Team:Western Canada/Collaborations
Ontario Genetically Engineered Machine Team Meet-ups
From the beginning, there was a consensus among the Western iGEM team that collaborating with other teams across the province of Ontario was an essential step in giving/receiving feedback as well as fostering a sense of community among these young synthetic biology scientists working on iGEM projects. Thus, we were extremely honoured that we were able to host iGEM Toronto, iGEM Guelph, iGEM Queens, and iGEM Laval teams on our campus on July 25, 2019 for a provincial “oGEM” (Ontario iGEM) conference. Each team got the opportunity to present what they had accomplished and there were great discussions that sprung from this event. It was incredible to see the different paths the teams had taken and what their focus was. Importantly, projects were critiqued, help was given where necessary and it was clear that this event had a transformative effect on the synthetic biology community that had seemed so fragmented before. The teams left oGEM with a comforting sense that despite the competitiveness of iGEM, we were all working to harness the power of the scientific method to make a meaningful and impactful change in the world.
oGEM meeting: iGEM Guelph and Western iGEM
This year, we worked closely with the iGEM Guelph team to organize the Ontario iGEM (oGEM) annual meetings. In previous iterations of the meeting, we realized that one meeting over the summer was not enough to allow teams to discuss challenges and develop collaborations. Together with the Guelph team, we decided to take the event up a notch and host two meetings: one towards the beginning of the iGEM season, held at Western University, and another one early in October to help teams prepare for the jamboree, hosted by the Guelph team.
The rationale behind these meetings is to present the ideas to the network and help identify potential collaborations and ideas that can be integrated into the project design. The first meeting was hosted and organized by Western iGEM and students from various teams across the region came together to discuss and think together about each other’s projects.
Second, we sought to provide teams with practice for the jamboree, and so the meeting took the form of a ‘mini-jamboree’, in which the teams presented their work conducted over the summer and had the opportunity to receive feedback on their projects. The meeting in October took plate at the University of Guelph and was attended by not only iGEM members, but also some team PIs, the president and CEO of Ontario Genomics, Dr. Bettina Hamelin and her team, as well as Guelph’s vice-president of research, Dr. Malcolm Campbell. We believe that together we can be stronger and propel Ontario teams to achieve excellent results at the Jamboree in Boston.
WIKI COLLABORTATION
Our team was given guidance and discussed how to create our wiki with the help from iGEM team US HFRL Carroll HS.
iGEM Toronto Collaboration
Our dry lab team engaged in discussions about modelling activities with the University of Toronto dry lab team. As both groups were designing a bioreactor, we shared some of the general aspects and goals of our designs. Our team also communicated the challenges we’d encountered with modelling our system. These discussions provided us with potential ideas on how we could extend our work should the project continue in following years. We’d like to thank the Toronto team for their time and insight.
