Team:Stony Brook/Collaborations
Collaborations
iGEM provides a unique opportunity for teams from around the world to communicate and collaborate to accomplish a common goal: growing the field of synthetic biology to improve the world that we live in. From the forming of our team, Stony Brook iGEM immediately began to brainstorm unique ways we could work with other teams in a scientific way. We created fun challenges that broke the ice between teams, providing the outlet for the communication between teams. Kicking off the summer with our own Instagram challenge, providing other teams with data for their experiments, creating the Lab Coat Challenge, and collaborating with lab protocols, iGEM Stony Brook has collaborated with over 50 iGEM teams from around the world. Every collaboration has made a significant impact on our experiments, development as a team, and provided us with international connections for adding to the field of science as a whole. Our team and project would not be where it is now if it weren’t for the meaningful collaborations with all of the teams we worked with.
Opentrons OT-2 Robot Collaboration with UC Davis
We participated in a collaboration led by UCDavis iGEM regarding the accuracy of the Opentrons OT-2 robot. To do this, we followed a modified version of two iGEM measurement validation protocols. We performed a serial dilution with both the fluorescein salt and silica beads provided in the iGEM distribution kit, once by hand and once by the robot. We then used a microplate reader to create a total of four standard curves summarizing the results. The corresponding data were then sent to UCDavis for analysis. Below are our standard curves, our Opentrons robot performing the serial dilutions and a test of the serial dilution protocol.
Snapgene Tutorial with Tud iGEM
We collaborated with Tud iGEM on an Snapgene tutorial video. The video focuses on providing viewers with an introduction to Snapgene. It explains the uses of Snapgene, the tools that Snapgene provides, as well as an example of how iGEM teams would use Snapgene to manipulate their plasmids. We wrote an initial rough draft of the script for the video and then contacted Tud iGEM for their advice and input on the video’s content as well as format. After reading and editing the script, they provided feedback on how to improve the video as well as additional points to touch on.
GMO Laws Guide Collaboration with iGEM Warwick
We collaborated with iGEM Warwick by exchanging GMO law guides that were relevant to our prospective countries. The guides focus on points such as the definition of GMO’s, current legislation on GMOs in the country, public concerns on GMOs as well as why GMOs are relevant.
Dusseldorf iGEM Postcard Collaboration
Continuing their tradition, iGEM Dusseldorf hosted their postcard collaboration with their goal to increase public awareness of synthetic biology. Additionally, this collaboration created a way for teams to introduce their projects and communicate before the Giant Jamboree in October. We were excited to participate and designed our postcards to have plants on the front and back of the postcard, as our project fully revolves around plants. We ended up sending over 60 of our postcards in the mail and will be receiving over 60 postcards from around the world, one from each team that participated.
Instagram Challenge
At the beginning of the summer, when teams began to form and develop the start of their projects, we found that a week long Instagram challenge would help teams introduce their projects and teams in a direct, and creative, way. In addition to helping develop team’s social media presence, and formulate their projects, this challenge provided teams an insight to possible collaborations with other teams based on their projects. We reached out to teams to participate in the challenge and were successful in having submissions from iGEM IISER-Bhopal, University of Alberta iGEM, Estonia iGEM, Tel Aviv University iGEM, iGEM Wageningen, The College of William and Mary iGEM, iGEM Tec Chihuahua, Costa Rica iGEM, iGEM Grenoble, iGEM Tec de Monterrey, iGEM Athens, iGEM UANL, iGEM Hamburg, iGEM Munich, Nazarbayev University iGEM, Queen’s University iGEM, Taipei American School iGEM, iGEM Strasbourg, TU Dresden iGEM, iGEM UAAAN, CCU Taiwan iGEM, Chalmers iGEM, Moscow iGEM, iGEM MITADT-Bio(Pune), IISc iGEM, iGEM UFSCar, iGEM Duesseldorf, University of Westminster iGEM, iGEM IIT Madras, and IISER Tirupati iGEM.
Lab Coat Challenge
We decided to propose a challenge that would get iGEMers engaging the right side of their brain and their creative sides. So our team decided to put together the Lab Coat Challenge. In this challenge that took place outside of the lab using a clean standardize lab coat, team members of iGEM teams had to work together to design an alternative way to wear a lab coat, in a fashionable way, other than the standard lab coat style without altering the lab coat in any manner. The wearer still had to be able to function and be fully clothed. This challenge made teams work together towards a common goal, get in touch with their artistic sides, and start seeing and thinking different of an object that was worn everyday, while working in the lab. Our challenge received different styles of lab coat wear from US AFRL Carroll HS iGEM, La Verne Leos University iGEM, University of Westminster’s iGEM, Grenoble iGEM, iGEM Sorbonne, IISER Pune iGEM, iGEM Nantes, iGEM Evry, Queens iGEM, Tartu TUIT iGEM, IISc iGEM, iGEM UFSCar, iGEM IISER Tirupati, CCU Taiwan iGEM, Ohio State University iGEM, iGEM Tec de Monterrey, iGEM UANL, Marburg iGEM, iGEM IIT Madras, University of Alberta iGEM, iGEM Kaiserslautern, iGEM Tec Chihuahua, and iGEM ICT Mumbai.
iGEMxSDGs Challenge
We were challenged by multiple iGEM teams to participate in this challenge put together by Costa Rica iGEM, Tuebingen iGEM, and TAS Taipei iGEM. This collaboration aimed to promote the Sustainable Development Goals proposed by the United Nations. Challenged teams were to map their project from 1 to 4 SDGs, while explaining how their project matched those SDGs, and then post online while tagging 3 to 4 other teams. We chose number 17, “partnerships for the goals,” number 15, “life on land,” and number 12, “responsible consumption and production.” Our project aims to create a defense mechanism for plants against the Tobacco Mosaic Virus so that pesticides don’t need to be used heavily in agriculture, while helping the environment at the same time.
