Team:Aix-Marseille/Attributions
There is a synthetic biology course proposed to 2nd year Bachelor of Life Sciences students or in the first year of Master degree. It is an option proposed in the 2nd semester. During this university teaching, students must give an oral presentation on one of the iGEM projects assigned to them, and they must submit a paper related to synthetic biology, its form changing from year to year. This course is an introduction to synthetic biology and teachers invite interested student to take part to the competition. There is nothing online.
Some members who didn't have the opportunity to take part into the course learned about iGEM through a presentation of iGEM at the faculty of Luminy. This presentation was given by the 2019 Aix-Marseille iGEM team. They presented the competition and the precedent edition of the competition. And the inscription for the new team started!
We started the meetings on January 27th with the members who wanted to be part of this great adventure. From the first meeting we all proposed ideas for this year’s project. Several members of the team proposed topics. At each meeting we presented the topics in groups of 3-4 people.
We started with 25 proposed topics and we explained what it was possible to do with each topic. Marie showed us how to use a topic. And we finally chose the one about green tides.
All the team did research on its side, the reflection carried out at the beginning by the various interviews and articles. But Lucy, Samuel and Maud did the vast majority of the scientific research. Lucy elaborated a part of the design, especially the part with the design of the sequences for the proof of concept part, and their optimization with Twist. Maud did a lot of research to put our project on an industrial scale.
Samuel was in charge of researching information from the scientific literature to complete the biobrick page of the Rhamnose inducible promoter (iGEM Paris Bettencourt team 2012) which will be used in our biosensor.
Unfortunately, we have not been granted access to the lab because of the epidemic.
At first, Joy and Julien were running our social media accounts. Because of difficulties due to COVID 19 they sadly decided to stop the competition. So other team members had to take care of this : Laurie for LinkedIn, Camille for Facebook and and Maud for Instagram and Twitter.
On instagram we regularly created “Did you know?” posts. These are short sentences about green algae, allowing people to learn more about the phenomenon. We all wrote one or two of them, then Samuel edited them for Maud to post.
At the beginning Camille, Lucie, Jeanne, Marion, and Élisa took care of the funds, then, when the team reduced, Samuel, Maud, Lucy, and Clara prepared all files for funding and found partnership.
Laurie and Jeanne finalized the main financing file and Maud presented it to partners. Jeanne took care of the goodies.
Laurie managed the creation of this project promotion video with Litchi Video Laurie and Litchi offered the rest of the team different video styles and then the voice-over. Our voice-over, after a change, was provided by Bill Dewees. Laurie wrote the script with François Reimbold, submitted it to the rest of the team, we made several changes, there were 3 versions. Once the script was validated she translated it into English, Sebastien corrected it on a few turns of phrase. The story board was then started, as for the script, she sent it to us, we gave our opinion and asked for some changes. To finish the video, she proposed us 5 musics, we voted for the one we preferred. For all these steps, Laurie was in contact with François Reimbold, the production director of Litchi Video, who helped and advised her.
We want to thank Emile Torrnior who filmed and edited the video and did a great job ! He’s running a company called "Emile Photography and Films", and was helped by François Isnard, a friend, to film. Maud, Samuel, Lucy, Younes, Camille and Jeanne appear in the video. Lucy, Maud and Samuel talk about the scientific part. Lucy presents the objective of the project, Samuel describes the main features of the project and Maud the biosafety part. Camille did the introduction and the collaborations, Jeanne and Younes a part of the Human Practices, and Younes the context with Lucie. We shot in different places, at Maud's for the indoor part, and in front of the university and the longchamps park for the outdoor parts.
When we voted on the subject, we decided to contact several professionals who could give us information to guide us.
During a meeting the whole team made a list of people to contact.
Everyone added "actors" to the list according to their personal research and contacted the person added. Then, if the actor responded, the team member who contacted him or her would conduct an interview.
All of us tried to contact people to have information about our project, or to inform people about it.
After having chosen the project we made a list of professionals to contact and then we each added "actors" as we went along.
The person who added the professional contacted him, and interviewed him if he agreed.
Once again, because of the pandemic, we could only contact people over the phone or through video calls.
First Camille contacted André Ollivro but got no answer.Then Boukari contacted Olmix and LIGR, but this didn't help us much.
Jeanne interviewed Sylvain Ballu and Renan Pierre from CEVA company. Laurie contacted Greenpeace, they then sent us the link of a report they had made. Lucy interviewed Philippe Potin, and Lucie, Erwann Loret. Samuel was able to question Nicolas Terrapon about PUL’s.
Other members of the team contacted other actors, but this did not succeed.
We had planned to participate in several events. Jeanne and Laurie, with the help of Sébastien, had taken care of the file to participate in the science fair, which unfortunately was cancelled due to the epidemic. It is the same for the spring of the assos in which we had to participate.
Lucy had made a brochure for the events, but it was not used because of the cancellation of the events.
Maud, Sébastien, Younes, Jeanne, Laurie, Lucy, Camille and Samuel did a google form to find out more about people's general knowledge about green algae. We published it on facebook.
For IGEM Aix Marseille logo : everyone gave ideas, Camille used our ideas to draw a logo. Justine Faustino, a student in design and graphism school, designed the final logo on computer. We all gave our opinion to finalize the logo.
The Logo for our team was imagined by team member Younes. Charlotte Hocquaux decided the final details with Jeanne. Charlotte is a graphic design student at ESAD in Amiens, she finalized the design and vectorized the logo.
The Düsseldorf iGEM Team organized a postcards collaboration. It consisted in sending postcards and receiving cards from several teams. For this Jeanne created our card that you can see below.
The Nantes iGEM Team organised an art exhibition on “algae and science” and “science and art”, since our project is about green tides we participated in this project. Inspired by Maud and Samuel’s ideas, Camille drew a car with algae. Charlotte Hocquaux coloured this drawing and Florie Le Helley finished the coloring and designed all the background to give us this wonderful masterpiece.
The Grenoble iGEM Team organised a collaboration between french speaking teams. They wanted to create an iGEM video with only french teams presenting their project or city. We participated in this by filming around Marseille. Lucy and Samuel filmed nice spots of our city and Laurie took care of the editing.
The Copenhagen iGEM Team organized a meet up, Samuel attended. He found the meeting very friendly and interesting. He said "we were able to exchange on our projects and create links between our different teams and different countries".
Agassi Wong and Sebastien are behind the wiki. For the rest of the team they are like the geniuses who saved us ! Without them we could never have done it.
On behalf of the Aix Marseille team, we would like to extend our appreciation for the amazing work done by everyone who supported us. We would like to thank our instructors: James STURGIS, Laetitia HOUOT and Julie VIALA. As well as our advisors: Megan Charles-Alfred, Jennifer Arrindell, Marie Grandjean, Jonas Desjardins, Yorgo El Moubayed and especially Sebastien Nin.
We would also like to thank our sponsors, because thanks to your generous donations, this project has become a reality and has proven to be a wonderful success. Last but not least, we would like to thank everyone who participated in this extraordinary project.
Our advisors gave us a lot of advice, they introduced us to the iGEM universe, and then guided us to the final stretch. We particularly want to thank Sébastien who has always been at our side, even when faced with the problems (Covid, distance,...) we were confronted with. Thank you for the conception of the wiki, thank you for all the advice you could give us and your unfailing support! Thanks to Megan and Jennifer for all your advice, especially during the design, and for your good mood. And thank you to all the other advisors (Yorgo, Marie, Jonas,...) who helped us a lot, especially during the research and implementation of the project.
A great project is not done without ideas, but neither is it done without funds. For this we would like to thank all our sponsors for their generous donations and for the trust they have placed in us. This project has become a reality and has proven to be a wonderful success. Last but not least, we would like to thank everyone who participated in this extraordinary project.
We also want to thank the people who helped us, from the professionals who gave us their time for the interviews, to the great IT developer, Agassi Wong, without whom this wiki would never have been ready on time. Not to mention the 2 artists who made our logos, Charlotte Hocquaux and Justine Faustino, thanks to Florie le Helley and Charlotte again for our "work of art". Finally, thanks to Emile Tornior and François Isnard for the presentation video and to Litchi Video for the promotional video.