Team:KCL UK/Collaborations
Collaborations
Team UCL
Our first collaboration was a meeting with the University College London team. As we were both focusing on similar themes, this allowed us to discuss and offer each other advice on certain aspects of our projects. The UCL team kindly advised us modelling software that we could use, as well as how to start with designing a wiki page, while our team provided them information on the bio-bricks, as well as verification of results that we were both obtaining from our wet lab. With their help, we knew where to start in designing our model and wiki page.
Team Newcastle
Next, we went to the UK iGEM summer meet-up hosted by the University of Newcastle. The meet-up included teams all over the UK and was an exciting and helpful opportunity to meet with them to discuss aspects of the project. There we were able to see their interesting project ideas, as well as seek advice from other teams on modelling, wiki development, and fundraising ideas. Furthermore, this provided the opportunity for us to reflect and refine the goals of our project, as well as plan out all the steps we needed to complete to qualify. We would like to thank the University of Newcastle for hosting this event, as well as all the teams who gave us advice and support in areas with which we had little experience in, especially with modelling.
Team William and Mary
Following our visit to Bexley Grammar school, we became inspired to try and educate schoolchildren about viruses. We designed an educational board game which would act as a fun learning tool about how viruses work and how the immune system responds to them. Our team tested the game several times, and then offered to share the game with other teams, for both testing and educational purposes. Team William and Mary kindly agreed to test it, so we sent out the links to the online board game, and asked them to send back what they did with the game, whether they enjoyed it and any suggestions on improving it for future use. All the teams gave back positive reviews; saying they liked the theme, the rules and the message the game brings. We would like to thank the team for their interest in this activity we created; with your help, we were able to refine and enhance our educational tool. We hope that you enjoyed using and sharing this game with others!
See the whole story of how we came to design a board game in our Public Engagement section.
Team Warwick
Following a skype conversation with Team Warwick, they were kind enough to offer being our mentors, and we happily agreed. With Warwick’s help, we were able to improve the stability and elasticity of our capsid model.
Team Aachen
Team Aachen provided helpful advice for designing our wiki page, which involved removing the original html which is part of the website we used, so that it would not conflict with our new code. We would like to thank them for providing valuable advice to improve our wiki design.
Team Westminster
As we began planning out our fundraising events, we contacted Team Westminster for advice. We were excited to hear their fundraising ideas, and in return provided advice from our experience. Thanks to the meeting, we were able to develop several successful fundraisers.
Team Moscow
Team Moscow would ask us to fill out a survey on their project, which focussed on Lyme disease and how it spread. We happily contributed to them on the matter.
Team TU Dresden
Both us and team TU Dresden were planning on sending out surveys to other teams; we were focusing on biosecurity at universities, while they were focusing on how to donate DNA for their test kit. Both of us would exchange ideas to refine the surveys, as well as contribute to them. This helped us design a survey which would provide detailed information about biosecurity policies at universities around the world.
Team VIT Vellore
Team VIT Vellore would contact us about their project, which involved using phages to target antibiotic resistance. They wanted to consult us specifically about the details of the phage’s life cycle and mutations of its genome. We gladly provided any information we had on the matter. In return, they provided us with invaluable guidance for our wiki page, specifically how to make our menu bar collapsable on mobile versions using javascript.
Biosecurity Surveys
After our interview with Dr Francis Butcher we were interested in seeing how universities around the world dealt with biosecurity. So we sent out a short survey to several teams, asking them their views on how their universities promote biosecurity to students. We would like to thank all the teams who participated:
Thank you very much for taking time to fill out our survey; thanks to you, we were able to perform data analysis based on your responses, and get useful information on how your universities deal with biosecurity.
