TAS_Taipei was the first team we collaborated with; this year, their
project focuses on universal blood type conversion. As a decorated
iGEM veteran, team TAS shared a lot of valuable information with us as
we exchanged project ideas and discussed Human Practice progress. We
were inspired by their TikTok challenges and decided to create our own
version to emphasize the importance and spread awareness about vitamin
D deficiency.
Our team wanted to educate less fortunate communities that do not have
the education and resources that we do. Coincidentally, TAS_Taipei
offered an opportunity to help us achieve this through their SDG
Impact Challenge. The SDGs, or Sustainable Development Goals, is a set
of 17 goals set by the UN that calls upon both developed and
developing countries to create a better and more sustainable future by
2030. The United Nations calls to action to end poverty, protect the
planet, and ensure all people can enjoy peace and poverty.
The challenge calls for each participating iGEM team to create a task
that incorporates an SDG goal, then each task will be given to another
team to be completed. We chose to complete Stony Brook’s task. Their
project was about developing a novel synthetic biology solution to
water contamination that will be cheaper and safer than conventional
water filtration methods. Stony Brook’s project targets Goal 6: Clean
Water and Sanitation. Goal 6.B were emphasized or out task. They hope
to reach out to different communities and educate them on the issues
of Harmful Algal Bloom which affect drinking water. We shared their
project to our communities including families, classmates, and
friends.
Team ASIJ
After being introduced to ASIJ through one of our team’s mentors, ASIJ
reached out to us interested in a collaboration. This year, team ASIJ
is working on a breast cancer detection project. In addition to
exchanging ideas and progress, team ASIJ gave us constructive feedback
and advice based on their past experiences. ASIJ also offered to help
provide resources in Japan as well as an education opportunity. We are
glad they are able to provide guidance in our project. After the
meeting, ASIJ contacted us again, wanting to exchange project
pamphlets. We helped translate their breast cancer pamphlet into
Chinese and they helped translate ours to Japanese; pamphlets are then
distributed to our respective communities to spread awareness.
Team Korea_HS
Team Korea_HS reached out to us after Team ASIJ introduced us to them.
Our first meeting was in July in which both teams shared project
progress with one another. The goal of Team Korea_HS’s project was to
design a cancer-specific cell-penetrating peptide for the efficient
delivery of siRNA into cancer cells. Team Korea_HS offered us to join
Northeast Asia Joint collaboration with other teams. We shared our
project with them and we also learned about project from other teams.
