Team:Ecuador/Collaborations
<!DOCTYPE html>
Team
Attributions
Collaborations
UTPrimers (Brazil)
In order to broaden the impact of the projects to other countries, both teams agreed to coordinate consultancies with experts from our respective countries. Considering that the UTPrimers project is based on the production of carotenoids to produce sunscreens, iGEM Ecuador arranged a consultancy with an Ecuadorian expert in the characterization of carotenoids and their application in cosmetic products. In return, the Brazilian team organized a meeting with a representative of Empresa Brasileira de Pesquisas Agropecuárias. As a result of this contact, we were able to confirm that Foc TR4 is a pressing problem in Brazil and as a country with greater openness to GMOs, our biopesticide based on dsRNA has a defined and non-restrictive legal framework.
FCB-UANL (Mexico)
Education approach
In collaboration with iGEM FCB-UANL, the activity carried out consisted of developing a story about our project, aimed at children from 6 to 10 years old. Considering the fundamental aspects of our project, a short story with funny illustrations was elaborated to facilitate the understanding of the subject in the children.
Our story was titled "The Adventures of E. coli and its super shield". The plot takes place in a small town in Ecuador which is attacked by the villain Fusarium oxysporum, who destroys the banana crops. From this problem our protagonist E. coli appears in action, who makes a super shield called Agrobactory 593 to protect the crops from the evil fungus. In this way we have tried to publicize the work done by our team encouraging the little ones to learn about scientific topics.
Governmental approach
iGEM FCB-UANL invited us to collaborate in the elaboration of a document that supports the legal context and necessary steps to register a biotechnological patent in the country. We met with different iGEM teams from Mexico, Brazil and Ecuador to discuss the similarities and differences in the processes of obtaining intellectual property. Knowledge of the institutions in charge, the laws involved, and the legal loopholes, especially when the aim is to register a product or process that involves DNA, made it possible to recognize the weaknesses of each system and serve as a basis for proposing possible solutions. In the case of Ecuador, the database that was created allows us to understand the low rate of obtaining patents due to the complex and time-consuming process required.
iGEM Biotec EC (Ecuador)
Since the creation of the iGEM Biotech EC there has been constant communication between the two teams. At the beginning, some team members gave their opinion at the time of setting up the iGEM Biotech EC project, providing guidance on the feasibility of the proposed ideas and their criteria according to their experience. In addition, there was an external collaboration in the creation of a video with the theme "The Ecuadorian Dictionary", made by all iGEM teams in Ecuador, including the synbio IKIAM team, to be presented at the iGEM Latin Fest. There were also sporadic consultations on various topics related to the competition, such as the safety of the project if it were to be implemented, specific meetings have been set up to consult on the mathematical modeling of the design proposed by the Design League team, in addition to their guidance on how to establish the standardization and optimization criteria for the iGEM Biotech EC design.
iGEM IISER TVM (India)
We had the wonderful opportunity to work with the Indian iGEM IISER TVM team. We contacted them after competing for one of the Promega awards and discovering that our projects shared some similarities because both use organic molecules to battle fungi. The main aspect that we shared was the deployment of the Lac repressor mechanism to regulate the expression of T7 polymerase.
We began our collaboration by discussing the difficulties in delivering proteins or dsRNA to suppress some essential genes of the pathogen. Later, the collaboration focused on the modeling aspect. We assisted them in defining the basic biochemistry reactions. our model. The iGEM IISER TVM team helped us to define the basis for our modelling by suggesting which approach our model should follow. They shared with us some equations that were useful to model the expression of dsRNA using the T7 polymerase. We assisted them in defining the basic biochemistry reactions, and suggested some changes in their model for gene transcription and protein production. We also suggested adding some parameters like the copy number, the dilution factor, and the amount of total LacI, to refine their model.
Finally, thanks to the engagement of one of our university professors, we were able to help them define their encapsulation model with PLGA. Dr. Alexis Debut, a nanotechnology expert, advised them on how to proceed with their idea of nano encapsulating their proteins with PLGA and suggested several models to use in their study. We worked together for more than three months and were able to get excellent outcomes. In conclusion, this collaboration was really beneficial to both teams, it allowed us to learn a lot, and it was a fantastic experience.
Reaching a New World whit Synthetic Biology
We organized the event "Reaching a New World whit Synthetic Biology" together with the teams iGEM Bolivia, iGEM Tec Monterrey, Synbio UNAM, iGEM UTEC (Mikuytec), Synthetic Biobots and Ollin SynBio IPN. This course sought to provide an introductory training in Synthetic Biology by presenting a clear and concise overview of relevant topics related to it. This is a course that was for the benefit of the iGEM teams in Latin America, all proceeds were used to support the consolidation of their projects.
2021 Hispanic Debate Workshop
We organized the 2021 Hispanic Debate Workshop together with iGEM FCB UANL, iGEM UAM, iGEM Bolivia. This event was aimed at iGEM students and sought for them to acquire skills in argumentation, refutation, and fallacies. Then, participants put into practice the skills acquired in a debate tournament about controversial science topics such as GMOs.
