Team:Westminster UK/Collaborations
Team
Kaiserslautern Collaboration
Plasticity
As part of our iGEM project, we have sought collaborations with other teams to help us cover the ‘gaps’ present on our pathway model. More specifically, this idea coupled our goal of generating electricity with addressing the PET breakdown pathway.
By communicating with other teams, we have gotten in touch with the Kaiserslautern iGEM team, which was working very hard at engineering the microalgae Chlamydomonas reinhardtii to be able to synthesize and secrete the enzymes that make up the PET catabolic pathway. Chlamydomonas was an excellent candidate for co-culturing with Shewanella; due to the phototrophic nature of Chlamydomonas, it was very unlikely that both organisms would compete for nutrients or present any threat to each other.For this reason, our iGEM team was really interested in exploring the prospects of co-culturing our Shewanella with the Kaiserlautern’s team Chlamydomonas.
After a few online meetings and exchange of ideas, both teams agreed that there was a tremendous potential for both of our organisms to work as a cohort to achieve the goal of breaking down PET. Due to the expertise on the University of Westminster with Microbial Fuel Cells, and the fact that our team could easily set-up the experiment of co-culturing using an MFC to simulate a ‘real-life scenario’, the Kaiserslautern team was extremely proactive and had samples of their Wild-type Chlamydomonas shipped to us.
Once our team was able to transfer the cultures we had been kindly provided with by the Kaiserslautern team, we first noticed that the Chlamydomonas was best cultured in TAP growth media, which was different from the minimum salt media (MSM) that our Shewanella was growing. This meant that our team had to fine-tune the composition of the media within the MFCs, and during the planning stages of the MFC preparation, our team has decided to go with different compositions involving pure MSM and TAP media, as well as mixed compositions.
When the experiment was concluded and our team has gathered the data from the MFCs, cell count tests were performed using a microscope to see if the ratios of Shewanella/Chlamydomonas were different in each MFC. As part of our collaboration, the Kaiserslautern team has also provided us with results from their PET degradation experiments. This data as very important for our team, as the amount of TPA (Terephthalic acid) that was being generated as a result of PET catabolism could be used in our model to have a more accurate scenario of how much TPA would be available to Shewanella if co-cultured with Chlamydomonas.
Find out more under our model page.
Art competition
The Kaiserlautern team has additionally invited us to participate in their synthetic biology art competition. Some of our team members decided to accept the challenge and make a few drawings to submit into their competition.
Our submissions won a second place! See them below.
IONIS Collaboration
As another team interested in the breakdown of plastics to provide feedstock to exo-electrogenic bacteria, we found that the IONIS iGEM team could find our idea interesting.
After a meeting, we have decided to run our projects as we planned to and offer each other feedback on any aspects of our projects we could help each other with, as IONIS was more focused towards the plastic breakdown aspect of their project, while we were more focused towards the MFC aspect.
UCL collaboration
Due to the close proximity, and the long-standing friendship and collaboration between the University of Westminster and UCL, it felt natural to our team that a collaboration between our team and the UCL iGEM team was an excellent idea. Despite both of our teams having worked on very different project areas, after an initial meeting hosted by UCL on July, our team had a great exchange of ideas that lead to a collaboration between our teams.
The UCL team has developed a brilliant idea that was aimed at fostering a new generation of scientists that are knowledgeable not only in their scientific area of expertise, but also have the knowledge on how to better execute experiments to avoid resource waste and also how to reduce their environmental impact while still efficiently working in a laboratory. In order to accomplish this, the UCL team has started the Emerald Challenge checklist, where participants are asked to submit online pictures of their team doing a certain action that is focused on being environmentally aware in a laboratory environment.
Our iGEM team felt that the UCL team had a great idea and that it should be developed. By joining both of our teams, we have provided the UCL team with support in developing a robust strategy that could support a large scale launch of their project. By utilizing Google’s automation features, our team has provided the UCL team with a functional JS code that greatly facilitates the management of the progress and activity of each participating team during the challenge. This includes around the clock monitoring of responses and automatic updates on the progress of each team, greatly facilitating the implementation of the challenge on a worldwide scale and the efficient and accurate management of a large set of responses.
During our collaboration, our team has also proposed an extension to the already existing Emerald Challenge, where participating teams that have completed the Emerald Checklist will become eligible to take part in a competition that involves the weekly collection of data from each participating team on their resource use around the laboratory, including for example, amount of pipette tips used, aluminium foil discarded, pairs of gloves used, etc. At the end of the competition, the team that has consistently used less resources than the global average would be rewarded.
Calgary
The Calgary University team provided us with some materials for school visits and other outreach activities that involve synthetic biology with the youth.
Find out more under Public Debut -> Public Outreach.
Duesseldorf Postcard Collaboration
This year we also participated in the long-lasting Postcard collaboration initiated by team Duesseldorf. Our head of design team member, Bledar, designed a few postcards that have sketches relevant to synthetic biology, genetic engineering and the idea of our project.
These postcards were sent to the Duesseldorf university, where they have been printed out and re-sent back along with many others from other iGEM teams.
Link to the collaboration: https://2019.igem.org/Team:Duesseldorf/Collaborations
Our submitted postcard designs:
New Castle Meet-up
Well, let me tell you, we felt just like ‘Great Scientists Who Rose From Harsh Beginnings’. It has a nice ring to it, right? It is not as dramatically correct as it may sound, but we truly pushed through to attend the UK meet up in Newcastle.
Speaking of passion for science, on July the 30th you found our team preparing themselves to head up to Newcastle. Now, let’s go back to the beginning, 24hrs before that. It is late July and almost everyone of the team was away on holiday and some of us just graduated. So, having a good time away from the lab was definitely worth it. However, the luxury of having the time off did not amuse us for long. We managed to pull together four of us, Marko, Simon, Sara and Lucas. Miraculously, we managed to print our t-shirts with iGEM logos, sort out accommodation, book train tickets for Sara, fuel the car for Marko and Lucas and book a bus ticket for Simon who travelled for 9 hrs after his 12hrs shift at work – what a hero. Of course, spending this time planning our journey, did not give us any time to prepare the most important part of the whole trip - the poster!! Upon arrive, we managed to catch the last few presentations of day 1 of the conference. Amazing ideas and inspiring future scientists, the team was uplifted by the spirit and the environment – thanks to Newcastle iGEM team for arranging this meet up.
In the evening, we head back to the accommodation, drop our bags and go for quick nibble before we started working on our poster. We spent the whole night working on our presentation while messaging Simon every now and then to check on his over night bus journey to Newcastle. The next morning, we do a quick rehearsal and head to the university for Day 2 of the conference. Our presentation was last, so we had the joy of listening to other iGEM teams while nervously sweating until it was our turn. Overall, for a lastminute presentation, it was good, we had a great idea at the end of the day that we believe, certainly, will attract Elon Musk if he ever heard about it. It may sound cliché, but our enthusiastic attitude for scientific research and and believing in our project, made us appreciate the efforts we put in. At some points, somehow, we felt disappointment, because other teams with high budget have access to the equipment they need let alone getting paid to participate in iGEM. In addition, other teams had medical students, engineers, computer scientists and even English lecturer students being part of the competition. However, at the end of the day, we were filled with gratitude to be the only non Russell group university presenting among universities such as Oxford, UCL and Sheffield. We learned from this trip that if we put our efforts into something as a team, we can definitely achieve our goals. It is true that we did not win the best presentation – well done Sheffield team!
but we succeeded in being there to represent our university and our team. At least we can say, we tried.
