Team:RUBochum/Collaborations
Collaborations
Collaboration is the key to science and doing so with other iGEM-teams is central to the iGEM experience.
Having the opportunity to work together with like-minded people from different scientific backgrounds but also from different countries, continents and cultures is always exciting! We'd like to thank every team with whom we collaborated this year.
Being mentored by TU Darmstadt
We thank TU_Darmstadt wholeheartedly for mentoring us throughout the time.
As the first iGEM team of our university, it was great and very helpful to have a team which is already established at their institution for many years pass on their experience and knowledge to us.
They supported us with advice and always tried to, and successfully did, answer every question we had.
Figure 1: Meetings with TU Darmstadt .
Postcard Project - iGEM Düsseldorf
Figure 2: Postcards.
We had the pleasure to take part in this project that's been established for many years now, for the first time.
Designed postcards ourself and received over 80 beautiful and interesting postcards from the other iGEM teams in return.
All of them showing something related to their iGEM project or to synthetic biology in general.
It's important to keep in touch with the community, and science communication with a touch of art is always appreciated.
iJET - iGEM TU Darmstadt
We participated in iJET projects, where a paper plane travels around the world from iGEM team to iGEM team. The paper plane flies across the screen and the lab members switch into lab coats.
This year the iJET visited many continents and countries and showed a possibility for the teams to connect to each other.
Thanks to the Darmstadt iGEM team who organized everything.
BioDoodle - iBowu_China2021
BioDoodle is a brief introduction of biological concepts to all K12 readers.
Our team was required to draw a picture following the theme we chose: fungi. Once every team's drawings are submitted, iBowu_China2021 compiles the drawings and publishes them as a colouring book.
This is a great opportunity to illustrate the beauty of synthetic biology.
Figure 3: RUBochum BioDoodle .
iGEMxSDG Impact Challenge
We also participated iGEMxSDG Impact Challenge organized by the iGEM team TAS_Taipei. We worked on the 17 goals set by the UN to address the urgent environmental, political and economic challenges worldwide. We set goals for other teams and worked on tasks to help with the challenges.
"Disabled in STEM" Campaign
We also took part in the Campaign "Disabled in STEM" that was organized by the iGEM team IISER_Kolkata, to share our experience and help to create a more accessible workspace in STEM.
Meetings
Meet up with iGEM teams Sorbonne and GO Paris-Saclay in Paris
Since the Giant Jamboree will be held online this year, we decided to take a weekend trip to Paris from the 25th to the 27th of August anyway.
Shortly before, we asked the local iGEM teams if they would like to meet with us. So, soon after arriving, Enzo from the team GO Paris-Saclay picked us up at our Hotel and we went to meet four people of team Sorbonne together.
They showed us around the city and after that we went to a student’s bar. While introducing each other and talking about God and the world, we also took the opportunity to talk about our projects and share our experiences.
We also celebrated the birthday of our fellow teammate Luise and truly had a great time.
Figure 4: From the left: Enzo (GO Paris-Saclay), Lucie and Paul (Sorbonne), Viola / Luise / Lea and Marius (RUBochum) , Mathilde and Sofiya (Sorbonne).
German Meetup
On the 14th April we joined the German Meetup with several iGEM teams from Germany.
There were different panels we could join to discuss specific topics. The ones we were most interested in were sponsoring and ethics.
Figure 5: Breakout rooms at the German Meetup.
It was very interesting and helpful to learn about these topics and we were able to implement a lot in our own project.
As the first iGEM team of the Ruhr-Universität Bochum, it was also important to us to connect with other people. There, we also got discovered by Julia Götsch from Promega, who became instantly interested in our project. A few days later we met Julia Götsch and she provided us with a plasmid-purification kit.
Figure 6: The German Meetup.
Russian Meetup
On the 3th July we participated in the first Russian meetup with many other international teams. We presented our project and got a lot of good feedback and questions. We could also engage with members from other teams in smaller groups and listened to their interesting presentations and project ideas.
In the evening the meeting was divided into smaller groups where different topics from culture, ethics and the implementations of synthetic biology were discussed. Finally we played a few games and had overall a really good time.
Lippisches Landesmuseum Detmold
Because there are no living Platypuses outside of Tasmania and west Australia, we decided, to still get to see one “live”, to visit the ,,Lippisches Landesmuseum’’ in Detmold and check out the stuffed platypus (from the 19th century) they had in their collection.
And it was breathtaking!!!!!
Figure 7: A beautiful stuffed platypus at the ,,Lippisches Landesmuseum’’ in Detmold.
Pubquiz with TU Darmstadt
The iGem Team Darmstadt invited us to a Pubquiz they organized. We divided each other into random mixed teams and competed in several different categories against each other. We had a lot of fun.
It was also a great opportunity to get to know each other better and to share and learn about our projects.
Figure 8: The winning team of the quiz: “Die Schnabelphagen” from Darmstadt.
Wiki-Meeting with the Bielefeld iGEM team
On the 19th June we met with Matthes Haese and Lennart Lutz from the Bielefeld iGEM team, who introduced us to the iGEM Wiki.
They answered a lot of questions and showed us the first steps in HTML programming.
Figure 9: Wiki-Meeting with the Bielefeld iGEM team.
iGEM Mentoring
We also had the pleasure to be mentored by Dr. Boas Pucker throughout the whole iGEM season. Our meetings with Boas were always fun and he helped us a lot in explaining details of iGEM that first-time teams are not necessarily aware about.
We had in total about 12 Meetings, a lot of questions over Slack and long talks about synthetic biology and the current stage of our project.
We thank him wholeheartedly for his help.
Platypus image credit: [PIXATERRA]/Adobe stock