Team:Stanford/Collaborations

Collaborations

In order to maintain accountability and get outside advice on some aspects of our project, we met virtually with the iGEM team at UC Davis multiple times this summer. Their project is focused on the COVID vaccine as they are attempting to find a way to mitigate the flu-like side-effects of it. If successful, they hope to increase the number of COVID vaccinations nation-wide and world-wide. In our first meeting with the UC Davis team, we mainly focused on ideation and each shared our project idea, where it came from, and any next steps. In future meetings, we went more into detail, giving each other advice on the surveys we had created to fulfill medal requirements and specific modelling designs to maximize the success rate of our project. Overall, our mutualistic relationship with UC Davis’ team has been extremely beneficial. Both of our teams’ projects have been improved greatly by the outside help of a fellow California university.

Additionally, our team had the opportunity to participate in asynchronous collaborations with the Team Vilnius (Lithuania) by helping spread informational material surrounding topics in Synthetic Biology and biotechnology around our community. We also contributed to the Rosalind Chronicles Collaboration with teams Thessaloniki, Patras, ULaval, and Concordia-Montreal. We also experimented with creating desserts for the low FODMAP cookbook through BOKU Vienna and submitted a recipe to be included in the book.

Creating a Recipe for Team BOKU Vienna

For this project, a low-FODMAP pavlova was created with grapefruit. We had a great time experimenting with the ingredients and creating a recipe that would be accessible and fit within the criteria of the cookbook.

Protein Modeling Simulation with Team UC Davis

With the team from UC Davis, we edited our Integrated Human Practices surveys which was integral to our work. The UC Davis team ran docking simulations for the bergapten ligand which were greatly useful for visualizing this molecule and guiding our research. This provided visual confirmation for the interaction between furanocoumarins and the CYP enzymes.

Promotion of Synthetic Biology Education with Team Vilnius (Lithuania)

For this collaboration, we had the chance to put up educational flyers around our community with scannable QR codes that contain information about vaccines, coronavirus anatomy, protein manufacturing, bioinformatics, among other topics in an AR setting. We greatly enjoyed the opportunity to help collaborate and share this material with our community while contributing to a global project.

"Rosalind Chronicles" with Team Thessaloniki Patras, ULaval, and Concordia-Montreal

For this collaboration, we had the chance to submit a photo of the women participating on our team, as well as a description of our favorite female scientist. We chose to write about Christina Smolke, a synthetic biologist who works in metabolic engineering.