Team:Jiangnan China/Partnership
In May this year, after the preliminary consultation of many agencies and professional stuff, we decided to begin our bio-sunscreen project with an objective to protect coral reefs and the marine ecosystem. However, Wuxi city, where Jiangnan Univrsity is located, was not a costal city and didn't have enough resources related to coral reef research. Thus, we decided to find a professional research institute with coral reef research experience to help us better complete the project and achieve our original objective.
Most coral reefs in China are distributed near the coast of southern China mainland and South China Sea, and as the most influential university in Guangxi Province (province in southern China), Guangxi University has School of Marine Sciences and even a special research centre for coral reefs. Thus, we tried to contact Guangxi University but it didn't work out. Finally, we found the GXU-China iGEM team and decided to make cooperation with coral reef research centre from their help.
Thanks for GXU-China's help, we made connection with Prof. Liang from School of Marine Sciences, Guangxi University successfully.
Fig.1 Online Meetup With GXU-China
Throughout our communication with GXU-China, we learned that GXU-China was freshmen in iGEM competition and had just constructed their formal team in the end of May. To repay their unselfish assistance to our bio-sunscreen project, we, as a team with iGEM experience of several years, decided to help them better understand the competition and mentor them get into shape as soon as possible. GXU-China can also help us build a long-term and more stable cooperation with Guangxi University.
Based on several friendly communications between Jiangnna_China and GXU-China on email, we made a consensus to build up a partnership since June.
As an experienced iGEM team, Jiangnan_China helped GXU-China to be familiar with the
competition rules and criterion, understand their future work and we also gave them some advice
on how to conduct the competition during the epidemic.
· May: Early stage communication with PI and leader form GXU-China by email.
· June: We invited GXU-China to join China iGEM Online Group and introduced them to current China community members in order to support the better integration of GXU-China to the regional iGEM community.
· July: To have a deeper and more convenient daily communication, we established a bilateral QQ chat group with GXU-China.
· August: Jiangnna_China and GXU-China held an online meetup to introduce both projects and we gave constructive advice for each other.
· September: Continuous communication in our previous constructed QQ chat group. We gave them some suggestions on how to conduct Education & Communication work and how to Human Practice work meaningful and contributed to their whole project.
· October: We hold a online meetup to share some problems during the preparation of Giant Jamboree and web page building.
· May: Early stage communication with PI and leader form GXU-China by email. We got in touch with School of Marine Sciences, Guangxi University by GXU-China’s help. We have to especially thank Prof. Chen from GXU-China for her recommendation. · June: We made our first informal conference with professors from Coral Reef Research Centre by the help of GXU-China. · July: We built a cooperation relationship with Prof. Jiayuan Liang from School of Marine Sciences, Guangxi University. · August: Jiangnna_China and GXU-China held an online meetup to introduce both projects and we gave constructive advice for each other. · September: To better communicate with both Guangxi University and our partner laboratory in the School of Marine Sciences, we invited MSc student Qin to join our team as an advisor to give us constant guidance related to coral reefs and marine science. · October: We hold a online meetup to share some problems during the preparation of Giant Jamboree and web page building.
· Continues Communication with each other to make a deeper cooperation between Jiangnan University and Guangxi University. · Jiangnan_China received financial support from investors and we will help GXU-China make their project to the reality in the future.
In April this year, we began to prepare 2021 China iGEM Online Meetup (CiOM) organized by ourselves and we invited ShanghaiTech_China to be an important participant in the Health part of the online conference. During the negotiation on the meetup affairs with ShanghaiTech_China, we got to know each other.
Fig.2 Offline Meetup With ShanghaiTech_China
· April: Communication on CiOM preparations; Bilateral exchanges of project information. · May: Participate 2021 China iGEM Online Meetup. · June: Communication on experimental cooperation. · July: Offline meetup in Shanghai and decision on experimental cooperation. · August: Preparation on joint experiments; Both teams participated in the 8th Conference of China iGEMers Community and further communicated on project design and cooperation. · September: Cooperation on cytotoxicity experiments. · October: The two teams participated in the sustainable development competition of Synbiopunk Challenge sponsored by Ailurus Biotech and discussed the current problems about presentation video and wiki. We also took part in the COP15 Youth Biodiversity Science Exploration Activity on October 14 together.
· We will continue to devote our efforts to promoting the biodiversity conservation and applying our expertise to environmental protection. · We will also make deeper cooperation on the experiments.
