Team:DTU-Denmark/Collaborations
Awards
Overview
iGEM competition has taught us that knowledge is a common good, and the more you share it with others - the more powerful it can get! That is why whilst working on this project we did our best to form networks and create/maintain the spirit of scientific fellowship with other teams. Our mutual support allowed us to enrich our projects and grow stronger as a community. But why limit ourselves to sharing knowledge only? We can have fun together too!
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Our initiative
During the span of this project, we have established tight collaboration with the iGEM Groningen team, which involved mutual feedback on various drylab activities. The reason we have reached out to the Groningen team specifically is the similarity of our projects, with Groningen’ projects revolving around heterologous protein production in yeast for an environmental cause. They want to optimise alpha-amylase production Saccharomyces spp. as it can reduce ammonia emissions by cattle when used as a feed additive. Talking to them, it quickly became clear that our teams could help each other out on a few topics.
Groningen’s contribution:
Being more experienced in use of this software tool, the Groningen team has provided us with AlphaFold2 predictions of the effect the signal peptide and the fluorescent Venus tag protein might have in the different pMMO subunits. The prediction data has allowed us to confirm that none of these two amino acid sequences will greatly affect folding and assembly of our three Pmo subunits. Additionally, thanks to their feedback on the application developed by our team, an important bug could be detected and removed. The results can be seen on our Contribution page.
Our contribution:
In order to get an idea of the potential production of alpha-amylase under different growth conditions as well as several candidate amylase genes from different organisms, the Groningen team had already considered a Genome-scale Metabolic model (GSM). Due to time constraints however, they could not prioritize it. Having just finished modeling our system with a GSM, we offered to build a model adequate for their project. Overall we have provided them with a great analysis GSMs of S. cereviciae and amylases that allowed them to find the optimal combination of amylase genes and growth conditions.
As we had prepared extensive content for the biggest Danish political festival (read more here). We decided to also involve other iGEM teams in our endeavour to openly discuss GMO regulations.
On 10.07.2021 we gave an online presentation to spark a discussion on the topic and were very happy to share our views on the GMO matter with the team from Moscow (LMSU). It was a very fruitful discussion where we exchanged opinions on three chosen topics and it was great to get the Russian perspective as that is not so much publicly debated. The public perception is very negative towards GMOs.
On 07.07.2021 we had the second iGEM GMO debate with the NU Kazakhstan team, which has put the spotlight on big reglementary differences concerning GMOs around the world. During the meeting, we found out that in Kazakhstan GMOs are used despite their negative perception as climate change has already affected the farming conditions so that conventional plants do not succeed anymore. This contradictory case initiated an interesting discussion on how the abundance of resources and the possibility of open discussion on the topic can hold back the GMO technology, and how easily it can get unleashed once those factors are not in place. Big thank you to NU Kazakhstan and LMSU Moscow for sharing their point of view and educating us on GMO regulations in their countries. These meetings not only made us aware of regional differences with regards to GMO regulations but also how science is practiced in a socio-economic context decisively influencing its path. Read more on the input from both teams in “here”.
To get to know other Danish iGEMers, we invited the SDU Denmark team to visit one of our common sponsors, Ampliqon, with headquarters in their hometown Odense. During the visit at Ampliqon we had an amazing opportunity to get to know the core team working in the company headquarters in Odense, and most importantly, spend some time with the SDU iGEMers! Together we have acquainted ourselves with the laboratories and common practices used by Ampliqon, listened to some great presentations of both Ampliqon and SDU, and have given feedback on each other’s projects. We would like to thank SDU for an amazing day and for showing us around Odense, as well as Amplion for more than a warm welcome! We kept in touch with SDU throughout most of the project via social media, and hope to see them again soon!
Participation
In June of this year we were delighted to participate in a postcard collaboration organised by the Düsseldorf team. The aim for each team was to design a postcard describing their project, which was then sent to the Düsseldorf team members and redistributed by them among all the participants. Overall, 98 teams from 5 different countries took part in this collaboration, allowing us to familiarize ourselves with nearly 100 iGEM projects through a simple description in the form of a postcard. We would like to thank the Düsseldorf team for giving us this opportunity, and all the iGEM teams for such creative postcards - we had a lot of fun going through them!
At the end of July we participated in the Nordic iGEM Conference organised by the Chalmers and Gothenburg teams. The conference was a two-day event where we could present our project in the Nordic iGEM forum, as well as listen to and give feedback on projects of other teams. The second day consisted of a series of webinars and networking activities that allowed us to get to know the Swedish and Finnish iGEM teams that participated in the event. The highlight of the conference was the Best Project contest, where a jury of five researchers from various Nordic universities assessed all the projects based on the judging form prepared for the occasion. Thank you to Chalmers and Gothenburg for organising this great event, as well as to the judges that took their time to provide us with valuable feedback. This was a great way to get to know many fellow iGEMers, and a warm-up before the final project assessment. We’ve had our practice, and now we’re going for the gold! 😎
In June, teams Thessaloniki Patras, ULaval and Concordia-Montreal kindly invited us to participate in the Rosalind Chronicles - an event made in order to emphasize the impact of women on scientific research over the years, and to promote female scientific figures that changed the science world. We were asked to post a picture of all the female members of our team, and tell a bit about our female idol scientist. We chose Lone Gram, a bright DTU scientist that has widely contributed to the fields of Biotechnology and eco-physiology, and continuously inspires many students to follow her path. This event was especially close to our hearts as the majority of our team consists of women.
We would like to congratulate the organising teams on the great turnout of the event! We are grateful to have had the opportunity to honor the contribution of Female Scientists in the field of Synthetic Biology, and hope to participate in more events of this kind in the future.
