Team:Thessaly/Collaborations




FlexStart Bootstrap Template - Index

Overview

A single team's effort is not enough to change the world; only through cooperation and friendship can we make substantial changes to today’s world issues. We were very excited to partake in a wide variety of collaborations this year, networking with individuals with similar drives and values!

Our Initiatives

Panel Discussion with McMaster Synbio
Figure 1:Panel Discussion with McMaster Synbio,“New Frontiers In Gut Research''
Early in our iGEM journey, we came across the McMasters team project that aims to fight IBDs. Due to our mutual interest in engineering the gut microbiome aiming to improve people’s wellbeing and in parallel bearing in mind the fact that our society lacks basic knowledge on gut research innovations, we decided to collaborate throughout the year on various topics concerning our projects. Notably, one of our best efforts was the panel discussion we hosted with the title “New Frontiers In Gut Research''.

We decided to host a panel discussion rather than a presentation series, as we wanted to bridge the gap between respected scientists and a live audience through our social media, engaging in an open dialogue with our guidance.




We were pretty happy with the result and the awareness we spread about this very exciting and important issue!

World Microbiome Day
Since our project revolves around microbiome research, we chose to celebrate World Microbiome Day (June 27th) by reaching out to our fellow iGEMers. Aiming to raise awareness regarding the importance of microbiomes in our everyday life, we managed to unite the iGEM teams (iGEM IISER Tirupati, iGEM Heidelberg, iGEM TU-Eindhoven , iGEM Aalto Helsinki, iGEM Stockholm ) that work on microbiomes. Through a quick and easy whilst also educational and fun way we created a 4-minute video. In this video a member of each team explained their project and its impact to the world. That collaboration was the stepping stone for future collaborations with the microbiome teams and gave us the opportunity to showcase to the world our Synthetic Biology solutions on microbiome research in a fun and alternative way.





To se more go to our Education and Engagement Page


MicrobioCOSMOS
The first step we made to implement our idea of uniting all the teams that worked on the various microbiomes was a celebration about the World Microbiome Day. MicrobioCOSMOS was our most ambitious meetup this year as it had many moving parts and so many responsibilities from our part to deliver the best possible meetup about educating and bringing together the various microbiome teams

With the Aalto-Helsinki Team, we began by searching for teams that were working on the microbiome. Teams that participated in our World Microbiome Day video were the first to be invited and then we made a general call for iGEM Teams working on microbiome research to join. The event included presentations of the teams projects and individual Q&A, interesting keynote talks surrounding real world implications and iGEM. Dr Sotirios Vassileiadis, an Assistant Professor at the University of Thessaly presented us his work based on the soil microbiome while LeandrosTsiotos, an iGEM European Ambassador, laid out how iGEM elevates initiatives and research such as our own.

After a brief lunch break we came back with the workshop of the day, named “Ethics and Values”. Based on questions on an interactive Flinga board, we then were split into different breakout rooms and talked about the ethics of our projects for about 25 minutes, which gave us the opportunity to discover each other's concerns, perspectives, etc. In the end it was a truly educational experience.

Lastly we had a super fun kahoot session. In the end we ended the day with smiles on our faces and filled with new knowledge and ideas!
Figure 2:  Commemorate screenshot from microbioCOSMOS
Foresight Report
After the end of our wonderful event, we started writing our foresight report which was collaboratively documented by the iGEM Aalto-Helsinki , iGEM Heidelberg and iGEM IISER Tirupati. The goal of this foresight report is for future teams to realise the real-world implications of projects that work on microbiomes, the considerations for the future prospects of such projects and the vision of engineering microbiomes in a safe and responsible way. We hope that this report will act as an inspiration for future iGEM teams that want to be engaged and discover the world of microbiomes.
Figure 3:  MicrobioCOSMOS timetable




Accessibility in Science
This year, our team has set the foundations to build upon a project that has a direct impact on the world. Through the first iGEM’s visual deliverable, the Promo Video, we had to make sure that we would spread the word of our work across the world.

By contacting and collaborating with iGEM teams with different cultural and linguistic backgrounds, we opted to translate our Promo video’s script in multiple languages, thus breaking the language barriers. Namely the languages and the respective teams that translated it them are as follows:
We also provided subtitles for the following languages that were translated by iGEM Thessaly:
In order to achieve even greater accessibility, we managed to upload our audio in Greek, English and French, targeting a broader audience around the world. Besides collaborating with other iGEM Teams to translate our promo video’s script, we also collaborated the other way around with our fellow teams iGEM Heidelberg & iGEM ASIJ Tokyo , translating their scripts in Greek as well.

Education and Engagement

Scientific Congress of Hellenic Medical Students: One Health
On the 16th April, the 27th Scientific Congress of Hellenic Medical Students was held virtually, due to the COVID-19 restrictions in Greece at that time of the year. A round table, consisting of four iGEM teams from Greece, presented different aspects of Synthetic Biology and the competition to medical students and experts. Our collaboration with iGEM Ioannina, iGEM Athens , iGEM Crete, and iGEM Thessaloniki was our first collaboration as a new team and we were really thrilled about it. We delivered the opening speech which was focused on Synthetic Biology and its impact on One health, as all teams represented one aspect of One Health. Synthetic Biology gives new and innovative solutions in order to face the challenges of the 21st century. The audience, even if it was a virtual event, showed a remarkable interest about Synthetic biology and One health.


As part of our partnership with the Aalto-Helsinki team and because our projects have many similarities we were invited to the team’s podcast series and had a wonderful discussion. We talked about our projects and specifically the gut microbiome which we both are working on and how we are tackling similar issues but with different methods. We also tapped upon mental health issues, the state of acceptance of them in both of our countries and how gut microbiome health can affect our mental health!

Sharing Thoughts With Team Thessaly
Figure 4:  Aalto-Helsinki Podcast


Data Privacy and Encryption Workshop
Another fun and educational collaboration we did with the Aalto team was the Dry Lab Workshop. As part of ongoing partnership with the Aalto team and on the basis of our projects being quite similar, we decided to create a space of mutual learning and thus the idea of the workshop was conceived. The data privacy and encryption workshop consisted of 1.5 hour for a technical discussion to answer pre-defined questions and it was for dry-lab members only. Our Dry lab members were really keen on participating whilst also creating questions beforehand. Some of the most notable questions were the following : “How to anonymise data”, “Power consumption and battery choices” and of course “What ways are there to encrypt the data we collect and transmit”. Some of the most valuable “answers” to these questions were, “Make use of the Amnesia tool”, “Delay times between data transmission” and “Use advanced encryption algorithms like AES/CCM that is used in bluetooth”, you can read all of our points in the image below.

Figure 5:  Flinga board with the Dry lab ideas


The second part of the workshop, which was for 1 hour, was open for all of the team members and included breakout room discussions on safety, legislation and thoughts on medical data. We again used the Flinga boards so we can have some of the issues written down and accessible to us throughout the session. We had two main issues that we would be discussing. One was “Improving Safety” and the second one was “Risk Detection.” Risk detection was mainly focused around what common people would deem as risk, whilst it also addressed the environmental aspect. Improving Safety leaned to the legislative aspect of such devices. As a result of us being 22 people there were a lot of answers to the questions and the breakout rooms were rich with good conversation. In our partnership page you can read both of the main categories and dive in deeper in our conversation.
Figure 6:  Commemorate screenshot from dry lab workshop
iGEM Patras Podcast
Through our broader collaboration with other Greek iGEM Teams,iGEM Patras invited us to their podcast series, named “The SynBio Academy”. We discussed our project’s progression, difficulties we face in time of the COVID-19 pandemic, troubleshooting obstacles in our fundraising experience as well as how our journey in iGEM has changed our lives so far. iGEM Patra's Podcast
Figure 7:  iGEM Patra's Podcast


iGEM Nantes video
In the beginning of this iGEM season, iGEM Nantes invited us to participate in a small video presenting in our native language ourselves and the team that we are part of, in an effort to begin networking and getting to know other iGEMers around the globe!
iGEM Warwick
We collaborated with iGEM Warwick by completing a form related to our project and the way it can inspire activities for high school students. We answered various questions related to the problems that inspired AMALTHEA, the way AMALTHEA aims to tackle those issues and the relationship between our project and Synthetic Biology. All this information was laid out in a form, comprehensible by high school students in order for them to process and understand it. After that, we proposed an activity that could be carried out inside the classroom: this activity focused on an artistic approach of the microbiome, asking the students to draw a picture of what the microbiome looks like from a microscope, without using a real image as a reference. After that, they looked at images taken with electron microscopy and compared their artworks with them. They discussed the main differences and brainstormed about the reason why the natural microflora looks like it does. The booklet that iGEM Warwick prepared, includes our ideas and you can find it at this link

Article of iGEM Maastricht
Somewhere around August, we had the chance to take part in a collaboration organized by iGEM MSP-Maastricht. All the teams had to write and deliver a purely academic paper that encapsulates their project, and then conduct a peer review to one another. We were excited with the idea of composing a short and formal recording of our work, because not only did it challenge our skills of storytelling, but it also taught us how to manage our information-to-analysis ratio in our writing, in order to remain both laconic and informative at the same time. You can read it here

On top of that, we gained some feedback on our paper from the peer review process, which left us satisfied with ourselves, since it complimented our work while also pointing out details we missed. All in all, this experience was an opportunity to exercise and improve the very useful skill of academic writing, communicate our project in scientific terms and, surprisingly, comprehend our project better than we used to in the first place.

Meetups

MIT Microbiome Meet-Up
Similar to our MicrobioCOSMOS initiative, we were pleased to participate in the MIT Microbiome Meet-Up. During this meetup, all iGEM teams had the opportunity to present their microbiome-related projects, brainstorm on their applicability and acknowledge some vital aspects such as safety mechanisms and overall network with iGEMers with similar objectives.

iGEMxSDGs Impact Challenge
Around June, the iGEM team of iGEM TAS_Taipei (Taiwan), introduced iGEMxSDGs challenge. iGEMxSDGs was a challenge that invited all teams of iGEM to match their project to the respective SDGs targeted by their teams. The goal was to raise awareness of the SDGs within the iGEM community and to the public. We happily accepted the nomination to participate and posted our goals on our social media platforms.
Figure 8:  Instagram post with our SDG goals
Afterwards in mid September, we participated at the SDGs Conference hosted by the TAS_Taipei team. We were given the opportunity to complete tasks in accordance with the SDG each team chose to tackle, aiding them in their effort to make their project even more sustainable. At the event, each team presented why it is important to target sustainability in every iGEM project and how we managed to complete the team SDG tasks, all in a great spirit of friendship and cooperation.
Figure 9: Commemorate screenshot from the Conference
Greek meetup
First introduced in 2019, the Greek Meet-Up is becoming a tradition amongst the Greek iGEM teams. This year due to the situation surrounding the COVID-19, the meetup was hosted virtually by iGEM Greece_United, iGEM Crete, iGEM Thessaloniki , iGEM Athens and iGEM Thrace. We were kindly invited to a 2-day event with interesting talks by experts on the field of Synthetic Biology, Entrepreneurship and Art, witnessed fun workshops and overall participated in interactive activities that gave us the opportunity to get to know our fellow iGEM participants representing Greece this year.


Other collaborations and Fun staff

Rosalind Chronicles
Rosalind Chronicles was a collaboration by iGEM Thessaloniki, iGEM Patra, iGEM ULaval and iGEM Concordia/Montreal, the nature of the collaboration was to send a photo of our female teammates that will be displayed i an interactive Bulletin Board to honor the contribution of Women in STEM. The goal of the collaboration was to develop an appreciation for what women can do and are doing in STEM, whilst also to get familiar with the current research development and lastly to spark people’s scientific curiosity. We were asked to write a short description for our chosen women in STEM, sent a picture of her and also our fellow female teammates. We chose Rita Levi Montalcini as she was an influential figure in science and politics alike and for her groundbreaking work in neurobiology where she discovered NGF.

Postcard Project by iGEM Düsseldorf
Since 2016 and every year the Düsseldorf iGEM team creates a postcard collaboration with the purpose to educate the public about topics in synthetic biology. We were excited to be part of their effort and design our own postcard reflecting “AMALTHEA” even though this year was a little bit different for all of us, as we still had the pandemic making our lives harder. Aside from the hardships though, we were asked to create a digital design explaining our project in a few words, and that postcard would then be printed and sent out to almost 90 teams. That got us super excited so we designed a lovely postcard which you can check out below. We also got postcards in the mail and learned about all the other interesting projects that various iGEM teams are working on and got really inspired from all the wonderful and exciting things that are out there being worked on.



Figure 10: Our postcard design


Figure 11: Postcards from our collaboration with iGEM Düsseldorf
Surveys
Throughout the course of our project we dealt with various issues either ethical or not. So following the tradition of past iGEM teams and in general the scientific method we set out to create a few surveys to hopefully answer some of our questions. The two that we published are about the use of GMOs and the Mediterranean diet. In the first one we try to pinpoint logical fallacies in the thought process of people and try to find out how they perceive genetically modified organisms in general. The second one was about the Mediterranean diet, in this one we tried pinpointing how people see dieting in general and what they know about the Mediterranean diet and its benefits in some cases. You can learn more about it on our Education and Engagement page!

iGEM Warriors by iGEM IISER Berhampur
Being an iGEM team means we have to communicate our project and our point of view in every possible way! A fun one, was the collaboration with iGEM IISER Berhampur. A comic campaign, with the purpose to educate the general public and young children about iGEM projects and synthetic biology. We were excited to be part of such a happy and creative collaboration. Our design made us really proud, as we presented “Hippocrates” and comforted him with our “magic” spacecraft , a fun way to explain to kids how our capsule works. Below you can enjoy our little comic strip
Figure 12: Our comic, the story of Hippocrates.


igem.thessaly@gmail.com