Team:XHD-Wuhan-A-China/Partnership
Partnership
We and XHD-Wuhan-B-China, as a brother team, have a very deep cooperation in the whole season from learning the basic knowledge of synthetic biology, to adjusting the direction of project design, to the implementation of project experiments, including result analysis. All of these have benefited each other greatly and played an important role in the successful implementation of our project.
You can also find our collaboration with XHD-Wuhan-B-China on their wiki:
https://2021.igem.org/Team:XHD-Wuhan-B-China/Partnership
1.Basic knowledge learning and sharing / Weekly project meeting
Because we are just a group of high school students, lacking in the biological knowledge and skills that needed to complete the project, we had weekly sessions with the XHD-Wuhan-B-China Team. Since we are still in the midst of a new global crown epidemic, there are many limitations to direct offline communication in China, even though it is the best country in the world in terms of epidemic status. We took the form of weekly online sharing to learn basic biological experiment operations and principles, including genetic engineering principles, PCR principles, mathematical modeling principles, machine learning and so on to deepen the understanding of synthetic biology. At our weekly meetings online, we asked the student who was sharing to turn on the webcam and share his learning work for the week. We learned a lot in the process.
2.Project design
1) Our project is about enhancing the denitrification of rhizobium to improve soil compaction. This project is very difficult and full of challenges. At the beginning of the project design, we encountered many questions, such as what strategy we should adopt to enhance denitrification. This question troubled us for a long time, and many options were proposed during the communication with XHD-Wuhan-B-China Team. Finally, after the communication and discussion between our two teams, we decided to use the most straightforward solution to achieve our goal.
2) Later on, as the project progressed, we also collided with new ideas and thoughts, especially on the design of improved components. Improving existing parts can be a challenging task in itself and requires a lot of experimentation and experience. With the assistance and discussion of the XHD-Wuhan-B-China Team, we learned and applied the most advanced ideas for intelligent design using machine learning, and achieved good results. Both teams actively discussed and brainstormed in order to make the parts fit together organically, and gained a lot.
3.Technical cooperation of project experiment
PCR technology, gene recombination technology and bacterial culture technology were used in our two teams' project. We exchanged our experience with each other in the experiment and assisted each other when encountering difficulties. Since the growth rate of the Sinorhizobium fredii HH103 was relatively slower, the risk taken when the experiment fails was greater and the time cost was higher. In order to avoid unnecessary failures as much as possible, our two teams supported each other and solved any problems in time, which laid a solid foundation for the smooth running of the experiment. In the part of modeling, we brainstormed, and we gave guidance and communication to XHD-Wuhan-B-China Team on the dynamics model.
4. Troubleshoot in Parts submission
It was the first time for all of our team members to participate in iGEM, and we were not very familiar with the corresponding document submission and component submission. Especially when applying for the number of each component, we did not know how to apply, nor what number range was assigned to us. With the help of XHD-Wuhan-B-China Team, we successfully created the correct number and completed the submission through their demonstration.
5.We participate in activities together
We visited the WUHAN INSTITUTE OF BIOTECHNOLOGY and WUHAN BIOBANK together.
