Team:TAU Israel/Attributions

sTAUbility

sTAUbility

Attributions


The attribution criterion is a chance to celebrate the contribution of each team member as well as other generous people who helped as along the way.

Team members

The team management platform we used (monday.com) allowed us to assign tasks to individuals within the team, track the progress and lend a hand when needed. We divided our team to active groups of the following:

  1. Leadership - Karin is our team Captain, the one who followed our progress while serving as the point of contact between team members, PI and iGEM HQ.
  2. Biology - The team that designed and conducted the complicated experiments, and advised the bioinformatic team regarding many modelling issues. They were in charge of empirical POC (10 genes experiment) and the impressive stability measurements (co-culture experiment). This team was led by Matan, our evolutionary expert, and included Doron, Itai, Omer, David and Einav. The team achieved amazing results despite the COVID-19 and its limitations on laboratory work.
  3. Modelling - The engineering team. Created the stability predictor and many descriptive features for the yeast genes, modelled linkers and provided a mathematical POC. In addition, the team members helped in the development of experimental steps, as part of our "built-train-test" agenda . This team was led by Itamar, our mathematician, and included Niv, Karin, Noa, Bar and Hadar, all contributed to the final software.
  4. Human practice - This ambitious group has organized our meetings with the industry companies, academic experts, and other iGEM groups among many otherthrough numerous events, following the AREA framework for responsible research. This team included Omer, Hadar and Doron.
  5. Funding and social media - The team that engaged our work through social media and reached out for potential sponsors, convincing them that we are worth the investment. This group consists of Niv, Bar and Noa.
  6. Wiki and proofreading - Einav, David and Karin were in charge of collecting and uploading content, along with designing the wiki. Itamar, Itai and Bar were our proofreaders, making sure that the wiki conveys our message to the readers.

Instructors

  • Prof. Tamir Tuller - Prof. Tuller instructed both our Biology and Modelling team members, giving them advice on any matter related to the computational parts of the project and measurements.
  • Dan Alon trained us on how to use the Chi.Bio system and provided lab support and guidance throughout the session.
  • Adi Yannai advised us on bioinformatic and biology matters and contributed her experience from iGEM as a past participant, encouraging us to give our best.

Special Thanks

  • Prof. Maya Shuldiner, for providing us the SWAT library, which we used throughout the seasonfor experiments and as well as for modelling purposes. This library allowed us to conduct large-scale experiments and collect much more data than we have ever dreamed of. It is deeply appreciated!
  • Alessio Marcozzi from Cyclomics, not only for offering free deep sequencing services, but for his kindness and good advices, making every effort to help us succeed.
  • Lonza Pharma & Biotech Group, for taking us under their auspices, answering our every question and motivating us into keep working toward reaching our goal.

Wiki Design

  • Daniel Sionov (yes, the Captain's brother), the designer of our logo and symbol for the wiki and social media's platforms, and also the banner for the iGEM Israeli Meetup that we hosted this year.
  • Icons in our main page and presentation video are made by turkkub from www.flaticon.com
  • The timeline in the Human Practice page is made by Clay Larson.

Video Technology

  • Rozi Buber, for transforming our script to an actual animation video for promotion – she did a great job, check it out in our main page!
  • Idan Melchior, for filming our presentation video and editing it professionally.

Lab Support

  • Prof. Maya Shuldiner again, for providing the library, which enabled all our experiments especially during this time of pandemic.
  • Chi.Bio, for providing the system that allowed us to conduce a large-scale evolution experiment.
  • Prof. Martin Kupiec, Prof. Uri Gophna and Prof. Itai Benhar, who advised us on laboratory matters.
  • Ben Oz, for designing and printing the sterilization-resistance caps for the Chi.Bio machine, thus ensuring the safe entrance of the pipes without a risk for outside contamination.

Bioinformatic Data

Most of our data sources is credited on our Modelling pages, but we would like to acknowledge the following for special help:

  • Maya Shuldiner's lab again, that created the LoQate database, containing measurements that we could use for training our stability prediction model.
  • Michael Peeri, for sharing the Multiple Sequence Alignment (MSA) that allowed us to calculate features with respect to conserved regions in evolution.
  • Shaked Bergman‏, for assisting with the raw data analysis obtained from the deep sequencing, and creating consensus sequences, which we can analyze ourselves and find the distribution of mutations on the target gene.
  • The EFM calculator designers from Berrick's lab, on which we based our contribution work – the EFM optimizer.

Inclusivity Project

We would like to acknowledge two Israeli teams that collaborated with us and helped us executing the Inclusivity project - the BGU team and the Technion team. Together, we collect statistical data on three underrepresented groups in the science community, and recorded videos that are aimed to inspire others from the same background to reach their dreams regardless of their skin color or religion. For more information, visit our Inclusivity Page.