us to examine the potential of our idea on the laundry detergents market.

That is why we created an economical analysis in cooperation with a business administration student from the University in Nantes, France.

Policies of Communication of the New Product
The new product of the iGEM Team Aachen should be communicated as an alternative to already existing washing detergents and there should be a focus on the ecological impacts of boric acid. The product of the iGEM Team Aachen should ban boric acid and make it possible to use the washing detergents with the same quality as before. Instead of boric acid they want to communicate the use of light to activate the protease. As the iGEM Team wants people to activate the protease with light, they also have to communicate this difference. That’s where I see the biggest problem for the iGEM Team Aachen. They have to convince the people that they should not only invest more time in the washing process, but also to change their customs when it comes to cleaning their clothes. Moreover they would need to convince big companies. Although the iGEM Team invented a gadget for activating the protease and in a survey the team performed the majority of the people said that they would spend more time for activating the protease, this idea has to be transferred in the daily life of the customers. For that reason this device has to be as user friendly as possible, the application should only differ in a very small way from today’s application and the price should be in the same range like before. If they take care of these purposes and still maintain the ecological part, the products can have a chance on the global market.

NRW Day

This year the state North-Rhine Westphalia celebrated its 70th birthday, with event days for the public, in its capital Düsseldorf. Because of that, the iGEM Team Düsseldorf invited members of our team and other iGEM teams from North Rhine Westphalia to come to Düsseldorf. Here we were given the possibility to present our project idea to the public and to talk about the advantages of synthetic biology. This gave us the chance to review our project and integrate the opinions, fears and ideas from other people. We want to thank the iGEM team Düsseldorf for organizing this.

Future Lab Gala

Future lab is a gala organized by different institutes and organizations in Aachen to present Aachen as the perfect place for research, science and industry. During this gala, the participants presented themselves with the help of scientific experiments, art, and speeches. It was a great opportunity for us to get in touch with politicians, people from the industry, and different universities and to tell them about iGEM and our project.

Annual meeting of DECHEMA

In September, the team from Göttingen and us, the iGEM Team Aachen, were invited to the “DECHEMA Jahrestagung”. The “Society for Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology” gave us a slot to present our project in front of a scientific audience. Our presentations were included in the “Zukunftsforum”, a subitem of the conference with focus on the future perspective and strategies for the biotechnological industry in Germany. We are thankful for the opportunity to establish a dialogue with the scientific community and practice our presentational skills for the Giant Jamboree.

Analytica

We visited the trade fair “Analytica”, for analysis, biotechnology, laboratory technology, and devices in Munich. Here we got in touch with different companies and presented our project to them. Moreover, this trade fair gave us the possibility to win over supporters for our project. We also met members from the iGEM Team Munich.

SynBioBeta

SynBioBeta is one of the main communities of entrepreneurs, investors, and policy makers devoted to promote the responsible growth of the synthetic biology field. On their international conferences and events many members of the synthetic biology community come together and discuss possibilities to promote the development of this industrial field. The background of people, visiting these conferences, is very diverse and therefore various aspects are discussed. Our members were not only able to meet industrial members and scientist, but also other iGEM Teams and Randy, founder of the iGEM organization. This was an amazing experience for us and left a big impression on our members during their visit in London. Furthermore, our members were able to listen to different lectures and participate in many discussion rounds.

Biomedica

In 2016 the Biomedica trade fair took place in Aachen from the 30th to the 31st of May. So, many members of our team decided to visit this conference and look at the different topics, which were presented. Moreover, the four headwords: “Pharma, Biotech, Meditech, and Innovation” called our attention. Biomedica started in 2007, as the first Euregional conference on lifesciences. Biomedica started as a joint conference of three already existing conferences in Liege, Aachen and Maastricht. It focusses on combining business and science.

European iGEM Meet up

The iGEM Teams from Paris invited us to visit the European iGEM Meet up in Paris. For our members it was a great experience to participate, because they had the opportunity to get in touch with other iGEM teams, learn something about the different projects and establish a personal contact with other members. Moreover, they had the chance to include the expertise and suggestions from other teams in the planning process of our project. But of course we also had a lot of fun in this amazing city. In this context we want to thank once again the iGEM Teams in Paris for their invitation.

German iGEM Meet up

All German teams came together at this Meet up in Marburg. iGEM Marburg organized a tour through their town and for the scientific exchange, they invited local scientists, industry representatives, and of course Traci from iGEM headquarters to give talks. Moreover, we had the opportunity to present our project ideas in front of all the other teams. It was a lot of fun and after the weekend we went home tired but happy.

iGEM Team Göttingen

When iGEM Göttingen came to Aachen for DECHEMA we took the opportunity to show them around our city and have a nice time with fellow iGEMers.

iGEM Team Bielefeld

We visited Bielefeld and its university and with a nice barbecue and interesting chats, we enjoyed the social site of iGEM there.

iGEM – an international competition in synthetic biology. Teams from all over the world are competing to win the Grand Prize at the finale in Boston. However, we did not only see each other as competitors, we also took the opportunity to get in contact with them and share our knowledge and experience to improve each other’s projects.

It is great to be part of the iGEM community and here we would like to thank every team who helped us in making our project in and outside the lab successful!

Click on the logos to find out more about our mutual support!

NCTU Formosa We found out that our universities are partners so it was obvious to get in contact via skype. We shared our knowledge concerning research and lab work. The Team from Taiwan also participated in our international survey and helped distributing it to other teams as well.	XMU China The iGEM Team from the Xiamen University in China collected newsletters from international iGEM teams. We were happy to not only share our newsletter on a national basis but also international with their help.
TecCEM We got in touch with the iGEM team from Mexico. First we only helped sharing their survey. After that we stayed in touch with the team and further cooperation possibilities emerged. For example, they participated in our international survey and advertised it to other teams. Moreover, we participated in their international video project and made two videos in German for them.
Göttingen iGEM Göttingen visited Aachen and spend some time with us, when the DECHEMA Jahrestagung took place. While giving them a tour around Aachen, we were talking about the progress of our projects.	HHU Düsseldorf We participated in the postcard project which they initiated. Moreover, we visited the NRW Day in Düsseldorf and presented our work to the public and to other iGEM Teams from North Rhine-Westphalia.

Contribution to METU HS Ankara Lab Protocols Collection

We were contacted by the iGEM Team METU HS Ankara. They had translated iGEM experiment protocols to Turkish and now had the idea to create a database consisting of protocols translated to different languages. We liked the idea of making those protocols accessible in every country, so we also contributed to this collection.

Thank you, for contacting us, iGEM METU HS Ankara and giving us the chance to add to the success of your project.
Click here to see the protocols we translated to German.

Survey

A useful tool to get different opinions on topics related to the iGEM team’s projects is conducting surveys. Therefore, you need as many participants as possible to get a broad spectrum of opinions. So our team decided to take part in the surveys of the different teams which can be seen below.

We got in contact with many different politicians and asked for their opinion about genetic engineering and the political situation in Germany.

The answers from the different political parties can be seen in the PDF files below.

Svenja Schulze - SPD - minister for innovation, science and research

She is head of the ministry for innovation, science and research of North-Rhine-Westphalia and sent us greetings:

"Wenn sich junge Nachwuchswissenschaftlerinnen und Nachwuchswissenschaftler zu einem interdisziplinären Team zusammenschließen, um sich mit großem Engagement einem wichtigen Alltagsproblem zu widmen, dann verdient das Respekt und Anerkennung. Ich freue mich sehr, dass sich im iGEM 2016 Team Aachen Studierende der Fachrichtungen Biologie, Biotechnologie, Biomedizintechnik und Informatik zusammengefunden haben, um den Wissenschaftsstandort Nordrhein-Westfalen bei diesem internationalen Wettbewerb zu vertreten. Die Teilnehmerinnen und Teilnehmer leisten damit einen Beitrag zur internationalen Sichtbarkeit unsers Standortes. Und sie leisten einen Beitrag für die Zukunft unserer Gesellschaft. Denn genau das ist schließlich Ziel von Forschung: die Zukunft unserer Gesellschaft gestalten. Das gilt auch für den Bereich der Synthetischen Biologie. Sie stellt aber insofern eine Besonderheit dar, als hier in besonderer Weise ethische Fragen eine wichtige Rolle spielen.
Ich wünsche dem iGEM 2016 Team Aachen viel Freude bei der spannenden Forschungsarbeit und viel Erfolg beim internationalen Wettbewerb!"

Dr. Kay Zerlin answered our questions on behalf of her. He pointed out the importance of interdisciplinary work.
The full interview can be found here.

Simon Adenauer - CDU

He is a member of CDU and works in Aachen. A summary of his considerations can be found here.

Lasse Klopstein - Die Linke

Lasse Klopstein expressed the doubts of the political party "Die Linke" about genetic engineering. There would be to many risks and more disadvantages than benefits of this technology. His answers in German are written down here.

Piraten

The party "Piraten" also expressed doubts and talked about the location of Aachen. Read the whole interview here.

Until now we did not look at the ethical perspective of our project. After our conversations with the public and some other professors it is not surprising, that synthetic biology, which adapts and designs living organisms with many different applications, has a broad ethical dimension. An ethical dimension, an ethical discussion … ethical questions … ethics?

Many of us maybe heard about ethics, because of their philosophy courses or because of their religious education at school. Some of us maybe saw an ethic expert in television or in some TV discussion rounds. But what is ethic exactly?

Ethic is a branch of philosophy and refers to well-founded standards of right and wrong. Normally it defines what humans ought to do and what is wrong about their actions. Ethics is about trying to give answers to questions about how we have to react to or act in specific situations, what we have to consider to develop a well- founded decision or what is wrong about the way we handle different topics.

As we do not know so many aspects related to ethics and because of our non-objective perspective, we started to contact different experts in Germany.
The interview with Dr. Ach who talked about the responsibility of scientists and the importance of integrating ethical considerations in the development of a project, can be found here.