Team:Aalto-Helsinki/Awards
Registration and Giant Jamboree Attendance:
We have registered for iGEM, and are attending the iGEM Giant Jamboree 2019.
Competition Deliverables:
We have filled out all necessary forms as per instruction, and prepared a poster, and a presentation to share more about our project.
Attributions:
We are thankful for the support we received during our project. Our attributions can be found here: https://2019.igem.org/Team:Aalto-Helsinki/Attributions
Project Inspiration and Description:
We have been inspired by many previous iGEM projects, and our own project has been shaped by every aspect; human practices, laboratory work, and model. Our project inspiration and description can be found here: https://2019.igem.org/Team:Aalto-Helsinki/Description
Characterization:
We characterized the RFP coding device (BBa_J04450) by measuring the effect of a range of different chloramphenicol concentrations on fluorescence intensity.
Validated Part:
As part of our project design, we created new BioBricks. Our validated new BioBricks can be seen on our Parts page: BBa_K3016100 and BBa_K3016200
Collaboration:
We enjoyed collaborating with several other iGEM teams in and outside of lab. Our team’s collaborations with other iGEM teams can be seen in our Collaborations page: https://2019.igem.org/Team:Aalto-Helsinki/Collaborations
Human Practices:
Our team welcomed the challenge of including communities within synthetic biology, as well as the general public, in our project with enthusiasm. Our team’s Human Practices can be found here: https://2019.igem.org/Team:Aalto-Helsinki/Human_Practices
Integrated Human Practices:
Our team was determined to find out how we can make an impact with our project, but also what kind of impact the world has on our project design. We did extensive work with our Integrated Human Practices revolving around our project. Our work and conclusions can be found here: https://2019.igem.org/Team:Aalto-Helsinki/Human_Practices
Model:
Our model and lab design walked hand in hand throughout our project to investigate the opportunities in project design. Our teams Model can be found here: https://2019.igem.org/Team:Aalto-Helsinki/Model
Demonstration of Your Work:
We have documented our work and demonstrated with our results that our attempted experiments worked. Our demonstration can be found here: https://2019.igem.org/Team:Aalto-Helsinki/Demonstrate
SPECIAL PRIZES
Integrated Human Practices:
We provide a solution to address the inequality in accessing therapeutic proteins. Our project has planted a seed for revolutionizing biopharmaceutical cost and pricing structures. We have created a novel recombinant protein production system. This solution has the potential to further expedite and serve the rapidly increasing production of new biopharmaceuticals.
A design thinking approach was used to guide our project design. We conducted interviews with key stakeholders to identify the pain points in biopharmaceutical development, user experience, production, and sales today. Our findings have guided the scope of our project as we decided to focus on biopharma instead of biomanufacturing. The ethical impact is greater when targeting pharmaceuticals compared to industrial proteins. Selection of our organism of interest and the modifications made, were based on our discoveries on which factors are important to consider in an industrial production organism. The final outcome, the service and business model along side of our product, was strongly influenced by the input from stakeholders. Thus ensuring that there is a real need for our solution. Our work and conclusions can be found here: https://2019.igem.org/Team:Aalto-Helsinki/Human_Practices
Education and Public Engagement:
Our team has been comprehensive in engaging the public and educating them about synthetic biology. We have organized presentations and workshops for high school students, where we encouraged them to start their own iGEM team and educated them about synthetic biology. We also held seminars focusing on similar topics for students from Finnish and French Universities. Furthermore, we organized and hosted a day full of workshops for visitors of all ages in the biggest Science Center in Finland, Heureka, where we managed to reach out to the over 1000 visitors!
Additionally, we presented our project to international public and possible investors at the BioBusiness Builder event organized by Synbio Powerhouse. Moreover, we actively took part in the European Biotech Week by both planning and participating in its events. We participated in the BioFinland Pitching Competition 2019, and together with the other Finnish iGEM team, Aboa, planned and participated in the BioGarage Opening event, and created an educational video about immunoassays. During the BioGarage Opening, we held a presentation about our projects and iGEM, as well as hosted a synthetic biology quiz and a DNA extraction workshop in the first public GMO laboratory in Finland for mostly synthetic biology professionals, but also members of the public. Finally, in the fall, we recorded and released a podcast series aiming to educate people about synthetic biology, in which we discussed current hot topics in the field with professionals. Our Education and Public Engagement can be found here: https://2019.igem.org/Team:Aalto-Helsinki/Public_Engagement
Model:
Our model focuses on estimating the target protein and membrane protein interactions in the translocation through the bacteria’s inner cell membrane. We are exploring the dynamics of protein secretion via the twin-arginine translocation pathway in Vibrio natriegens and how the quantities of the target protein, induction, and the quantity of inner membrane proteins affect the translocation, as well as where the potential bottlenecks lie in this particular secretion pathway. Additionally, we calculate the growth rate for Vibrio natriegens in media used for experiments. The model uses mathematical methods and computer simulations in order to predict the target protein yield and the model can be extended and fine-tuned even more for example to simulate the outer membrane leakiness and translocation of other proteins of interest. Our work is the first mathematical modelling of the subject - especially the growth rates in specific media and protein translocation in Vibrio natriegens - at hand in our knowledge. Our teams Model can be found here: https://2019.igem.org/Team:Aalto-Helsinki/Model
Entrepreneurship:
Our solution strongly revolves around entrepreneurship. Our vision is to ensure affordability of therapeutic proteins by hindering the unbearable increase of selling prices of biopharmaceuticals. Thus, we have created a product and a business plan for a non-profit organization to reach this goal. In our extensive business plan, we have presented and evaluated necessary information needed in order to start a business. Our business plan provides a framework for how our product should be implemented to have an effect on the pricing of biopharmaceuticals.
Our team has showed entrepreneurial spirit by attending several events. We have pitched to investors at a pitching event for startups and attended a pitching competition, where we were placed amongst the finalists.
Furthermore, we have created a globally applicable business scaffold together with iGEM team UNSW, KU Leuven and UBC. This scaffold has been sent to and filled in by 100+ iGEM teams. The aim of this collaboration is to help iGEM teams develop their idea into a commercial product. Our ideas on Entrepreneurship can be found here: https://2019.igem.org/Team:Aalto-Helsinki/Entrepreneurship
