Team:USAFA/Collaborations

USAFA Collaborations

Ohio Meet-Up June 2019

During our research in Ohio at the Air Force Research Lab (AFRL) at Wright-Patterson AFB we had the opportunity to collaborate with a local high school and two other schools in the Ohio and Michigan area. USAFA, Carroll High School, Ohio State, and Alma College all met up in the downtown Dayton area. We toured downtown Dayton, learned about each other as individuals, and learned about each other in the context of our teams. We had the opportunity to present on the ideas and research we had accomplished thus far. We gave each other constructive feedback and tips on how to improve our presentations and how to proceed in our research. The ideas that the other schools had were inspiring and an awesome picture of how young people were noticing problems and seeking to use sustainable, scientific methods to alleviate or solve them. We also had the opportunity to have a skype discussion with the North American iGEM ambassador Amy Chen. She gave invaluable advice on how we should best prepare for the 2019 competition, what the judging looks like, and how we can make ourselves stand out. She also spoke on how we can continue to research and be a part of iGEM through “After iGEM.” Overall, USAFA and the other schools felt more confident after the meet-up. We all received advice and encouragement from the other teams, their mentors, and Ms. Chen’s participation.

Colorado Meet-Up August 2019

The USAFA iGEM team met up with iGEM teams from three other Colorado Universities: Colorado School of Mines, University of Colorado, and Colorado State University. Each team was given an opportunity to present their project and get feedback from the other teams about presentation techniques, ways forward from current roadblocks in research, and agreements to share resources and materials. The USAFA iGEM team presented on the Synthetic Biology Approach to Detection and Degradation of (PFOS) in Water. The other teams presented on such research topics as Molecular Mining of Cadmium, an Antibody Switch-Off, and Quorum-Sensing and Phage Therapy. Similar to the Ohio meet-up, we left the Colorado meet-up feeling more confident and engaged with other young scientists trying to solve local and global problems.

Collaboration with Alma College iGEM Team 2019

The USAFA 2019 iGEM team worked with the Alma College iGEM team to investigate and validate a mysterious BioBrick located on Plate 6, well 16N. A picture of the resulting transformed E. coli colonies was then shared with the Alma College iGEM team and posted to social media with the #MysertyBioBrick tag to promote iGEM and synthetic biology.