Team:William and Mary/Collaborations
Collaborations
This year the William and Mary iGEM team organized and/or participated in four different collaborations: (1) organized and hosted the iGEM MidAtlantic Meetup; (2) collaborated with and contributed to the Purdue iGEM Crash Course Video Project; (3) collaborated with and contributed to the Pittsburgh iGEM Podcast and 4) collaborated with and contributed to the TU Delft iGEM Synthetic Biology Video Project. These are described in more detail below.
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iGEM MidAtlantic Meetup 2020 - July 17, 2020
Agenda for MidAtlantic Meetup
Overview
This year, William & Mary iGEM hosted the annual iGEM MidAtlantic Meetup. Four undergraduate teams (Pittsburgh iGEM, UMaryland iGEM, Virginia iGEM, and ourselves) and two highschool teams (Gaston Day School and Baltimore Biocrew) participated remotely over Zoom. UMaryland iGEM PI’s Dr. Kahn and Dr. Eisenstein, UVA iGEM PI Dr. Kozminsky, William and Mary iGEM PI Margaret Saha, and Baltimore Biocrew instructor Kalen Clifton accompanied their respective teams virtually during the meetup. Over the course of the day, teams presented their projects, received feedback, and attended featured talks. These activities are described in detail below.
Introductions & Ian Schlander (iGEM Measurement Committee)
The meetup began with introductions, followed by a featured talk by Ian Schlander of the iGEM Measurement Committee. Mr. Schlander provided an overview of measurement expectations and identified measurement resources for all iGEM teams. After Mr. Schlander concluded his presentation, all six teams in attendance presented their projects and fielded questions from the audience. Prior to our keynote address, teams enjoyed a brief networking section in Zoom breakout rooms.
Dr. Lynn Rothschild (NASA) Keynote
Dr. Lynn Rothschild, astrobiologist and synthetic biologist at the NASA AMES Research Center, delivered the meetup’s keynote address. She presented her synthetic biology research related to life and travel in space, including research she guided as PI of the Stanford Brown iGEM team. She discussed her team’s “BioBalloon” project, in which the team developed a high atmosphere balloon made out of completely biological material. She also discussed using synthetic biology to develop technology to suit human settlement on Mars, including the engineering of rapidly-growing fungus for use in biomaterials such as mycelium glue, mycelium-based biofilters, and 3-layered domes (incorporating a layer of mycelium) that could serve as protected environments.
In addition to colonizing Mars, Dr. Rothschild discussed how synthetic biology will also play a crucial role in making space travel possible. For instance, synthetic biology can be used to develop strains of Bacillus that can be sporulated and stored for long periods of time, and then be transformed in a zero gravity environment. These strains of Bacillus can be transformed with genes to produce therapeutics on site. This approach has the benefit of saving significant amounts of space and weight (as compared to having to store each drug separately), and allowing drugs with short shelf-lives to still be used. Moreover, Dr. Rothschild highlighted the importance of being able to recycle precious resources during missions beyond Earth. A promising application of synthetic biology in this area is synthetic peptides that can be used to recycle copper from electronics waste.
Nancy Christen (iGEM HP Committee)
To conclude the meetup, Ms. Nancy Christen represented the iGEM HP Committee to answer questions regarding HP medal requirements and provide guidance on integrating HP with other aspects of a project. Ms. Christen elaborated on the factors that led to successful human practices in projects completed by previous iGEM teams, including the best ways to measure and document human practices and integrated human practices. She also gave examples of teams that were exceptional in incorporating integrated human practices, and provided information on how foundational advance teams can best incorporate HP into their projects.
Final Thoughts
The decision to move to a remote platform ensured both the safety and the accessibility of the event. Meeting over Zoom eliminated COVID-19 related risks, and allowed teams to participate without long drives to our campus in Virginia. The accessible nature of the virtual meetup contributed to the participation of six teams, including two high school teams that had not participated previously. Teams networked over the Zoom chat and within Zoom breakout networking sessions. Given the success of the event, we may employ some aspects of virtual meetings in future years to allow for more ongoing collaboration and networking.
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Purdue iGEM Crash Course Video
We contributed to Purdue iGEM’s YouTube crash course series that explained topics of molecular and synthetic biology. We wrote a transcript for a video to explain promoters, the sequences of DNA that are responsible for initiating and controlling the transcription of genes. In the transcript, we addressed multiple definitions for a promoter region, contrasted the structures of prokaryotic and eukaryotic promoters, and discussed the working of constitutive and inducible promoters. We also described, with examples, the four types of control that can act on inducible promoters: positive inducible, positive repressible, negative inducible, and negative repressible. Furthermore, we mentioned the additional categorization of promoters as endogenous, heterologous, and synthetic, describing what each term meant in the context of these promoters. Our transcript included applications of constitutive and inducible promoters in synthetic biology and research, and emphasized on how useful their heterologous expression is for these synthetic systems. Finally, we incorporated examples of applications of promoters in research, such as the use of the MerR operon to detect environmental mercury.
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Pittsburgh iGEM Podcast
We joined Pittsburgh iGEM to record a podcast via Zoom, which is now available on Spotify. During the podcast, we provided an overview of our project and the problem it attempts to address: the urgent need for broad-spectrum antiviral therapies. We described the antiviral properties of PUFAs and their ability to regulate inflammation, then explained how we plan to use PUFAs to design a “smart” drug. We mentioned obstacles we had faced throughout the design process, including the lack of bacterial cytokine sensors. Though implementation is beyond the scope of our modeling-based project, we commented on our project’s eventual implementation, which we are considering with input from medical experts. Afterwards, we provided our personal experiences on the impact of COVID-19 on our iGEM team. We discussed the decision to pursue a COVID-19-related project, as well as the transition from in-person to remote work due to the closure of our lab.
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TU Delft Collaboration
We collaborated with the iGEM team from the Delft University of Technology on the production of a short informative video that featured the projects of 49 iGEM teams from around the world. The main purpose of this video was to educate the public on synthetic biology through brief introductions to a wide variety of iGEM projects using social media platforms. For our part in this video, we recorded a 10-second video clip stating the problem that we are addressing this year and the solution that we have pursued through the use of synthetic biology.