Collaborations

Abstract

On this page you can read about our collaborations with other teams and the work we have collaborated on with iGEM Moscow and the Taiwanese team from NCKU Taiwan, as well as our other minor collaborations.

Questionnaire

As part of our collaborations with different iGEM teams, we shared our questionnaire with all the teams we have collaborated with and other teams. Sharing this questionnaire, knowledge and data from worldwide contributed to our obtained knowledge and understanding about people's assumptions about psychological diseases and the use of psychedelics as a treatment option.

Meet-up with DTU at Ampliqon

On the 26th of August, we met up with the Technical University of Denmark (DTU BioBuilders) at Ampliqon. Ampliqon is a Danish manufacturer of PCR enzymes and laboratory reagents. At the meet-up, we and DTU BioBuilders presented our respective projects. The presentations provided us with feedback and considerations such as the use of structure prediction software such as AlphaFold. Since the meet-up, we have been using RosettaFold to help predict the impact of N-terminal substitution on our enzymes. Furthermore, we were introduced to the manufacturing process at Ampliqon, which provided insight to the different enzymes, we used in the wet lab.

Nordic iGEM Conference

Each year iGEM SDU and other Scandinavian teams participate in the Nordic iGEM Conference (NiC). This meetup is an international event where teams from all over Scandinavia participate. Participating in NiC contributed to our project as we presented our project in front of other teams, which allowed us to practice our oral presentation skills. At the same time, we also received helpful feedback from judges. The conference also allowed us to debate issues and possible solutions with other teams. Furthermore, we gained awareness of the progress to achieve the different medal criteria, which inspired us to systemize our progress further and evaluate it more frequently.

Conversation Game

We collaborated with the iGEM Moscow team and NCKU Taiwan from Taiwan to create a conversation game about depression. We have named it Depressured. Depressured is a game that aims to build deep and connecting conversations with family, friends, acquaintances or someone you do not know. The cards contain questions that aim to make you reflect on depression and those affected by it. Additionally, fact-based questions and resources give insight into the effect and epidemiology of depression. We have also added cards that are solution-oriented, which helps and guide the players to act, if they are struggling with depression themselves or if someone close to them is struggling with depression. The above constitutes the basic package, but each team has also designed an expansion package that includes questions related to the topic of the individual projects. This results in no less than 120 cards in total - twenty cards for each category in the basic package and twenty cards in each expansion pack.

The game can be played with both family, friends, and partners. However, the game can also create exciting conversations in an educational setting, clinic, or even among health care professionals. With this card game, we hope to decrease the taboo related to talking about mental illness, thereby depression.

The card game is available both online on the platform Quizletand physically. The game primarily is in English but has also been translated to Chinese, Danish and Russian

Small collaborations

We have also contributed to our collaboration partners projects by helping them with their requests.

(1) CCU Taiwan: We have helped the CCU Taiwan team with translating their parent-child picture book into Danish. The book aims to achieve a bigger knowledge about hygiene among children and to raise preschool kids’ interest in science. By helping with the translation of the book we help with expanding their audience and provide an even bigger awareness about hygiene.

(2) Düsseldorf: We have collaborated with the Düsseldorf team by participating in making a postcard about our iGEM project. This collaboration has provided knowledge about our project to other iGEM teams.

(3) Warwick: We have collaborated with the Warwick team by including a description of our project in their booklet. The booklet contains information about synthetic biology and how it contributes to our project. This collaboration thereby creates an increased awareness about the possibilities of synthetic biology and our project.

(4) Darmstadt: In July we were contacted by the Darmstadt team, who once again have tried to unite iGEM teams all over the world in their concept called iJET. We have participated by filming a video of their requests. Hereby, we contributed to unite the iGEM teams in a world with lockdown and Covid-19.

(5) Florida: In May we were contacted by Team UFlorida for assistance. UFlorida is tackling antibiotic resistance via CRISPR, which is similar to what the iGEM SDU team of 2019 had done with their project, Conjugaid. We helped with providing contact to former members of the team of 2019. Furthermore, we sent part 110 and the conjugation plasmid pRK24 from 2019, to help them continue their work.

Team:SDU-Denmark/Collaborations