Difference between revisions of "Team:CGU Taiwan/Human Practices Communication"

Communication

In our communication part, we focus on the academic exchange with other domestic and foreign iGEM teams, and collaboration on team work, like conducting the experiments to find a condition, filling in the questionnaires, and launching newsletters regarding to iGEM topics.

In the long run, we have communicated with over 25 iGEM teams, including all Taiwan's teams and those from China, India, Switzerland, Britain, and America. Some academic exchanges are arranged by ourselves; others are bumped into under the circumstance of Asia-Pacific Conference and other conference. While we were at conference, we had oral presentation and poster exhibition.

As for collaboration workshop, we helped Imperial 2016 iGEM team from British with the searching for optimal growth conditions for microbial monocultures to provide an effective start-point for designing co-cultures; and in our project, there is a part for In vitro test that is coincidently co-culturing of Leishmania and dendritic cells, so we are glad to do this. Another one is called Virginia Survey Collaboration Badge. We offered our opinions to Virginia's 2016 iGEM team on the survey and they send back us a badge as a token of thanking for help.

Most of the teams we interacted with are in fact not juggling at medical division of iGEM project. So here comes an unfortunate situation. In the beginning, other teams seemed that they may not shortly get the point about our project because it is a relatively hard science, immunology. They have even scarcely heard Leishmania before. In addition, they can't catch the unique advantages of Leishmania as a potential adjuvant immediately. So we correspondingly adjust our presentation to make it a better-understood order and try to employ alternative ways to explain the immunologic background, making it much clearer. We even have an intention of acting at the end of our lecture in the hope of that audiences can go through our summary in a special, interesting way. And as for collaboration, the more frequent we posted articles and photos on Facebook, the more we are invited by other teams for collaboration. So we are dynamic at interacting with other iGEM teams.

We helped Imperial's 2016 iGEM team from British with the searching for optimal growth conditions for microbial monocultures to provide an effective start-point to co-cultures. After handing in our absorbance results of E.coli growth curve, we received their bright and satisfied smiles of Imperial's iGEMers.
Protocol:

1. Grow cells in a shaking incubator with 225 rpm for 12 hours in 4 liter of LB medium.
2. Do a 1 / 100 dilution of cells into fresh media.
3. Add 200 μl into each well of 96 well plate with triplicate of each condition.
4. Incubate the plate at 37°C over 12 hr, taking an absorbance reading every 15 min.
5. Shake the plate reader before every absorbance measurement with reading temperature at 27°C

Condition:

We have interacted with Virginia iGEM team from America through Skype. We first helped them to fill in their questionnaire, and they gave us a badge as gratitude for assistance. After that, we contacted them to invite them to share each other's project. Their project is to build up a genetically-modified E.coli that will only survive in cultivation with Leusine. As a result, they worked on the system that hinders bio contamination from happening. We thought that's a really creative idea and probably a useful approach for microbial experiment. They even mentioned it is Jurassic World that occurs to them this concept. On the other hand, Virginia iGEM team can comprehensively listened to our Leijuvant project with Leishmania of its actual advantage, T cell stimulation. To sum up, we had fun communicating with Virginia iGEM team!

We had a good conversation with EPFL iGEM team in Switzerland. And they said if Leishmania immume system is proven by scientists and doctors, they are willing to use our "Lejuvant" to protect themselves from infection. And we turned out the targets of their reports in their Wiki page, they asked us few questions like "Can you describe your project in 30 seconds?" Or "What is the first thing that pops into your mind when we talk about iGEM?" and what we answered can be seen at http://igem.today/2016/08/31/cgu-on-vaccines-alternative-with-the-help-of-leishmania/

The 4th iGEM Asia-Pacific Conference 2016 Taiwan has been held grandly at National Cheng Kung University Tainan. There were 19 iGEM teams from more than 5 countries attending this Meet-up Conference. Nice to meet iGEMers from the other 19 teams in this wonderful, pleased, and beneficial journey. The main programs are inclusive of presentations, poster exhibitions, team experience sharing, round table, Tainan cultural tours etc. We truly believed that by this conference, all of the iGEM teams could have been able to achieve better visions and impress our world. And there was an amiable judge who is from igem HQ coming to see our poster and give us great numbers of precise ideas for human practice.

We got interacted with six iGEM teams from different schools in National Yang Ming University. Students from NCCU came to learn how to organize iGEM; TGU iGEM team from far China Shanghai flied here to join us; TSA high school iGEM team attended this party too. In the end we made a lot of Chinese, American, Taiwanese iGEMers as our friends. After project presentation, we had the activity of World Café hosted by NYMU iGEM team. It is a structured conversational process, consisting of several tables with one specific topic on each table, and this was led by a table leader and topics regarding iGEM or synthetic biology were discussed by 5 to 6 participants for 20 to 30 min per round. By moving between a series of tables, a great number of attenders can link ideas, facilitate open and intimate discussion, and in the long run access the collective intelligence or wisdom in the activity.

We're having our sincere gratitude to 6 iGEM teams from 6 schools, encouragement and advices of everyone and NYMU's instructor, Dr. Chuan-Hsiung Chang, the cozy environment and activity video NYMU offered, the pictures NCTU iGEM team provided, and our senior advisor, Timothy Chan En Haw who is the 1st CGU iGEM team co-founder coming with us.

At this academic exchange, we shared our story and listened to others to realize that NCTU iGEM team is working on an eco-friendly Pantide insecticide, Mingdao high school iGEM team is developing a blood sobriety test, and NTHU iGEM team is establishing a PFCs breakdown for sewage treatment plant. We had a feeling that all teams' ideas are certainly meaningful and intriguing as the good starting point to solve the unsolved or still remained problems on earth at present. And we gave opinions to each other reciprocally, sharing the same IDT biobrick problems. In addition, after the day's activities, we made a plenty of nice, charming, and talkative iGEMers as friends.

We're having our sincere gratitude to 4 iGEM teams from 4 schools, feedbacks and advices of everyone and Mingdao's instructor, the cozy environment NCTU iGEM team offered, the campus guides showing us around NCTU and NTHU, and finally the homemade table games based on the story of NCTU iGEM team which is the very so-called distillation of wisdom.

We had a Skype meeting with Nan Kai University in China. We shared projects and synthetic biological application with each other. It was the NKU iGEM team that was first communicated with us. We had this chance to talk, because the person who was in charge for human practice flied to our country and staied at our school for a semester, and she helped us arrange this.

Speaking to the synthetic biology. Here comes our sharing. Genome of all nature species are expressed in different profiles and functions on the basis of their unique DNA sequences. Since every gene completes its own duty like a pile of bricks and collaboratively generate great life, "BioBricks" were put forward as a concept and carried out by scientists rendering a possibility to engineer creatures. Every year, iGEM organizer provides participants BioBricks as basic materials. Teams conduct genetic engineering and combine the concept of engineering to manufacture their own BioBricks. In the end of competitions, all new BioBricks are submitted to the organizer and become shared resources. Consequently, synthetic biology will be applied to numerous places and benefit greatly to the society.