Team:Greece United/Contribution

Contribution:

Model

A computational model for exosome migration developed in C++. The model can be used for in silico experiments to assess the effectiveness of an exosome delivery method.

The model treats cells in a 2D line, and with a simple multiplication, a 2D circle: the cell that produces the exosome is in the start of the line or the center of the circle.

The model calculates how many exosomes enter a cell, and how many cells are affected, taking into consideration: (1) a probability factor k (probability that an exosome will be inserted in the first cell it encounters and not the next ones), (2) the number of receptors of a cell, (3) the number receptors needed to include an exosome and (4) how often the receptors are renewed and available to accept more exosomes.

All the above are parametrizable variables. Each iteration of the program uses complex if structures, loops, objects, and queues. With simple calculations the 2D shape can be turned into a 3D visualization.

You can find the executable code in our github page.

You may find more details of the functionality of our whole model here.

Contribution:

Handbooks

As a team we had a long, tough, exhausting but amazing iGEM journey. Learning from our mistakes, we want to pass our epiphanies to the next person who will be in our shoes. Here are two guides.

"How To iGEM"

A thorough handbook for someone who may not yet know what the iGEM acronym stands for, but even for someone who has 2 months left for the wiki freeze. We sincerely think it fits all shapes and sizes of future iGEM participants. We would like to acknowledge KOREA_HS, our high school partner team, who enriched this guide from their high school team perspective. Developing this guide exceeded the limits of a simple collaboration or partnership and gave both teams the opportunity to see iGEM from a different perspective. We realized how similar but still unique each team’s experiences are and managed to familiarize and bond with much younger people from another peninsula!



"How To CFR"

Crowdfunding gives the opportunity to ordinary people to support and be part of a research project and enhance science-society collaboration.

We used crowdfunding to raise money for the iGEM registration fee. Around 70 individuals helped us raise 52% of our original target (6000$), possibly the most successful Greek iGEM crowdfunding so far.

Here are the steps you should follow & some tips!


 1)  Look up crowdfunding platforms and choose those that work best in your country. If there are many, choose those that work in most countries, so that it will be easier for people from all around the world to discover and support you.

 2)  Check the crowdfunding types each platform allows. E.g., some support only non-profit organizations or start-ups.

 3)  Carefully consider the fee. Watch out! Some platforms seem to have a very low fee, though they only allow payments through PayPal so there are additional fees you dodn’t see at first.

 4)  Chose the crowdfunding platform that has more options for people to donate. You need to make it easy to the possible supporters to contribute to your cause. For example, if you can donate only via PayPal and the supporter does not have an account, it is highly likely that they quit trying to contribute.

 5)  Look up your country’s financial laws. What is the limit for money to be taxed? You would like to raise less than that so that you don’t have to engage with tax paying procedures. (e.g. In Greece today if you get less than 6.000$ euro, it is not taxable, so we set the target to 6.000$)

 6)  Crowdfunding platforms usually ask for a personal bank account to transfer donations. So, someone from your team should add their personal account. Be sure to have transparency in your transactions. (e.g., we had a shared OneNote where we posted when and how much money were withdrawn, with thorough notes and screenshots).

 7)  Write a descriptive text to accompany your fundraising campaign. Include photos, introduce the team’s members, show your team’s character and make it interesting, inspiring and eye-catching. Show them your work, your vision and be clear on how you intend to use the funds. You can even thank your supporters (e.g., we sent out 3D printed keychains with our team’s name for every 100$ donation!)

 8)  Promote it! Let the world know you are raising money! Spread the news to your friends, family, old soccer mates or Facebook groups. Ideally, get in touch with groups of people affected by the problem you are planning to solve. Statistics show that if you raise 25% of your target in the first days, your chances of completing your target rise by up to 90%!!

 9)  Keep your backers updated! Send them a thank-you email, or even create a weekly or monthly newsletter to let them know about your team’s progress. It’s nice to show them that their money is well spent!

 10)  Don’t forget to attribute and acknowledge their contribution to your success in your wiki or social media.

Here is a helpful infographic!

Risk Factor

Calculator

A novel online osteoarthritis risk calculator that uses medical evidence from recent high evidence level medical publications to estimate personalized risk for osteoarthritis.

The Osteoarthritis Risk Calculator is available online. The citizen can visit the page anonymously and provide a few personal details (related to occupation, hobbies, musculoskeletal injuries, and common health conditions and behaviours). The information is used against the available evidence coded into the dynamic risk repository to determine whether the person satisfies any of the conditions for osteoarthritis risk, based on the medical evidence encoded in the dynamic risk repository. If any risk is identified, the likelihood (or odds) of getting osteoarthritis is presented together with the causing agent or exposure and the pointer to the scientific publication presenting the respective evidence.

The NOUS OA Risk Calculator is expandable and can include new risk evidence when this is published.The tool is based on the CARRE health risk ontology and expands the CARRE health risk database (CARRE is an EU FP7 ICT project, Contract No. 611140).

During development, we conducted a structured literature research and identified 28 osteoarthritis risk associations. They were described using the CARRE ontology and submitted as a contribution to the CARRE online risk factor repository.

Use the NOUS OA Risk Calculator AEGLE here.

Learn more about the software and the medical evidence behind the tool here

Get the software from Github here.