Team:Toulouse INSA-UPS/Attributions
The beginning of the team
A small team
Being part of the iGEM Toulouse team is not so easy. We have had one month to complete the
application form to join the team including the draft of an iGEM project we would like to
propose. In
one hand, this ensures we were highly motivated, creative and enthusiastic. In the other hand,
this
limited a lot the number of candidates. This is how we ended up with a very small team of 6
students
this year.
The PIs wondered a lot about the opportunity to engage in iGEM with such a small team and
challenged us to prove we were worth participating by finding an amazing project. It was by the
end of January that we thought about working on the violet of Toulouse. During our collective
brainstorming sessions, our project evolved toward the production of a modular perfume and the
reconstitution of the violet fragrance. We have performed unexpectedly well over the summer and
our instructors are more than delighted to have let us rise to the challenge.
The iGEM Toulouse policy
Our challenge required a very strong investment from us since iGEM Toulouse
policy is that we receive no experimental help at the bench or in the writing, only corrections
and
advices from the instructors or the PhD students.
As for the experimental work and its valorization, the students alone have to raise the funds to
finance their work and participation. The main part of our budget went to the payment of our
internship fees since our instructors considered that the strong work and devotion of the
students deserve a financial reward. This also signifies that they could not select a high
number of student since it would be difficult to balance the budget (hence the selection
described above). A big thumb up to our main sponsors: Robertet, TWB, TBI, INSA, UPS and
Adisseo.
Devoted students
We are a small team of six students. We tried our best to compensate for this small number with a strong commitment, knowing also that we had a lot of things to learn to lead this project (coding, communication, fundraising etc).
Romane Ducloux (Wiki team leader and co Dry lab team leader)
She had to learn to code for our wiki and for the modeling part of our project. She was responsible for the efforts around our Wiki and the progress of the editing. With Maxence, she modeled our co-culture. She was in charge of the partnership with Pune to share our modeling experience. During the summer, she focussed on modifying the yeast to produce ꞵ-ionone with Margaux.
Thomas Gaudin (Wet lab team leader and co Human Practice team leader)
He was in charge of a huge part of our design for S. cerevisiae and drafted most yeast parts. During the summer, he modified the yeast to produce ɑ-ionone. He participated in our Wiki page coding and to the creation of our board game with Manon and Camille. With Margaux, he presented our project during the Symposium meet up and the French meet up. He tested the game with high school students.
Margaux Haon (Entrepreneurship team leader and co Wiki team leader)
She was deeply involved in our entrepreneurship effort. In addition to dimensioning the project, she built, with Manon, a SWOT and determined the stakes and issues surrounding our project. During the experimentations, she focussed with Romane on the ꞵ-ionone production. She presented our project with Thomas during the Symposium at the end of the summer and on the production and detection of our molecules.
Maxence Holtz (Finance team leader and co Dry Lab team leader)
He directed our fundraising campaign allowing us to carry our project out. He designed the parts for the cyanobacteria and modified this microorganism to produce aldehydes. He also was in charge with Manon of the cyanobacteria culture and their optimization. With Romane, he modelized our project and managed the partnership with Pune. At the end of the summer, he focused on the yeast integrations and the production and analysis of our molecules.
Camille Pin (Organisation and co Human Practices team leader)
She was in charge of our organization and secretary to our weekly meetings. During the summer, she focussed on cloning the yeast to produce linalol and dihydro-ꞵ-ionone. She was in charge of our communication with the press, iGEM and the other teams. She worked on the game with Manon and Thomas, and participated in the Symposium meetup organisation and the French meetup.
Manon Theys (Communication and co Human Practices team leader)
Manon is the last member to join us in mid-march. She was in charge of the communication of the team with the general public, especially on social media. She established the storyboard for our two presentation videos and participated in organizing all parts of the filming. She was also our Human Practice manager and directed our game creation. During the summer, she focussed on modifying the yeast to produce ɑ-ionone with Thomas and to cultivate the cyanobacteria with Maxence.
All of our project design and experimentations were done by the 6 members of our team. However, we could not have gone this far without the help of all the people and sponsors who supported us:
Our lovely instructors
We would like to thank our PI and our instructors. They have always been there to help us since the very beginning of this adventure.
Brice Enjalbert (INSA teacher and Head of the Physiology and engineering of microbial metabolism department at TBI): he has been our main PI throughout the year. Always there when we need advice, he has been a huge support, from the brainstorming sessions to our project valorization.
Ambre Jousselin (lecturer at Université Paul Sabatier, and researcher on RNA degradation and gene regulation in Staphylococcus aureus at CBI): she has been our secondary PI during the year. She helped us during brainstorming and guided us through the design and production of our part.
Pierre Millard (researcher at the MetaSys team at TBI): he advised us during the brainstorming sessions and to analyze our samples at the end of the experiments. He helped us to model our project.
Cédric Montanier (researcher at the CIMEs team at TBI): he guided us through the brainstorming sessions by asking questions and testing our topic ideas to see if they could become real topics for the competition.
Denis Jallet (researcher at the MetaSys team at TBI): he helped us with all the aspects related to cyanobacteria.
Our best advisors
Special thanks to our advisors who give us a huge technical and moral support.
Amandine Lucchin (PhD student at LRSV): she helped us at the beginning of the experimentation part, for the molecular biology and cloning aspects.
Thibault Malfoy (PhD student at TBI): he helped us with our design and for the molecular biology and cloning aspects of our experimentations.
Younes Bouchiba (PhD student at TBI): former iGEM student, he was a much needed advisor for our Wiki coding.
Our necessary specialists
After the brainstorming period, we gathered specialists to help us in the development of our project. Thank you very much for all the advice you have given us !
Philippe Urban (Research at TBI): he answered most of our questions about the yeast manipulations.
Gilles Truan (Director at TBI): he advised us on the design of our yeast.
Jean-Marie François (Research at TBI): he gave us advice about the regulation part of our molecules and helped us to choose our inducible promoters.
Carole Molina Jouve (Professor at INSA Toulouse and researcher at TBI): we talked about methods of extraction for the molecules we wanted to produce.
Julie Zedler (Research scientist at the university of Jena): she answered our questions about the cultivation of cyanobacteria.
Stephane Guillouet (Head of the Microbial engineering pole and Fermentation Advances and Microbial Engineering Team at TBI): he answered our question about fermentation.
Our entrepreneurship helpers
Marie-Pierre Escudié (Research scientist at the Gaston Berger Institute, Lyon): She helped us with the ethical part of our project for the entrepreneurship part.
Claude Maranges (Professor at INSA Toulouse): he corrected and commented our entrepreneurship plan.
Pierre-Alain Hoffmann (Research director at Kyanos Biotechnologies): he helped us with the calculation part of our entrepreneurship.
Karine Kormann (Raw material Director at Robertet): She provided us with standards and advices about the objectif of our production for our entrepreneurship.
Thierry Roger (Head of Sustainability): He provided us with standards and advices about the objectif of our production for our entrepreneurship.
Anthony Pegard (Fragrances reshearch and development manager at Robertet): He provided us with standards and advices about the objectif of our production for our entrepreneurship.
Our lab support
A big thank you to INSA Toulouse and Toulouse Biotechnology Institute for providing us with premises and equipment during this summer.
Boualem Sebbouh (laboratory technician at INSA Toulouse biological engineering department): he helped us in the lab by showing us where products are.
Theo Menville (laboratory technician at INSA Toulouse biological engineering department): he helped us to use the HPLC during the summer.
Sylvie Cancel-Pfister (laboratory technician at INSA Toulouse biological engineering department): she helped us find our way around the lab.
Marie Guicherd (research engineer at TBI): she helped us to analyze our samples by GC-MS.
Daniele Farias (Assistant professor at INSA Toulouse and researcher at TBI): she helped us to manipulate bioreactorsfor our cultures.
Eric Lombard (Study Engineer CNRS): he helped us to connect the CO2 bottle to our bioreactor.
Etienne Severac (Research Engineer at TBI): he showed us how to use HPLC to analyze our samples.
Laurent Hadjedz (Logistics Operator at TBI): he installed the CO2 bottle allowing us to enrich our cultures in bioreactor.
Stéphanie Dupoiron (Responsible for the bioprocess platform at Toulouse White Biotechnology): she helped us to analyze our molecules by GC-MS.
Our strain and plasmid providers
Sara Castano Cerezo (INRAE Researcher): she gave us the S. cerevisiae chassis strain yGPP034 ipENZ011 ipENZ078 producing high amounts of lycopene and the plasmids to make our integrations. She provided us with the plasmids carrying the integration loci for yeast (pCfB3034 X-3, pCfB3038 XII-1 and pCfB3040 XII-4) and a plasmid to do a Cre-Lox recombination. She also guided us to build our design.
Hélène Martin-Yken & Adilia Dagkesamanskaia (INRAE Researcher) & (Academic Researcher at INRA): they gave us the strain BY4741 (a SUC2 gal2 mal2 mel flo1 flo8-1 hap1 ho bio1 bio6 his3Δ1leu2Δ0 met15Δ0 ura3Δ0 Δgal80::MET15 Δddp1::CrtE-Gal1-10-tHMG1 Δho::CrtB-Gal1-10 ΔTy4:: CrtI-Gal1-10) and some advice about integrations in yeast.
Pakrasi Lab (Washington University in St. Louis): they provided us the four strains of S. elongatus UTEX 2973 (WT, cscb+, cscb+ spp and cscb+ spp sps).
Our material providers
GB department of INSA: they lent us a lot of materials and welcomed us in theirestablishment during the summer. This allowed us to do all of our experiments.
Our HTML helper
Arnaud Vergnet: he helped us to code our wiki.
Our artists
Video
Julien Morel: he helped us film and edit our two presentation videos. We had brainstorming meetings with him to validate our video plans.
Romain Davasse: he helped Julien to shoot some scenes of our videos.
3D animation & mascotte
Eglantine Rey: she drew and animated our mascot in our 2 minutes video. She also did the 3D animation of the fermenter.
Logo
Emmanuelle Bachelier: she is the one who made our final logo. We showed her our mock-ups and explained the ideas we wanted to convey with the logo.
Funding
We would like to thank all of our sponsors, who have made our project possible.
Commission Recherche UPS: this commission distributes the resources allocated to research by the Board of Directors of the Paul Sabatier University.
Adisséo: the company is among the world leaders in animal nutrition.
Press
We would like to thank Christelle Labruyere (communication manager at TBI), Joy Cozar (communication manager at INSA Toulouse) and Karine Dejean-Stolfo (communication manager at University Paul Sabatier) who allowed us to communicate our project to the press.
Big thanks to the journalists who contacted us and wrote about our project.
Click to check
the articles :
These articles were helpful to share our project and initiate discussions with the general public.
