Team:HKIS/Collaborations

Individual Collaborations & Collaborative Events

HKUST HK Region Jamboree

Through our collaboration with various Hong Kong iGEM teams, we were graciously invited to the HK regional symposium hosted by the HKUST iGEM team to speak about our project and obtain valuable insights into other projects. From cancer detection to creating new clothing fiber, we were introduced to various other projects and learned a significant amount of techniques both for lab work and human practices. Through this opportunity, we were able to receive feedback on our presentation skills and content format. Since it was our first time participating in a symposium, we had several presentational issues, including wordy slides and audience engagement. Another helpful aspect was the QnA, which allowed us to understand which parts of our presentation required further elaboration. After the afternoon presentations, there was a mingling session to introduce ourselves and engage in informative discussions. Since the HKUST iGEM team had a project centered around shellfish, we could consult their experience in this area and share possible ideas. In addition, we received further contacts to deepen our human practices section. Overall, this experience was highly beneficial and rewarding. This symposium helped us focus and set goals for ourselves to reach based on the difficulties other iGEM teams have encountered in the past. We greatly appreciate and thank the HKUST iGEM team for accepting and offering their generous hospitality to us.

(Team members at the HKUST IGEM jamboree)

North-East Asia Joint Collaboration Network

Towards the end of the project, we were graciously invited to discuss our project with various teams across Northeast Asia. The collaborative meet allowed us to provide and request assistance in areas that we found difficult. This network of high school teams prompted us with helpful feedback and aided us in proof-of-concept ideas and survey sharing possibilities. It was inspiring to see that many other high school teams, similar to us, had a passion for the field of synthetic biology and wanted to change the world for the better. From cancer detection to plastic degradation, we understood different global issues clearly and increased our sense of community. Since this collaboration was primarily for high school students, we were introduced to scientific concepts that could help us improve our project. Since this network was full of teams throughout Northeast Asia, we will also help promote different teams' integrated human practices section. We were initially struggling to provide a medium for which our consumer surveys would launch, yet with the help of these teams; we have an extended project scope, not just centered around Hong Kong but also across Asia. This collaboration helped us extend our content coverage and receive helpful feedback to focus our wet lab work. We greatly thank all teams for allowing this collaboration and network to thrive.

(Northeast Asia Join Collaboration Network Zoom meeting)

HKU Mentorship Program

During our initial meetings with HKU professors, we were fortunate enough to receive generous feedback and continuous meeting opportunities to improve our project. As we contacted various professors within HKU, we formed a mentorship program between our team and the professors we met regularly. This network continued to grow throughout our project, and our mentors continued to provide us with valuable insight into different aspects of our project. Whenever we would have questions, they were quick to assist and explain the application of necessary changes. We have continuously relied upon them for their expertise, and we greatly thank them for inspiring and educating us about the scientific portions of our project. Their insight has benefitted us greatly; we greatly appreciate their help. This mentorship is elaborated further on the partnership page.

(Team members meeting with HKU mentors)

ASIJ Collaboration

Our collaboration with ASIJ was primarily an idea exchange between teams that were both planning similar project concepts. We went over our ideas for proof of concept and contributions pages to clarify content requirements specific to our projects. Since we both had software aspects to our contributions, it was interesting to see how we differed in the software tools we made for our projects.

(Team members meeting with ASIJ IGEM team)

Collaborations Summary

Throughout this project, collaborations with experienced teams were a critical factor in the success and enjoyment of our project. We had a great time meeting and discussing the various aspects of our project. We sincerely thank all the teams and professors who assisted and provided feedback over our first iGEM project. We hope our collaboration will not end here, and we can continue discussing and collaborating on a subject we are passionate about in the future.

Best wishes to all teams!

Sources

Rawpixel.com. “Collaboration.” Pxhere, https://pxhere.com/en/photo/1434201?utm_content=shareClip&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=pxhere. Accessed 15 Oct. 2021.