This year we set a focus on not only collaborating with German teams, but with aspiring teams from smaller and rapidly developing countries.

Spreading the importance of the UN SDGs among the iGEM community with iGEM Tas Taipei and iGEM Costa Rica

Please also visit the wikis of our partners for the following collaboration:
iGEM Tas Taipei
iGEM Costa Rica

iGEM Costa Rica had the idea of spreading the (SDGs) among the iGEM community through social media postings and mapping of each team’s project to the SDGs and their goals. During the gathering of information about the SDGs, we realized that iGEM Tas Taipei from Taiwan was planning to organize a SDG video conference. The conference had the goal to spread awareness of the SDGs and discussing iGEM projects in their context. Thus, we facilitated a three-way collaboration between our three teams, together designing a subpage on iGEM Costa Rica’s Wiki about the SDGs and our initiated challenge: iGEMxSDGs, in which 60 teams participated in. Moreover, we wrote a proposal to iGEM Headquarters to include the targeting of the SDGs as a bronze criteria in following years, since we have come to the conclusion that iGEM can make a contribution to the SDGs.

List of collaborative activities:

• Skype conference and planning
• Design of the Subpage and the collage maker
• Sharing the challenge
• Proposal as bronze criteria
• Participation in video conference

Ethical evaluation of the iGEM project of iGEM TAU Israel and implementation of SDGs

Please also visit the wiki of iGEM iGEM TAU Israel.

Germany and Israel have a delicate relationship. During the Third Reich in Germany, medicine and research were maliciously instrumentalized and unethically practiced for genocidal actions. Thus, to make a statement for ethical research and international collaboration overcoming dark shadows of the past, we teamed up with iGEM TAU Israel. We evaluated the ethics of Israels project, together with Stefan Gammel Human Practices/Experts. and TAU in return evaluated our project. The links to the evaluations can be found under: Parts/Downloads. Moreover, iGEM TAU Israel was also keen on pushing the SDGs, having designed an escape box for the goal of good health and well-being. For us, this is a perfect example for how iGEM Teams could implement the SDGs as bronze criteria.

List of collaborative activities:

• Online conference and intense exchange
• Usage of Escape Box feedback
• Writing of ethical evaluation/project feedback

A plea for the benefits of GMOs - A Collaboration with iGEM TU Dresden (TUDY) and the Institute of Innate Immunity in Bonn(AG Eike Latz)

Please also visit the wiki of iGEM iGEM TU Dresden.

Having heard Prof. Eike Latz’s - from the Institute of Innate Immunity in Bonn- talk at the iGEM Spring Festival, we contacted him to form a collaboration in Diabetes prevention. Anette Christ, a member of his group, has provided us with literature for our research and project planning, especially in respect to chronic inflammation and nutrition. As malnutrition and Diabetes treatment were our focus, we started to collaborate with iGEM Dresden, as well. iGEM Dresden’s project is the generation of a new sugar substitute, spirulina, by a GMO. Together, we decided on designing a brief informative booklet about GMOs and their usage in food and pharmaceutical industry. This booklet was handed out during our booth event in Tübingen.

List of collaborative activities:

• Planning
• Respective literature research and writing of the booklet
• Design of the booklet

Characterization of E. Coli Nissle 1917 and data sharing with iGEM Amazonas

Please also visit the wiki of iGEM Amazonas.

iGEM Amazonas also uses E. Coli Nissle 1917 within their project. Since we were given protocols from a group which works with Nissle, we were happy to share them with iGEM Amazonas. Moreover, we exchanged data about E. Coli Nissle 1917, which we rigorously characterized within our project. This helped both of our projects in the Wetlab and Drylab parts, for instance in modeling.

List of collaborative activities:

• Skype conferences
• Protocol exchange
• Data exchange

E. Coli Nissle growth within iGEM Stuttgart’s special medium

Please also visit the wiki of iGEM Stuttgart.

Since one of the goals of our project is the characterization of E. Coli Nissle 1917, we were happy to help iGEM Stuttgart with their testing of their newly developed media. Following the experimental setup of our previous growth experiments, we were able to describe the growth of Nissle in their media and compare it to two other media.

List of collaborative activities:

• iGEM Stuttgart provided the media
• Characterization of Nissle growth within the new media compared to LB media

Poster Collaboration with iGEM FAU_Erlangen (Vienna, Strasbourg, Marburg)

Please also visit the wiki of iGEM iGEM Erlangen.

We collaborated with iGEM FAU_Erlangend in the design of a poster for the European Researcher Night ERN. The Poster presented the work of five iGEM Teams: Erlangen, Tübingen, Wien, Marburg and Straßburg.

List of collaborative activities:

• Discussions about the content of the poster
• Sending our text for the poster
• FAU Erlangen printed and presented the poster at the ERN