Collaboration

Overview

To us, iGEM is not only a competition but also a chance to be able to meet and engage with students with similar motivations.

iGEM Team Korea_HS 7/21

We were approached by newly founded iGEM Korea_HS. As iGEM NCKU has already been well established and has many experiences in iGEM competition, we agreed to mentor them.
Through the following months, we mentored their team through Skype calls. We exchanged information about both our projects and shared technical knowledge. They also had many questions which we were more than happy to answer to the best of our knowledge. Their questions ranged from asking how to debug some parts of their projects and how we accomplished the medal criteria for both Wet and Human Practices, to questions about Jamboree and iGEM itself. We did our best to provide them with the answers and support they needed. Seeing their enthusiasm and passion for synthetic biology, we can’t help but feel inspired too. It was the utmost pleasure to help them work on their project and it was such a great experience mentoring an iGEM team.

iGEM Team UNSW

UNSW iGEM created a global business plan initiative, where they will create a business plan scaffold that can be utilized by anyone across the globe despite not knowing anything about business. In addition to using their business plan scaffold as a basis to write our own business plan, they also scheduled a video call to talk to us through several problems we might have. As we have never written a business plan before, UNSW iGEM patiently went through everything a business plan should have via the video call and how we need to write it in relation to our project.
In the beginning, when we received their first draft for the business scaffold, we felt that some of the items mentioned were too specific to be used globally. One of the biggest challenges in using the global scaffold, was the significant differences between policies and regulations of each country. Just in Australia and Taiwan alone, there were many differences that can affect how we each write our business plans. When we mentioned that we were going to enter our products into National Health Insurance (NHI) in Taiwan to reduce the costs, they advised us to consider further reducing costs by partnering with manufacturers. They also said that unlike the situation in Taiwan where companies are free to consider applying for NHI, the situation is slightly different in Australia. Most medical products have to be approved by Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) in order to be competitive in the market. By sharing the different policies and regulations, UNSW iGEM was able to tweak their business scaffold to further accommodate everyone’s needs.
One of the problems we encountered was that we had two distinct products, a live therapeutic drug and a bio-sensing device and we were unable to write them together in one business plan. UNSW iGEM advised us to keep our two products in one business plan and specifically write a business model for each.

iGEM Team Washington

As a diverse team of students from different countries, we understand the importance of making sure everyone understands the things discussed and spoken, especially when it comes to scientific knowledge. Thus, we were happy to collaborate with iGEM Team Washington and help them translate their outreach booklet into Bahasa Indonesia. By working together, we hope to allow more people the chance to receive information and knowledge in the language they are familiar with.

iGEM CarollHS

Wiki Resources Collaboration:
One of the problems wiki editors usually face when putting our data on the wiki page is the lack of wiki guidance, especially for wiki newcomers, who will face a hard time trying to use the iGEM wiki without any guidance. iGEM CarollHS will provide a wiki guide in the shape of a guide book and Youtube videos. They also asked our feedback regarding the content we would like to learn and problems we might face when designing wiki. In our collaboration, we were able to provide some feedback and recommendations for their wiki guide: to add a guide regarding how to link js and css files on the iGEM wiki website. However in conventional web development, and are used to link the two.

iGEMxSDGs (iGEM Tuebingen, iGEM TAS_Taipei, iGEM Costa Rica)

Every project will surely have its own aims and focus on the project that will support the SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) made by the United Nations (UN). SDGs are aimed to reach goals in the world’s situation in promoting prosperity, equality, peace and care for the environment. We participated in iGEMxSDGs because we know how important the SDGs are and how iGEM and our project can help promote and support the change for SDGs. Here are the ways we participated in realizing UN Sustainable Development Goals :

Goal Number 3: Good Health and Well-Being

Since p-Cresol accumulation has been proven to increase the risk of complications in CKD patients, we aim to improve the health and well-being of CKD patients by reducing p-Cresol production and providing a device capable of quantifying blood p-Cresol levels.

Goal Number 4: Quality Education

A paper^[1] had stated that many CKD patients suffer from this disease because of a lack of education about kidney health. Without any widespread education about CKD, more and more people will suffer from this disease. Thus, we have designed several attempts for education, starting from educating students in elementary school to high school.

Goal Number 17: Partnerships for the Goals

Oh My Gut project may be inspired by the tiny island of Taiwan, but our products can impact the entire world^[2]. As the sixth growing cause of death in the world, we realized just how important this problem is. Therefore, we do not just partner with local healthcare providers or government but also engage with global healthcare providers that will help us in realizing the goal of Oh My Gut.

Networking

This year, we started a facebook group to unite all iGEMers in Taiwan, where we are able to talk and share our ideas and information more efficiently. In this group, we shared ideas about our projects, and also vital information for the iGEM competition and Jamboree.

Reference:

Narva, Andrew S., et al. “Educating Patients about CKD: The Path to Self-Management and Patient-Centered Care.” Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, vol. 11, no. 4, 4 Nov. 2015, pp. 694–703, cjasn.asnjournals.org/content/11/4/694, 10.2215/cjn.07680715.
‌Kidney.Ca, 2019, www.kidney.ca/file/2019-WKD-Media-Release.pdf?erid=0.
‌dpicampaigns. “About the Sustainable Development Goals - United Nations Sustainable Development.” United Nations Sustainable Development, 2018, www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-development-goals/.

Team:NCKU Tainan/Collaborations