Team:TU Dresden/Collaborations
Beaming BioBricks from Space...
Our Collaborations
We established a COLLABORATION NETWORK throughout our entire iGEM journey. Each collaboration
led us to new ones allowing to learn more & more about the work and communication in the real scientific society!
It transformed the competition to a community of teams helping each other to fulfill their scientific dreams together!
Within our collaboration campaign we were mainly focused on mentoring/troubleshooting
and sharing/testing, but were open to a variety of other collaborations that allowed us
to become part of such a huge network!
Mentoring Future iGEMers
Video-series “How to iGEM’ by TU Dresden team
Every year more than 300 new-comer teams experience the problem how to start doing iGEM. And we are not an exception. To make the integration to iGEM easier for the next iGEMers we organized a lecture in late November promoting iGEM in our University and hopefully sowing the seeds for the next TU Dresden Team 2020. But we wanted to reach out further than that. Not only mentoring and supporting next iGEM-students from our city but all future participants of the competition and, thus, our team promoted the Video-series “How to iGEM” collaboration where we are explaining many aspects of the competition! We asked other teams to provide us with ideas about the problems they have experienced at the beginning and how they fixed it.
The teams from Lambert GA and CMU Quatar supported our project sharing their ideas and experiences. The Teams of Leiden, UAlberta, UPNAvarra Spain and MSP Maastricht team wrote scripts from which we created four of our videos.
How to iGEM #1 - Fundraising
In this video MSP Maastricht team and our team explain in an easy way the budgeting, crowdfunding, the executive documents, as well as how to define audience and contact companies. It can be especially helpful for new-comers who have a great idea but no experience on how to get funding.
How to iGEM #2 – Integrated Human Practice
Since there is low awareness about Synthetic Biology together with UAlberta team we came up with an idea to explain the importance of HP and how to do it in the best way. We discussed how to find the target audience, keep in touch with them, and how to present your idea.
How to iGEM #3 – Sharing lab materials
While we were collaborating with Leiden team, we experienced some difficulties on how to send lab materials, specifically a plasmid carrying HRP and Amp resistance genes. This is how the idea of this video was born.
How to iGEM #4 - iGEM’s webpage
UPNA Spain team sent us an email saying that they had quite a lot of issues navigating the giant amount of information on the iGEM webpage, since our team felt the same and we heard that issue from other teams as well, we decided to present a short summary of the most important pages.
How to iGEM #5 - BioBricks
In this video we explain what BioBricks are, how to use them for your project, where to find information on old BioBricks in the iGEM website and why there are different iGEM standards like the RCF25 and the RCF10.
How to iGEM #6 – Distribution Kit
In this video we explain what the Distribution Kit is, what it contains and how to use it
How to iGEM #7 – Why to iGEM
Here we show an interview with Professor Mascher, who was been mentoring many iGEM Teams and some of our students, on what fascinates them in iGEM and why some come back to it year after year.
Mentoring / Troubleshooting
Fellow iGEMers
Leiden team
During the MeetUp in The Hague we met the Leiden team that aimed to explore the opportunity of suckerin-based biomaterials for a wound healing. They were interested in peroxidase that they did not have but found to be useful for their experiments. That is why after the MeetUp we were keeping in touch, and eventually, sent to them the peroxidase plasmid carrying HRP gene that our team uses as a reporter protein that is supposed to give a colorful read-out when dCas9 is bound to specific sequence of DNA.
Leiden team kindly shared their experience on how plasmids are usually sent, since it was our first experience in sharing the materials.
Eindhoven team
During the MeetUp in The Hague we were happy to see the poster of the Eindhoven team, which was closely related to our DipGene project. This team came up with an idea of fast detection of bacterial pathogens with the use of specific bacteriophages and dCas9-split-NanoLuc. After the meeting, the Eindhoven team contacted us about their problems with expression and purification and we were more than happy to troubleshoot their project. Our team shared our dCas9 sequence that we are using for our experiment, and also provided the protein expression and purification protocols. Based on them, the Eindhoven team tested different conditions, and while comparing the dCas9 sequences they figured out the difference in the codons. Eventually this led to the solution of their problems!
Stuttgart team
Actively using Instagram to follow news from other iGEM teams, we were taking part in Stony Brook team’s insta challenges. In this framework, our team posted the information about two our project (DipGene and SweetSpirulina) that we had by that time. We were more than happy when Stuttgart team saw this post and contacted us saying that they also have two projects and many questions. We decided to meet each other at German MeetUp in Düsseldorf and give a detailed presentation about both our projects. The discussion demonstrated that we had a lot of issues in common. During sufficient amount of time we were mentoring each other (based on our own experience) on how to manage funding, competition rules, and timing when having 2 projects.
In addition to that, one of this team’s project aims to establish a microalgae-based growth medium for bacteria. Primarily, they wanted to use Chlorella vulgaris and had an interest to try Athrospira platensis (Spirulina) as well. From our side we provided all information we had about Spirulina from our experience.
Groningen team
Our team was happy to mentor the Groningen team with the problem related to sourcing .js files that occurred when they were writing a code for their wiki. Since our team experienced and fixed this kind of problem, our team member Pedro gave detailed instructions of each step and even provided some tricks (for instance on using extra parameters, adding the specific flag, and so on) and was supporting them until the problem was solved!
Freiburg team
Freiburg team was the first team with whom we got in contact! We supported each other in many issues arising during the first months being in iGEM. We are especially thankful for their mentoring in terms of which polymerase is better to use for PCR. Moreover, we had some issues on how to send some proteins, and Freiburg team gave some recommendations in terms of conditions and how to keep them “alive” during delivery.
TU Dresden team
We are probably the first team who was mentoring ourselves! :-D. As you already noticed, out team had 2 projects – DipGene that we are going to present on Giant Jamboree, and SweetSpirulina .
One of our subteams (working on SweetSpirulina project) was struggling with DNA extraction from Spirulina. That is why our DipGene subteam shared their improved protocol for DNA extraction with dipping the cellulose paper in the cell lysate and directly apply the PCR master mix.
Testing Other Teams Projects
Stuttgart team
One part of the Stuttgart team `s project aims to establish microalgae as a substrate for Vibrio natriegens cultivation to set a climate- and ecologically-friendly method to cultivate bacteria in biotechnology. To test their project idea they needed to analyze a different bacteria growth in their media. Since we already were in contact with this team, we decided to test their media. They sent to us 9 samples of their microalgae-based medium, and we made a growth curve with our own bacteria (E. coli GB05). The results are presented below.
Potsdam team
The Potsdam team is in the software track. They aimed to generate thermostable proteins by using their machine learning algorithms. To contribute to the training of the neural network developed by them, we sent our Miraculin protein sequence that we used for our second project (SweetSpirulina). Eventually, Potsdam team sent us the possible thermostable variants of our protein predicted by their system.
Sharing Information and Materials
Learn how the teamwork extended beyond helping with ideas
MeetUps
Our team had the chance to take part in two iGEM MeetUps.
The first International MeetUp took place from the 13th until the 14th of May in den Haag, the Netherlands. There, five of us represented our two projects. The meeting really helped us to realize how important the wiki is, and thus, made us aware of the fact that we had to start working very hard on it directly after arriving in Dresden. Apart from that, the meet up in den Haag allowed us to get in contact with other Eindhoven and Leiden teams, facilitating the communication which resulted in several very fascinating collaborations.
The meeting in Düsseldorf from the 5th until the 7th of July was a very fruitful experience that allowed us to establish collaborations with teams from Berlin, Stuttgart, and Tübingen.
Stuttgart team
During the German iGEM MeetUp hosted by Düsseldorf team, our team started collaborating with Stuttgart team . At that moment, both our teams were dealing with two projects. One of our project was related to Spirulina and the Stuttgart team wanted to make a media based on it to cultivate bacteria. After the MeetUp, our team sent Spirulina to them and provided all necessary information about it. We found their idea very promising, because Spirulina has been used for many years as human food supplement. This was due to its high protein content and nutritional value, hence, it can be a good candidate for media.
US AFPL CarrollHS team
Our team has an experienced programmer, Pedro, that is why we were able to help US AFPL CarrollHS to write “Creating a Wiki Wealth of Knowledge” manual. We sent a detailed 5-page script that outlines what is Bootstrap/Jquery and explained how we figured out how to load the new versions of this technology into the iGem Mediawiki template engine.
uOttawa team
We liked the idea of uOttawa team to create a Virtual Protocol Donation Box, and to support them we shared some protocols we used in our experiments. Moreover, this platform was useful for us at the very beginning of our experiments when we were looking for a high-yield DNA extraction protocol. Due to the great idea of uOttawa team we were able to try different approaches based on successful protocols provided in Virtual Protocol Donation Box.
Tübingen team
During the German MeetUp in Düsseldorf we discussed the possibility to support Tübingen team`s project aiming to inform people (not involved in science) about the benefits of using GMO in food industry. After the meeting together we were brainstorming a lot about possible topics for this project such as golden rice, gluten-free products, superfood. We also shared our knowledge about German law relating the difference between GMOs contained in food: food that is actually a GMO and food produced by GMO.
Humboldt Berlin team
Also, in Dusseldorf we met the Humboldt Berlin team that was interested in testing Spirulina growth before and after expression of Miraculin. Since we worked with Spirulina in our second project, we sent it to Humboldt Berlin. Despite the fact that we could not proceed with our SweetSpirulina project and decided to put all efforts to DipGene, we are very thankful to Humboldt Berlin team for their intention to collaborate with us!
Stony Brook team
Following our experience with US AFPL CarrollHS team, for which we wrote the guideline about wiki programming, our team decided to help Stony Brook team to write the script for the video tutorial about SnapGene. Such a tutorial can be extremely helpful for new iGEMers that previously had no experience in dealing with this program.
Moscow team
In our project, we wanted to figure out how well DNA binds to cellulose paper in comparison with dipping paper strip into DNA solution (as to be seen in the picture). To get better understanding of it our team needed a special design of spin column that is not redily available in the market. That is why we got in contact with the Moscow team that was open to collaborate with us and offered their help with 3D-printing! Our team engineered the new design of spin column in AutoCAD that was supposed to hold cellulose paper tightly and suits a standard reaction tube. Afterwards, the Moscow team printed it by FDM technology which was available in their laboratory.
Since all our team members worked a lot in the lab performing the experiments, some frequently used laboratory equipment, especially the centrifuge, was sometimes fully occupied. That is why we decided to contact Moscow team again to print a hand-powered centrifuge for us in order to enable us to perform some centrifugation steps independently from regular lab equipment. Moreover, hand-made centrifuge does not require any electric energy that we also found to be very good idea in terms of environment protection.
KCL UK team
Since both KCL UK team and our team were planning to use survey for human practices, we collaborated by sharing ideas and brainstorming about how to use survey in order to get information we needed, how to determine target people, and how to get more answers. Based on the strategy, we collected a sufficient number of valuable for us answers in terms of which way of giving their DNA (for the heritable disease test) people prefer. As a result of survey, we introduced it in our project by deciding to extract DNA from buccal swab.
Increasing Public Awareness
Collaboration efforts to spread the word
Tübingen team
To continue our collaboration with Tübingen team about benefits of GMO, both our teams together with the Institute of Innate Immunity (University Bonn) made a booklet reflecting our ideas about GMO in food, in pharmaceuticals, and for diabetes mellitus prevention. Also, our team offered several options of the booklet design to convey the intention better. The aim of this collaboration was to make people unrelated to science be aware about the many advantages that synthetic biology offers to human being.
Washington team
Since our team consists of international students from different countries, we had a good opportunity to spread our knowledge though over the world making it available to everyone regardless the language limitations. That is why we were happy to help the Washington team to translate their outreach booklet activities to teach Russian speaking children about synthetic biology and tools used to study the corresponding topics via games.
Overall, we translated 13 booklets with activities in Russian such as “DNA Gumdrop structure”, “DNA replication activity”, “Engineer an organism”, “DNA structure crafting”, “Stem cells”, “Antibiotic resistance”, “Bee population”, “Food shortages and GMOs”, “Pollution”, “Solving global problems with synthetic biology”, “Programming and simulation”, “ZIKA virus”, and “Fruit DNA extraction”.
Costa Rica, Tübingen, TAS Taipei teams
The iGEMxSDGs challenge hosted by three teams aimed to promote the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) proposed by the United Nations. Our team was challenged to map our project to 1 to 4 out 17 SDGs and post about it on Instagram. We found this idea to be very important since iGEM teams` projects can directly contribute to the achievement of these goals and we should share it through over the world.
Since our DipGene project is related to the detection of heritable diseases and the SweetSpirulina project was devoted to the solution of diabetes problems, we posted our intention to contribute to the achievement of the following goals:
#2 (Zero Hunger)
#3 (Good Health and Well-being)
#12 (Responsible Consumption and Production)
#17 (Partnerships for the Goals)
Moreover, we involved the @igem_csmutaiwan2019 @igemuspbr2019 @igem_iiserp @igemunsri and challenged them to spread their intentions over the internet community!
Grenoble-Alpes team
Many thanks to Grenoble-Alpes team that kindly helped us to translate our DipGene introduction video in French and Arabic languages to make it available to more people and spread our project idea over the world!
Surveys
Probing the opinions and feedback
Whenever teams asked us to support their surveys related to their projects or global issues, our team was always open to share our experience. After filling the form we often had some suggestions and kept discussing them with teams hosting the surveys.
MITADTBIO Pune team
The MITADTBIO Pune team raised concerns about menstruation pads that are still considered as a taboo in many countries. Particularly, they are going to present a novel solution for dealing with the sanitary waste. To better understand the level of awareness regarding menstrual waste, this team spread a survey that we were happy to answer.
Virginia team
Since the aim of the Virginia team `s project was to create a method of producing biodegradable plastic from Styrofoam waste, they hosted a survey about Styrofoam use in our iGEM Lab. We hope that our contribution will help Virginia team to evaluate the data collected at different waste facilities to aid use-reduction efforts.
UAlberta team
Science should not be limited by any factors such as age, sex and race demographics. The UAlberta team wanted to emphasize this fact and assess the situation prevailing in iGEM teams regarding to this issue. Our team found it to be very important to share our own experiences via survey.
Saint Joseph team
The Saint Joseph team `s survey made us think about how water is cleaned. To fill their survey we browsed some information in terms of water cleaning in Germany and how the contaminated water is generally handled.
UC Davis team
Since UC Davis team `s project is focused on mammalian cells, they wanted to discover more about the use of them in iGEM community via survey. We hope that our answers were helpful for UC Davis team !
Aachen team
The goal of Aachen team `s project was to develop a device that can detect microplastics that are tiny and very dangerous for the human body. Since this team stated the lack of information regarding the level of awareness and the use of microplastics, they decided to clarify it via survey. We were happy to contribute by answering their questions.
Rice team
Rice team wanted to carry out a meta analysis if there are common factors when iGEM teams were choosing their projects. This analysis helped Rice team to study the effect of location on a project selection. The results can give more information about current problems existing in a specific area. For us it was important to support the survey of Rice team in order to advise the next TU Dresden team to focus on it.
KCL UK team
With asking questions to people about biosecurity, you always make people think twice about this important issue. Since our team consists of people with an international background, we were able to share different experiences via KCL UK team`s survey.
Tartu TUIT team
The Tartu TUIT team developed an autolytic yeast strain which had the potential to decrease costs connected to cell lysis. We hope that our answers to their survey allow Tartu TUIT team to estimate the efficiency of the mechanism.
Moscow team
We established many collaborations with Moscow team, we took part in the “Tick-borne diseases” survey related to their projects idea which is a developing of detection system of infected ticks. Since our team consists of people from different countries, we believe that our answers provided valuable information for the team from Moscow!
our great sponsors
We are proudly sponsored by the following partners in science:
Spreading Worldwide
Stony Brook team
The goal of collaboration with Stony Brook team was to promote unity between the iGEM teams through social media postings! Within the iGEM Instagram Challenge everyday during the week we made a post on the given topic (project introduction, agar art, handing outside the lab, and so on . It gave us better understanding of other teams` projects ideas as well as showed us how creative all the teams are!
We can say that social network definitely works, since right after the Instagram challenge the Stuttgart team figured out that our team has 2 projects as their team that eventually led to several collaborations with the Stuttgart team related to our projects!
Düsseldorf team
At the moment when not every team made their wiki but we had a great desire to know more about their projects and share our idea over the world, we found the Postcards Project hosted by Düsseldorf team as an amazing alternative to modern technology! That is why we designed and sent 60 unique postcards to other iGEM teams in order to figure out how we can help each other to make our projects better!
US AFPL CarrollHS team
The idea of US AFPL CarrollHS team was to post pictures in the lab with their “Mike the Microbe” was a great chance to see at what step iGEM teams currently were. Even being very pressed for time with the experiments, a lot of teams found time to share their lab work progress taking pictures of #mikethemicrobe in their labs, and we were not an exception!
Virginia team
Many thanks to Virginia team for the idea to create the iGEM "Social Media" Hub to keep information about all teams in one place! This platform made the communication and collaboration between teams easier. For instance, this Hub helped us to find the contacts of Moscow team when we wanted to send them AutoCAD file (for 3D printing) as well as to find the Instagram information of Lambert and Tartu TUIT teams when we needed to contact them.
Freiburg team
We were happy to be the first team who received Nietorp (in the picture) from Freiburg team! The idea behind that was to share the iGEM teams` intention to saving our planet! The team that received Nietorp was expected to make a post in Instagram demonstrating their contribution to this issue. The measurements of our contribution are:
Moscow team
Thanks to Moscow team for involving us in their sport Instagram Challenges. Taking part in their Chess tournament we were able to demonstrate our team spirit and interact with other teams in different ways! We hope that our sports vibes will attract more and more people to be involved into science.