Team:TelHai-Migal Israel/Collaborations

Two heads are better than one!

One of the main events we initiated as part of the iGEM project was a hair donation event for cancer patients. The purpose of this event was to raise awareness to the challenges and side effects of the chemotherapy treatment. Word of the event went far and beyond our local region and we connected with a lovely girl named Ofir Vardi who is a member of the Tel Aviv University iGEM team. Ofir was happy to collaborate and came to our hair donation event in the upper galilee. In the picture you can see Ofir’s hair donation.

In October 2019 our team participated in a mini jamboree conference (meet up) hosted by Tel Aviv iGEM team. All Israeli iGEM teams took part in this event, with the goal to prepare for the Boston giant jamboree our team presented the scientific project we have been working on this year, received feedback on our scientific work and our community engagement and strengthened our professional and social relationships with the other Israeli teams.

Collaboration with Germany

Our team decided to take part in the European Researchers Night and we wanted to collaborate with other iGEM teams who were part of this event. In early august 2019 we submitted a collaboration request in the global iGEM website. Thanks to a referral our team connected with a team from Tubingen, Germany. One of team Tubingen goals was to put the SDGs principles in the focal point of the iGEM competition so that the subject becomes a medal award disciplince. To support the goal of our new German friends we developed an educational activity (escape box) for the European Researchers Night in the theme of the SDG principles (health and well-being). We wanted to help team Tubingen prove the importance of the SGD principle for children education in particular and for the iGEM competition in general. In the picture below you can see the escape box we made.

Our meaningful connection with team Tubingen led us to additional scientific collaborations between the two teams. Each team provided the other with feedback from an ethical and scientific perspective.