Team:Guelph/Collaborations

Collaboration 1 - iGEM Guelph oGEM Conference (Ontario iGEM Meet-Up)

In the spirit of open access and being able to achieve more with the help of others, iGEM Guelph thought it was very important to host the annual Ontario iGEM Meetup oGEM. This year however, we hosted this meetup with a multifaceted intention.

This oGEM was special as it was the second half of a two-part conference held at separate stages of the iGEM competition envisioned by iGEM Guelph and iGEM Western. Typically oGEM is held by a selected Ontario university in July. The teams are to present their project and current progress for constructive feedback by the other teams. oGEM is then also used as a hub for encouraging collaborations among the teams and having an invited professional in the synthetic biology industry to discuss their experiences with the teams. This year however, iGEM Guelph and iGEM Western identified that a limitation of the current oGEM format is that the teams can only meet once during the summer. The teams usually provide robust feedback that can be theoretically integrated into each other's projects however, the time constraints of iGEM usually prevent effective integration. So we thought of the concept of having two oGEM conferences this year, one occurring at the beginning of the summer where we present our project proposals and one at the beginning of fall where we present our completed projects. The idea is that if the teams met early enough, we can then plan to integrate the feedback provided by the other teams at the beginning of the summer. This was not only demonstrated from oGEM at Western, but an unexpected outcome was that teams were able to check in more frequently with each other and share resources for similar techniques and problems we were encountering with our individual projects.

At oGEM Guelph, the iGEM Guelph team was able to expand the scope of the oGEM conference to include not only team members but team PIs as well. We had an attendance of not only teams from iGEM Western, iGEM Toronto, iGEM Queens, iGEM Waterloo, iGEM Laval and iGEM McMaster, but the PIs and grad advisors from iGEM Guelph, iGEM Waterloo and iGEM Toronto. With this presence, we were able to have the completed projects critiqued by the PIs and advisors, as they would be for the Jamboree presentation.

At the Guelph oGEM conference we wanted to also connect interested parties to the Ontario iGEM network. Ontario Genomics is the provincial-wide genome centre that aims at supporting and sustaining molecular and genetic endeavors that are occuring in Ontario. Their mandate is centered around working with researchers, policymakers, startups and companies to overall encourage and facilitate the use of genomics to drive the future health and wealth of Ontarians. Recently there has been a huge interest and shift in focus by Ontario Genomics to highlighting Synbio research in Canada, and iGEM Guelph believed that it would be a fantastic time to leverage their interest and invite them to our conference. They were invited with the intention of highlighting the scope and entrepreneurial candidacy of university iGEM projects to bolster not only our standing in Ontario, but also the intensity of synbio research at an undergraduate level. We were able to host the President and CEO of the organization, Dr. Bettina Hamelin, as one of our Keynote Speakers to discuss ‘How Synthetic Biology Can Change and Save The World’. This talk provided teams with case studies of real world problems that can be addressed with emerging tools in synthetic biology that inspired us to consider joint future projects that our teams can start tackling together.

We also invited Dr. Malcolm Campbell, Vice President Research (VPR) of the University of Guelph to attend as a keynote speaker for the day. An incredibly important and vocal individual when it comes to experiential learning, synthetic biology, and innovation in the Guelph community, Dr. Campbell’s presence at the event helped to echo iGEM Guelph’s passion and sentiments for these topics. We would like to extend our thanks for his dialogue on the importance of scientific communication and overcoming the inevitable negative sensationalization of new technologies. As a team, iGEM Guelph takes pride in our strong relationship with our very own VPR. We hope that Dr. Campbell’s presence and support for our initiatives resonates with other Ontario iGEM teams, and inspires them to form similar relationships with their respective VPRs. These important figures in the Ontario Undergraduate Synthetic Biology landscape came together in the day during our ‘Ontario Genomics Breakout Session’ where we provided the Ontario iGEM teams the opportunity to ask questions revolving around the importance of synthetic biology and undergraduate research to Ontario Genomics and Universities in Ontario. The biggest take away was that both Dr. Campbell and Hamelin are determined to work together and with other Ontario University VPRs to help facilitate and encourage the existence of iGEM teams in more Universities than the ones that currently exist. This was a powerful win for us, as their acknowledgment and offers of help are currently being materialised as the Ontario iGEM teams are invited to an Ontario Council on University Research in 2020, where we can help discuss this upcoming iGEM expansion with VPRs and key stakeholders such as Ontario Genomics.

Collaboration 2 - Queens iGEM Project Trouble-Shooting and Part Characterization

iGEM Guelph's Nicole assisted Queens iGEM with troubleshooting their protein expression. Recombinant antibody expression in E. coli is notoriously difficult and Queens was unable to express their BioBrick in BL21 cells over an extended period of time. Nicole made suggestions be able to better express their antibodies including: altering buffer conditions, changing expression conditions, altering the purification system, and trying a different cell line. This ultimately lead to Queens iGEM changing cell lines since their protein was more likely to fold in a cell line that contains an oxidizing cytoplasmic environment.

Additionally, we helped Queens iGEM develop their Bronze Medal characterization experiments for parts BBa_K608010 and BBa_I746909. One of the suggestions we made for improving their protein yield was trying constitutive promoters, instead of the T7 promoter. Queens initially investigated the differences in protein production between T7 and constitutive promoters, using available Biobricks in the iGEM registry. We helped them find the BioBricks for testing and helped in developing a testing method for measuring the protein production of said BioBricks.

Collaboration 3 - UAlberta iGEM Equality Series on Instagram (Social Outreach Collaboration)

As a collaboration with iGEM Alberta, Nicole took part in their Equality Series on Instagram. This series highlights women and minorities in the sciences, with a goal to empower women in iGEM and in sciences by emphasizing positive experiences Their series highlighted many women and minorities who took part in iGEM past and present, and we were pleased to have one of our members take part! As a team we are passionate about opening up scientific experiences to everyone and we believe this Equality Series was a great way to help do that! Showing the world through social media how synthetic biology and iGEM can shape people both as scientists and as leaders empowers women and people of minority to also take part and get involved!

Collaboration 4 - oGEM Meetup at University of Western Ontario

Earlier in the competition year we collaborated with iGEM Western Canada team and other Ontario iGEM teams to meet and discuss plans, achievements and challenges in our projects. We presented on our progress and received feedback from other iGEM teams in what direction to take our project. We also provided feedback to other teams on their projects and provided advice on how to incorporate PIs into the team better as we have very good incorporation of our PIs. This experience was a lot of fun, and during this time we also decided to have an additional Ontario iGEM meetup in the Fall to present our near-final projects for further feedback and practice (see Collaboration 1 above).

Collaboration 5 - iGEM Toronto(Mentorship Collaboration)

Amy, Victoria and Carlos from the iGEM Toronto team provided fantastic mentorship to our team members Jehoshua, Connor and Nykole involving the new (to us) and exciting field of machine learning and modelling! They were incredibly patient and informative when explaining and demonstrating the basics of these concepts, and inspired us with many avenues that we will consider with modelling of future projects. In addition, these Skype calls served as a way to strengthen our connection with the Toronto team, especially because we are both considering similar project topics for the upcoming year. We hope that this improved relationship with their team will give us a head start on some exciting collaborations for the iGEM 2020 competition year!

Thank you to all of our iGEM collaborators,


we are glad to have been able to work together!

University of Guelph iGEM 2019