Team:Toulouse INSA-UPS/Achievements

Overview

On this page, we have gathered information and links to pages of importance for our evaluation. We have made a self-assessment for medals and awards. This judgment has no value since only the decision of the iGEM judges is sovereign in this matter.

Our own evaluation for medal


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Bronze Medal Criteria


As we met all the deadlines and created the pages corresponding to Attributions, Project Description and Contribution, we think we have validated the criteria for the Bronze medal.





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Silver Medal Criteria


We think we have also met all the criteria for the Silver medal since we were able to prove that many of our parts worked, that we have collaborated with other teams, that we have provided Human Practices efforts, and that we have detailed how our project could be implemented in the real world.





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Gold Medal Criteria


Last but not least, we produced a strong modeling effort, engaged in a deep partnership with iGEM IISER-Pune-India, detailed consequent integrated human practices, developped a sound education project, and finally demonstrated that our project works. Here are 5 links to pages whose content makes us think we have validated 5 criteria for Gold Medal eligibility (while the 3 were required).


We compete for the following special prizes

Best Integrated Human Practices

We voluntarily embarked on a thematic for which we were no expert, just students with the will to create a feasible and coherent project. To do so, we had to contact specialists, stakeholders and potential users at each step to get constructive feedback and crucial advice. Integration of all this information was the indubious key of our project success, with the Integrated Human Practices as its backbone. On our IHP page, we present the people, organizations, and especially companies whose information shaped our project, from the first choices, its final design, the result production, to its application in the real world. Abstracts of the interviews are presented for a rapid glance. Our notes from the interviews are also accessible in drop-down panes and of interest to any future iGEM team that wants to engage in the development of other synthetic perfume.

For more details, check out our IHP page


Best Model

The synthetic microbial consortium at the core of our project is highly dynamic, with complex interactions. Modeling was thus a central tool to assess feasibility, simulate expected behavior, understand properties, and ultimately optimize design from the lab to the industrial scale. We represented all processes using a standard graphical notation to develop a dynamic, mechanistic model containing thousands of biochemical and biophysical reactions. Following an iterative Design-Build-Test-Learn strategy, this model was initially fed with parameters from the literature and, once the feasibility was assessed, used to design experiments that we performed to refine key parameters. We developed mathematical tools to evaluate the production and identify controlling parameters. Results were used for dimensioning and optimizing rationally our production process to maximize both profitability and sustainability. We provide the code as an open source notebook to ensure reproducibility and reusability by future teams interested in modeling synthetic consortia behavior.

For more details, check out our Model page


Best Supporting Entrepreneurship

We have soon understood that our Elixio project was raising a lot of interest from the perfume industry. Because of this, and because we are participating in the manufacturing track, it was mandatory for us to achieve a huge and exhaustive effort to predict the viability and impact of Elixio in the real world. Thus, we took up the challenge of dimensioning a whole production factory, from its organization, equipment and infrastructure to its energy, human resource and raw material associated costs. This consequent effort allowed predicting the feasibility of our project and its potential to reach economic viability. In addition to the financial aspects, our project was assessed to have a limited carbon footprint and positive long-term impacts. Finally, a norm analysis shows that our product can be labeled as natural, which is a major asset to differentiate us from competitors.

For more details, check out our Entrepreneurship page


Best Sustainable Development Impact

Nowadays, innovation requires sustainable, responsible and good for the world solutions. From brainstorming to design and implementation, we have kept at heart to develop a true sustainable project. Four Sustainable Development Goals stated by the United Nations correspond to our project: (#13) climate action, (#12) responsible consumption and production, (#9) Industry, innovation and infrastructure, and (#8) Decent work and economic growth. This has driven our reflections on the long-term positive and negative impacts of our project on the society, the environment and the economy. Based on our entrepreneurship efforts and on our ethical work, we have demonstrated in measurable and meaningful ways that we are meeting these four SDGs. Indeed, the sustainability of our process is ensured by a reduced carbon footprint, lower energy and resource consumption, and relocation of a production which can be labeled as natural.

For more details, check out our Sustainable Development Impact page


Best Education

The covid19 pandemic has proved, more than ever, that education has to be of paramount importance to ensure new synthetic biology solutions are accepted by the general public. We soon found out through participation in scientific events that the understanding of our project faced a double lack of knowledge about synthetic biology, but also about perfumes. On these considerations, we have conceived and made a game to learn in a funny way the basis of microbiology, synthetic biology and perfume creation. We are proud of the result: from the test done with high schoolers to visually impaired people, the game fully fulfills its goal by effortlessly instilling biology notions and making people aware of the complexity of the fragrance universe. While we regret not being able to show it at the Jamboree, we detailed all its elements on our wiki for anyone to create his version and inspire future iGEMers.

For more details, check out our Education and Communication page


Inclusivity Award

As synthetic biology is a most promising field, we wanted to reach out to people not necessarily connected to the world of science. In this scope, we got in touch with UNADEV, an association for visually impaired or blind people. Because the sense of smell was central to our project, we decided to adapt our Elixio game for them. They showed a great interest both for synthetic biology and in helping us since many games are not adapted for them. It was a true life lesson as we broke down their clichés about synthetic biology while they did the same about our misconceptions of how visually-impaired people perceived their environment. While we did not have enough time to fully adapt the game, we collected their precious advice for further development of the game after the competition and to allow future iGEMers to follow in our footsteps.

For more details, check out our Inclusivity page

Go to Awards
Robertet TBI TWB Adisseo CBI Fondation INSA FSI CRITT Bio industries

and many more. For futher information about our sponsors, please consult our Sponsors section on our Attribution page.

The content provided on this website is the fruit of the work of the Toulouse INSA-UPS iGEM Team. As a deliverable for the iGEM Competition, it falls under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0. Thus, all content on this wiki is available under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license (or any later version). For futher information, please consult the official website of Creative Commons.

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