Team:TUDelft/Collaborations

Team

Team Members Collaborations Attributions Sponsors

Project

Project Description Design Engineering Success Results Hardware Contribution Sequencing analysis Partnership Sustainable Development

Lab

Protocols Notebook Parts

Model

Model

Human Practices

Human Practices Integrated Human Practices Education & Public Engagement Proposed Implementation Safety Entrepreneurship

Achievements

Judging Form Medal Criteria Awards and Nominations

Collaborations

In order to tackle societal issues, collaborations and partnership are essential. By sharing knowledge and experiences, we can make the deployment of solutions by synthetic biology easier, better, and faster.

Introduction

In the spirit of the iGEM competition, we looked to form a collaborative network with other iGEM teams to tackle societal issues using synthetic biology. We started to look at the different project descriptions to find common ground in which our projects could benefit from each other by sharing knowledge and experiences. In this regard, we initially looked for teams working with a similar approach, using vitamins or aptazymes. Simultaneously, other teams searched for our experience and advice, and we were happy to guide these teams to make the most of their projects.

Vitamin Collaboration

Team UNBC and Team Ionis

In May, we sent out a Google Forms via Slack to look for other vitamin groups and investigate their interest in collaborating. Based on the output of the Google Forms, we organized a meeting with team UNBC and team Ionis on the 7th of July. Here, all teams presented their projects, gave feedback to each other, and looked for ways to strengthen each others’ projects. The technology behind our respective vitamin detection devices varied significantly, and therefore we decided to collaborate on Human Practices and Education about vitamins. All three teams agreed on the importance of raising awareness about vitamins and wanting to stimulate consuming a vitamin-rich diet. Combining the Human Practices and Education of vitamins, we came up with the idea of creating a Vitamin Cookbook The aim of the Vitamin Cookbook is to raise awareness about the vitamin content of certain recipes. We also included a cheat sheet to increase the content of a specific vitamin in the given recipes or any other recipes for that matter. Our team used this collaboration to raise awareness about the vitamin content of traditional Ugandan dishes, which could benefit dietary advice considering that this would be the preferred treatment after implementing our vitamin detection test.

Vitamin Cookbook

If the vitamin cookbook does not show, click here.

Fig. 1 Meeting with representatives of iGEM Ionis, UNBC, and TU Delft to talk about our vitamin detection projects and to discuss how we would form a vitamin collaboration together.

Aptamer collaboration

Team Vilnius-Lithuania

In our search for teams working with aptazymes, we came across the Vilnius iGEM Team in the iGEM 2021 Global Slack. On the 2nd of July, we organized a first meeting with the Vilnius team. Each team presented the different parts of their project: Wet Lab, Dry Lab, Human Practices, and Education. Due to the difference in application, common interests were found mainly in the Wet Lab and Dry Lab aspects. This subsequently led to a more in-depth partnership, about which you can find more on the Partnership page.

Fig. 2 First meeting with representatives of iGEM Vilnius and TU Delft discussing our aptamer projects.

Entrepreneurship collaboration

Team FSU

For all the iGEM 2021 TU Delft team members, entrepreneurship was a new topic. All of us are specialized in life sciences or physics rather than business and economics. To gain more insights into this area, our team joined the iGEM Summer Bootcamp on entrepreneurship. During the second session, we met Colin Shea, an entrepreneurship major participating in the 2021 iGEM team of Florida State University. During the question session, we found both teams are dealing with a middle- to low-income setting, resulting in difficulties regarding market sizing. Therefore, we decided to team up and brainstorm on this issue and give feedback on each others’ business model canvas.

Throughout a series of meetings, both teams introduced their projects, and we discussed possibilities as to how to create a market in the middle- and low-income settings. For example, Colin (FSU) suggested creating a scenario where high-income customers pay more for the product. The revenue of these sales can be used to cover part of the price of the product for middle- and low-income customers. Furthermore, we created a shared document, where we could add our business model canvas and give each other feedback. The final result of this collaboration is a lean business model where we aim to reduce the costs of the test to such an extent that middle- and low-income customers can afford it. Further elaboration on this business model and other entrepreneurial aspects of AptaVita can be found on our Entrepreneurship page.

Fig. 3 Meeting with Entrepreneurship major who is a team member of the iGEM FSU to talk about our business model canvas.

DRIVER protocols knowledge exchange

Team SJTU BioX Shanghai

On the 30th of August, we met up with the STJU BioX Shanghai team to discuss our projects. Both our team and STJU BioX were employing the same evolutionary methodology for the development of aptamers, DRIVER. We discussed our general understanding of the process and shared the difficulties encountered along the way. At this stage in time, our team had been using the DRIVER method for multiple rounds of experiments and we were familiar with the process. On the other hand, the Shanghai team was just starting with theirs, which gave us the perfect opportunity to share our experiences, the struggles we encountered, and our suggestions on how to overcome them. Our discussion focussed mainly on the best way to track the progress of the experiments and have intermediate confirmations on the method working. We suggested the STJU BioX Shanghai team to implement the use of a Urea-PAGE in every experimental round they performed, in order to have a qualitative confirmation of their work. Based on our advice, they used the Urea-PAGE gel every few rounds to ensure that their library is still retained in the evolution campaign. They reported back to us that this worked well and helped them a lot.

Later on, we shared our approaches around constructing a dry lab module for sequencing data analysis. Each team was facing difficulties in having a functional code. Finally, we were happy to share literature and MATLAB code that we believed could serve them as an important guide in further improving their code.

Fig. 4 First meeting with representatives of iGEM STJU BioX Shanghai and TU Delft about the evolution method -DRIVER - that both teams use to evolve aptamers.

ASYV collaboration

Team TAU Israel

On the iGEM 2021 Global Slack channel, we came across an on-site Human Practices and Outreach collaboration initiative. The TAU_Israel team organized an after-school synthetic biology course for biology and programming high school students at the Agahozo-Shalom Youth Village (ASYV) in Rwanda. We felt like this was a great opportunity for cultural exchange and to allow the students to be inspired by all that synthetic biology has to offer. Therefore, we reached out to them and we were able to present about biosensors and specifically our vitamin detection test to these students. If you want to read more about our engagement with the ASYV students, check out our Education and Public Engagement page.

Tips for engagement with ASYV students

If the Guide for ASYV lectures does not show, click here.

Comic book

Team Groningen

We reached out to the Dutch teams to collaborate in the field of education. The Groningen team corresponded enthusiastically, and we set up our first brainstorm. The focus of the Groningen team is on creating materials, whilst the focus of our team is on engaging directly with the local community. Considering these different approaches, we figured that we could help each other. In this collaboration, we used their comic book to engage our local community. We distributed their book around the city of Delft. This way, the children of our local community can now get in touch with synthetic biology. Furthermore, we read the book aloud to a small group of seven children at the after-school care Jan Loris & Marie. Based on their positive reactions, we gave the Groningen team feedback about implementing their comic book.

Fig. 5 Distribution of the comic book from the Groningen team to our local community in Delft. We placed the booklets in the small home libraries around town and read the book for children at after-school care.

Participation in other collaborations

We enthusiastically participated in various collaborations to learn about other iGEM teams’ projects or do a cultural exchange. Furthermore, we are happy to help out other teams by voicing our experience or opinion on synthetic biology matters.

• The 2nd of July, our team attended the Dutch meet-up organized by the Wageningen team. We introduced our project AptaVita and received feedback and questions about our project. Through the Human Practices-related workshop, we got thought-provoking questions and provided the same to the other teams, thereby sharpening each other’s Human Practices work.
• The children’s book of the CCU Taiwan team was made to teach about antibiotic-resistant bacteria. This initiative combines teaching about synthetic biology, the risk of antibiotics, and Taiwanese culture. To support this action, we translated the book into Dutch. We distributed their book around the city of Delft, read the book aloud to children, and gave positive feedback based on the reactions of the children.
• The iGEM Nantes team asked all teams to send an introduction video to promote the diverse and international nature of the iGEM community to a local high school. We were excited to introduce ourselves, and at the same time, get a better glimpse of the iGEM community in these pandemic times. It evolved into a global iGEM introduction video, which they presented at the Opening Festival.
• The UNSW team held a symposium about biodiversity, together with the Stony Brook team, the Groningen team, the USyd team, and the Kazakhstan team. Even though our project is not related to biodiversity, we enjoyed participating in the discussion and actively asking questions.
• We participated in the European meet-up organized by the French teams. The meet-up connected us with these teams and broadened our knowledge in the field of synthetic biology.
• On the 20th of May, we participated in an entrepreneurship workshop organized by the Stockholm team. This inspired us to investigate the entrepreneurship aspects of our project. We participated in the After iGEM entrepreneurship boot camp and created a business plan for our project.
• The NAWI Graz team invited us as guests in their podcast. We saw this as an opportunity to teach a larger public about vitamins. At the same time, we contributed to their Podcast series and had a conversation about our project. You can listen to the recording here.
• The IISER Tirupati team also invited us to their podcast. When brainstorming about topics, we found it an interesting conversation to talk about comprehensive sex education. We compared traditional education about sexual health in India and the Netherlands. You can listen to the recording here.
• The Lund team and GO Paris-Saclay team set up an inspiring collaboration to talk about the ethical aspects of synthetic biology. For this, they met up in Amsterdam. We joined them for a day to talk about their initiative, learn about their project, and share our iGEM experiences.
• We participated in the postcard project initiated by the Düsseldorf team, where teams could send their postcard to other teams from all over the world. We received many postcards from teams all over the world, and this was an inspiring way of learning about other teams and their projects.
• The Unizar team set up a collaboration about music to connect the teams worldwide. We gave them a song in our native language about the culture of the Netherlands, "Het land van" by Lange Frans and Baas B, and enjoyed listening to the playlist.

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