Not only is science a vital part of iGEM but also collaboration, the opportunity to work with like-minded people on similar issues. Without the opportunity to even meet-up with local German teams, due to the pandemic, fulfilling the collaboration requirements seemed impossible at first. But applications like zoom and social media have made it possible to reach various international teams. We are very grateful for the opportunity to talk to and collaborate with so many teams across the globe.

Postcard project

It is a tradition of the iGEM Düsseldorf team to get to know other teams' projects through sending out postcards. The number of participating teams has increased from 31 teams last year to 74 who have taken part this year. In our eyes, this effort was a success because not only did we get to know so many teams through their postcards but we also managed to promote synthetic biology. The idea is that each participating team designs a postcard with their project description on the back. The front should be a picture/comic/image related to their project, to iGEM, or synthetic biology in general. The teams then sent all their postcards to us. Our task was to sort and distribute the postcards to every team so that each team receives one copy from each of the other participating teams. One external collaborator includes @igem_memes, which is an Instagram account organized by students of the iGEM Stockholm team. They try to spread positivity through humorous memes, which they continued with their funny design of the postcard. Because not all postcards will arrive before the wiki freeze, due to shipping problems, the teams were additionally provided with digital versions of each postcard, so that they can have an early look at the postcards. We have to admit that we did not expect the sheer creativity that was displayed through the postcards. It was quite obvious that each team has put much effort into the design of their postcard. We hope that every team had as much fun looking through the postcards as we did. At this point, we want to thank each team for their participation and their effort in keeping our little tradition alive. Teams who participated:

Pictures of each postcard:

Postcards part 1.pdf FILESIZE: 40 MB

Postcards part 2.pdf FILESIZE: 20 MB

Figure 1: Our team sorting and packaging the postcards.

Figure 2: All the postcards we received. Thank you so much!

German meetup

The meetup of the German iGEM teams organized by iGEM Bonn was a fascinating experience because although the members of the different German teams live relatively close to each other, we could only meet up online. Nevertheless, we got the chance to split up into breakout rooms and discuss several different topics. Especially captivating were the talks on finding a name for each of our projects and ethics in synthetic biology. Additionally, we got in contact with other teams to discuss further collaborations.

Bonn

From the meeting with iGEM Bonn, we heard about their idea to collaborate with other teams by creating an iGEM-themed escape room.

Figure 3: Some of our members in a meeting with iGEM Bonn.

Bonn, Kaiserslautern, Aachen

Together with the iGEM teams from Bonn, Kaiserslautern, and Aachen, we managed to create an escape room to keep the iGEM spirit up and have a bit of fun besides all the lab work. It was designed to involve aspects of synthetic biology and parts related to each of our projects. This cooperation allowed us to exchange our project plans with other German teams, to give them feedback on their ideas, and to discuss iGEM-related issues beyond our own team

OSU Brainstorm meeting

Early on in the iGEM year, the iGEM team of the Ohio State University allowed us to talk with other teams about our project ideas. Even though the idea wasn’t set in stone back then and has since changed a lot, the experience gave us an insight into the brainstorming process of other teams. It was also very interesting to hear from others how synthetic biology is performed in other countries. We were given a great opportunity to establish ties with several teams from all around the world.

Figure 4: Some of our team members at the OSU Brainstorm meeting.

JulyGem

The JulyGem event, hosted by the iGEM Calgary team was an especially interesting opportunity because we had the chance to practice presenting our pitch to other teams. Especially helpful was the feedback given by judges, as it helped us realize which parts of our presentation needed improvement and how to implement those changes.

CCU_Taiwan

We assisted the CCU_Taiwan team by creating a German translation of the picture book they created. It tells the story of a little boy who got wounded and goes into closer microscopic detail about what’s going on, from bacteria to white cells and more importantly how antibiotic resistances develop. Through this collaboration, we can spread more awareness about antibiotic resistance in a children-friendly manner.

iGEM Patras

We also created a translation for a comic which was created by iGEM Patras.