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<div class="ols_columntwo"> | <div class="ols_columntwo"> | ||
<p class="ols_bodytext"> | <p class="ols_bodytext"> | ||
− | <img src="https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2016/thumb/6/69/T--OLS_Canmore--taiwanletter.png/424px-T--OLS_Canmore--taiwanletter.png" id="ols_collab_taiwanletter"> <br> In early March of 2016 we were contacted by an iGEM team in Taiwan who also happened to be working on a project that involved the use of Keratinase. They requested biobricks of our parts KeratinaseA and KeratinaseUS. At the time we were nearing the end of our school year and did not yet have any functional biobricks. | + | <img src="https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2016/thumb/6/69/T--OLS_Canmore--taiwanletter.png/424px-T--OLS_Canmore--taiwanletter.png" id="ols_collab_taiwanletter"> <br> In early March of 2016 we were contacted by an iGEM team in Taiwan who also happened to be working on a project that involved the use of Keratinase. They requested biobricks of our parts KeratinaseA and KeratinaseUS. At the time we were nearing the end of our school year and did not yet have any functional biobricks. <br> |
The fact that a team that was so far away had reached out and asked for something we couldn’t provide made us even more determined to buckle down in the lab and in our research to create a functioning biobrick. Something we are still working on. | The fact that a team that was so far away had reached out and asked for something we couldn’t provide made us even more determined to buckle down in the lab and in our research to create a functioning biobrick. Something we are still working on. | ||
Even though we weren’t able to give them the parts they needed we did in-fact exchange research and provide them with some research of our own to help them along with their project. However, we did provide them with the sequences of DNA we had synthesized and are using in creating our parts, if case they were interested in also synthesizing them. | Even though we weren’t able to give them the parts they needed we did in-fact exchange research and provide them with some research of our own to help them along with their project. However, we did provide them with the sequences of DNA we had synthesized and are using in creating our parts, if case they were interested in also synthesizing them. | ||
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<h4 class="ols_header" id="ols_collab_surveys"> Surveys </h4> | <h4 class="ols_header" id="ols_collab_surveys"> Surveys </h4> | ||
− | <p class="ols_bodytext"> Additionally, various members of the team were asked to participate in a variety of surveys from other teams. Determined to boost response rates, we answered all we could find. These included both a Virginia iGEM team and the Munich United iGEM team survey. <br> <br> One survey was in regards to bio-containment. Since this season we have decided to try our hand at building a bioreactor for our bacteria, this was helpful in not only expressing our ideas to others, but solidifying our own plans. <br> <br> The survey done by Munich United focused more on the business side of synthetic biology. <br> <br> | + | <p class="ols_bodytext"> |
+ | Additionally, various members of the team were asked to participate in a variety of surveys from other teams. Determined to boost response rates, we answered all we could find. These included both a Virginia iGEM team and the Munich United iGEM team survey. <br> <br> | ||
+ | |||
+ | One survey was in regards to bio-containment. Since this season we have decided to try our hand at building a bioreactor for our bacteria, this was helpful in not only expressing our ideas to others, but solidifying our own plans. <br> <br> The survey done by Munich United focused more on the business side of synthetic biology. <br> <br> | ||
The questions asked were related to areas we hadn’t focused on or even considered before, from funding to founding a company. Since our aim is to implement our construct industrially these kinds of questions are ones that we need to consider. | The questions asked were related to areas we hadn’t focused on or even considered before, from funding to founding a company. Since our aim is to implement our construct industrially these kinds of questions are ones that we need to consider. | ||
− | By participating in these surveys it gave our team a chance to consider things we may not have otherwise considered had someone not brought the subjects to our attention. <br> <br> Our team strongly believes in contributing to the larger scientific community through research, mentoring, ethical reflection, and providing feedback. For this reason we are always eager to collaborate with iGEM teams, or other synthetic biology teams and groups. In the true spirit of collaboration, these experiences are beneficial to all parties involved either by providing specific knowledge or by unexpectedly inspiring an idea to improve each other’s projects. For these reasons we’d like to say thank you to all the teams that collaborated with us this year! And thank you to all the teams who interviewed us as talking to other iGEM teams is always a great experience! <br> <br> </p> | + | By participating in these surveys it gave our team a chance to consider things we may not have otherwise considered had someone not brought the subjects to our attention. <br> <br> |
+ | |||
+ | Our team strongly believes in contributing to the larger scientific community through research, mentoring, ethical reflection, and providing feedback. For this reason we are always eager to collaborate with iGEM teams, or other synthetic biology teams and groups. In the true spirit of collaboration, these experiences are beneficial to all parties involved either by providing specific knowledge or by unexpectedly inspiring an idea to improve each other’s projects. For these reasons we’d like to say thank you to all the teams that collaborated with us this year! And thank you to all the teams who interviewed us as talking to other iGEM teams is always a great experience! <br> <br> <br> | ||
+ | </p> | ||
Revision as of 18:39, 15 October 2016
COLLABORATIONS
This year we participated in 2 major and 6 minor collaborations with both high school and university teams. Our largest collaboration component was the publishing of 2 papers in an online peer-review synthetic biology journal called BioTreks.
We also collaborated with a somewhat local university (the University of Lethbridge) through work that focused mainly on the ethical components of our projects. Through this, we tried to gain different ethical perspectives for our project by conducting ethical reviews for each other. They were also able to help us with some experiments we could not conduct in our lab.
For other collaborations different members of our team were interviewed by other teams on how iGEM affected both their education and personal life. We also began mentoring a team from a high school that has just begun their synthetic biology career, shared our research with a team that is over 6,263 miles (10079.32 kilometres) away from us in Taiwan, and participated in many many surveys.
Biotreks
This year our team was asked to participate in the publishing of the first ever edition of Biotreks. Biotreks is a peer-reviewed startup journal created specifically to showcase high school synthetic biology projects. We chose to write two papers that focused on different aspects of our project and overall iGEM experience: one research paper and one perspectives paper. Both of our papers also required us to make videos to give short summaries of their contents.
Groups taking part in the Biotreks publication include:
- Rock Ridge High School
- Tuscarora High School
- Brockton High School
- Renaissance High School
- Broad Run High School
Our research paper included background on the problem we are aiming to fix, the methods we used to construct and test our project, the results and what we learned from them, and what he hope to do with our project in the future.
Abstract for "Expression of Keratinase Genes in the Bacillus Genera for in Escherichia coli JM109 and DH5alpha for use in the Poultry and Wastewater Management Industries"
An estimated 8.5 billion tons of poultry feathers are produced from farms globally every year, in addition to the tons of human hair that is extracted from wastewater treatment facilities worldwide. Keratinase is a serine protease that primarily attacks the disulfide bonds in keratin waste—such as feathers and hair. The expression of bacterial keratinase provides an opportunity to manage this degradation-resistant keratin waste. This study aims to provide a foundation for future management of hair and feather waste by reducing the negative effects that the current treatment methods have on the environment, and by producing a useful amino acid protein product of high quality such as animal feed and fertilizers. This is done through a semi-quantitative analysis of keratinase A (kerA) and keratinase US (kerUS) activity, and expression of these genes in E.coli. The genes for production of kerA and kerUS originate from Bacillus licheniformis and Bacillus brevis respectively. These genes were optimized for expression in Escherichia coli JM109 and DH5⍺. The KerA enzyme is most active in degrading keratin in feathers, while KerUS is most active in degrading keratin in hair. The production and effectiveness of keratinase was tested on human hair over five days at a temperature of 37°C. Observations from this semi-quantitative assay, combined with results from a skim milk plate assay suggest that some protease is being expressed and secreted.
Our perspectives paper aimed to focus more on how we conducted ourselves in our program. The paper brought out specific points on how we deal with safety, ethics, faith, and education.
Abstract for "Learning to Ker: Safety and Ethics in High School Synthetic Biology"
The Our Lady of the Snows Catholic Academy iGEM team is a dynamic synthetic biology group made of high school students from grades 10 through 12. On the team there are brains, athletes, princesses, and basket cases all working towards one goal: expressing Keratinases in E.coli JM109 and DH5⍺. Keratinases have the ability to reduce the 8.5 billion tons of keratin waste produced by the poultry industry every year, along with the keratin waste in wastewater treatment industries in the form of hair. The hair and feathers degraded by the keratinases could even be recycled into a high-quality protein product that can be used to make fertilizer and animal feed. While one focus is to complete this project, the true goal is to provide high school students with a well-rounded education beyond the classroom. This diverse scientific education is not limited to working inside the lab or on the technical aspects of the project. It extends to all areas of science, including safety and ethical considerations, as well as the acknowledgement of different religious and economic perspectives in scientific endeavours. Over the past 3 years, the Our Lady of the Snows iGEM and synthetic biology team has been learning how to build a lab that is economically feasible, through do-it-yourself projects and secondhand equipment. The team has tackled safety issues related to sharing lab space with many students in a high school. Students have also considered the project from a faith-based perspective, and addressed other ethical concerns related to young student scientists and genetic engineering.
Both manuscripts were published on an online platform and on May 21st, 2016 all those who published manuscripts, as well as judges and editors, read, reviewed, and offered suggestions to improve the papers. We received a lot of very helpful feedback from other authors and judges. The feedback they offered made us work hard to find very specific answers to challenging questions, and some comments challenged the way we approached problems we were facing in the lab. After the conference we came back to our project with new perspectives, answers, ideas, and questions.
Both manuscripts were published on an online platform and on May 21st, 2016 all those who published manuscripts, as well as judges and editors, read, reviewed, and offered suggestions to improve the papers. We received a lot of very helpful feedback from other authors and judges. The feedback they offered made us work hard to find very specific answers to challenging questions, and some comments challenged the way we approached problems we were facing in the lab. After the conference we came back to our project with new perspectives, answers, ideas, and questions.
For our content and efforts in collaboration during the conference we were awarded badges in the following categories:
- Biosafety and Ethics
- Conference Participation
- Problem Solving
- Scientific Rigor
- Education
- Collaboration
- Visual Communication
In late September we were contacted by the professionals in the synthetic biology field that we would be working with for editing of the papers. The formatting and copy-editing process is underway, and the papers will both be published by late October.
University of Lethbridge
Our collaboration with the University of Lethbridge team began in mid-August and consisted of their iGEM team testing our construct, and an ethical review. Originally we had planned to also test their project but due to the nature of their project (working with blood is not possible in a high school) we weren’t able to test their construct in our lab but were able to do an in-depth ethical review of their project. A large focus of our ethics has been on the environment and the people after the fact. We have taken into consideration what would happen if our bacteria came into direct contact with town's drinking water, what would happen if animals were to ingest contaminated water, and different systems of containment. One perspective we didn’t look at as deeply was how it would affect people in the wastewater industry. Questions such as “when you went to your local wastewater treatment plant what was their opinion on your project?” and “Have you thought about possibly interviewing/talking to a worker and asking how big an impact your project is on their job?” were being posed. Though unfortunately we didn’t get the opportunity to ask anyone in the industry these questions, it made us step back and look at more than just the scientific responsibilities we had. We now had real people’s livelihoods to think about. Future plans for our project include returning to wastewater treatment plants.
Interviews
As an aspect of our collaborations with other teams, we participated in Rice University’s “Humans of SynBio” project. Based on the Humans of New York social media campaign, where pictures and stories of people are shared with the world. This project allowed us to share our experiences in iGEM and as students participating in synthetic biology. We talked to a member of their team over Skype and he asked questions about our experiences. Their team then posted a summary of our experiences as part of their campaign.
![](https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2016/5/57/T--OLS_Canmore--ricegem.png)
“I think the experience is not as much about the project as it is about personal development and about learning and getting to know the world of science and everything it involves.” - excerpt from article (Aug 28. 2016, Rice iGEM Facebook)
![](https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2016/thumb/6/6a/T--OLS_Canmore--canmorenews.png/800px-T--OLS_Canmore--canmorenews.png)
Along with being interviewed by the iGEM team at Rice University, members of our team were also interviewed by a Swiss university team out of the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) that runs a website featuring iGEM news and interviews from iGEM teams and their members across the world.
The members interviewed were able to take an introspective look at the inner workings of the team, how far we’ve come, how we manage to work together and get along. Two articles were written on the team: one based on the interview, and the second about the project more specifically.
Mentorship
Another part of our collaborations included mentoring a new team from Notre Dame Collegiate high school in High River, Alberta, Canada. Though they did not participate in the iGEM competition this year, they began to work in the lab, develop project ideas, and plan to compete in future years. We got the opportunity to travel with them to a workshop in Lethbridge, Alberta, and the aGEM (alberta iGEM) competition. During this time we agreed to help them refine their lab and research skills. Mentoring a new team not only gives us a chance to help them learn and grow as a team, but also to solidify our own skills and share the experience we learnt through help from our own mentors of the years.
Taiwan
In early March of 2016 we were contacted by an iGEM team in Taiwan who also happened to be working on a project that involved the use of Keratinase. They requested biobricks of our parts KeratinaseA and KeratinaseUS. At the time we were nearing the end of our school year and did not yet have any functional biobricks.
The fact that a team that was so far away had reached out and asked for something we couldn’t provide made us even more determined to buckle down in the lab and in our research to create a functioning biobrick. Something we are still working on.
Even though we weren’t able to give them the parts they needed we did in-fact exchange research and provide them with some research of our own to help them along with their project. However, we did provide them with the sequences of DNA we had synthesized and are using in creating our parts, if case they were interested in also synthesizing them.
Surveys
Additionally, various members of the team were asked to participate in a variety of surveys from other teams. Determined to boost response rates, we answered all we could find. These included both a Virginia iGEM team and the Munich United iGEM team survey.
One survey was in regards to bio-containment. Since this season we have decided to try our hand at building a bioreactor for our bacteria, this was helpful in not only expressing our ideas to others, but solidifying our own plans.
The survey done by Munich United focused more on the business side of synthetic biology.
The questions asked were related to areas we hadn’t focused on or even considered before, from funding to founding a company. Since our aim is to implement our construct industrially these kinds of questions are ones that we need to consider.
By participating in these surveys it gave our team a chance to consider things we may not have otherwise considered had someone not brought the subjects to our attention.
Our team strongly believes in contributing to the larger scientific community through research, mentoring, ethical reflection, and providing feedback. For this reason we are always eager to collaborate with iGEM teams, or other synthetic biology teams and groups. In the true spirit of collaboration, these experiences are beneficial to all parties involved either by providing specific knowledge or by unexpectedly inspiring an idea to improve each other’s projects. For these reasons we’d like to say thank you to all the teams that collaborated with us this year! And thank you to all the teams who interviewed us as talking to other iGEM teams is always a great experience!