Team:QHFZ/Partnership
Partnership
Content
BHSF
Getting acquainted with each other
The QHFZ team met with the BHSF team on the 2021iGEM North China District Meetup event during June, and found that the two teams were very suitable to collaborate. Both teams had projects that were related to biological dyeing. QHFZ’s project mainly focused on the production of a specific biological dye-Tyrian purple, while BHSF’s project is about producing the biological form of a pigment widely used in lipsticks-Carmine. Therefore, we paid high attention to each team and began the partnership.
Meetup Event
On June. 20th, BHSF and our team organized the 2021iGEM North China District Meetup event in the QHFZ campus. We invited multiple teams during this event, and explained our project to the public. Many other teams including the BHSF team also explained their project to other teams. Both QHFZ and BHSF did not communicate directly, but were able to see each other’s projects for the first time. Ater seeing each other’s projects we knew that it was perfect for both teams to collaborate.
The 2021 iGEM North China District Meetup Event
Weekly Meetings
Every week or two, our team and the BHSF team scheduled online meetings to plan out and communicate. These meetings were crucial to our partnership, because both teams shared their progress and was able to come up with plans together. We came up with the idea to organize meetups, educational events, offline communication events etc.
Exchanging Experimental Products
In the summer vacation, our team spent a huge chunk of time designing, experimenting, and testing in the school biology lab. The process was slow, and it took the team a month to see results. During this time, the BHSF team was able to accomplish their goals earlier than our team, and they sent a package of their carmine to the QHFZ biology lab to set an example. By that time, our team was still producing plasmid for the project, and realized they were off schedule. Eventually, we sped up and finished the project on time. In the end, both teams exchanged and examined their final result in their own school labs. Also, because both of projects are color-related, we jointly developed an experimental technique to analyze the products of both teams using Uv-vis spectrum.
QHFZ's product and BHSF's product
Biology Education Event
On September. 17th, our team organized an educational event for QHFZ freshmen students that are interested in biology. In this lesson we mainly focused on introducing IGEM and biology to the students. We invited the BHSF team and a few QHFZ IGEM team members from previous years to present their projects to the students. It was an opportunity to learn more about the BHSF team and we were able to watch their promotion video for the first time.
Members from BHSF presenting their project
Member from our team explaining our project
A group photo of members from the BHSF team, QHFZ team, and freshmen students
Offline Communication Event
On October. 5th, BHSF, Jianhua and our team met together offline. Because we were already familiar with the other team’s project, the main purpose of this meeting was to talk about other topics such as the wiki, model, and human practices. We learned about what both teams prepared for the IGEM competition, and problems they faced. We found out that the Jianhua team was also concerned about the wiki and model, so we created a group chat that involved all three teams to make communication easier in the future.
Meetup event with the BHSF team and Jianhua team