Team:Amsterdam/Attributions

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The start of the iGEM journey

At the beginning of 2020, Dennis and Robin got excited about the iGEM competition and were keen to participate. They asked Filipe Dos Santos if he was interested in supervising an iGEM project and so began the iGEM Amsterdam 2020 Team. A brainstorm session followed. In February, Dennis and Robin had the opportunity to seek members during one of the lectures of the course System Biology in Practice, which took place at the University of Amsterdam. As the name already suggests, it is a practical course where most members of the team got in touch with the Synechocystis PCC6803 bacterial strain. The syllabus and course materials of this course are not freely available online. Around March Samira, Vicky, Mingdong, Joris and Kelly boarded the iGEM train and became members of the iGEM Amsterdam 2020 team.


In the beginning of April, Samira and Dennis started to work fulltime on the project, while the other members worked on it for around 8 hours a week. They had to finish some courses before they were able to work fulltime on the project. Due to the lockdown, starting March 13th, the first few weeks were mostly about the drylab, introduction courses to the project and seeking sponsors. Dennis, Samira and Kelly started working in the lab in the beginning of July. Since COVID-19 rules still applied, they had to work with time shifts. In the last week of September Robin and Joris were still not able to start their wet lab projects since their strains had not arrived yet. Luckily, the supervisors came up with another idea, they started working on a Synechococcus UTEX 2973 lactate producing strain.

Accomplishments of the team

As a team we accomplished a lot, but before we dive into this we like to take a moment of gratitude to thank the supervisors. We thank Dr. Filipe Branco dos Santos for his organizing talent, his advice and critical questions. We want to thank Wei Du for his supervision within the wetlab project and his point of view about different strategies for different organisms. A special thank to Max Guillaume for organising lectures about linear programming and Forbidden FRUITS, supervising many wet and dry lab projects and most of all for his patience. A word of gratitude to Wenyang Wu for the supervision in the lab and his humor. We are grateful for the help offered by Joeri Jongbloets, especially for his programming lectures, supervision in the lab, help with structured programming and his accurate/fruity comments and last but not least we thank Hugo Pineda Hernandez for the supervision in the lab and providing us with music when working late in the lab. Due to their assistance we were able to achieve and learn a lot in this short period of time!

Supervisors Acknowledgments

  • Project support and advice, Fundraising help and advice, Project advisor support Human Practices support - Filipe Dos Santos
  • General Support & lab support- All supervisors
  • Technical support - W. Du & M. Guillaume

Acknowledgments

  1. Prof. Dr. Stanley Brul (University of Amsterdam) - for supporting us with a the letter of recommendation and valuable feedback in our project design
  2. Dr. Ivo Huijbers (University of Amsterdam) - for administrative support with SILS-UvA 
  3. Prof. Dr. Davide Ianuzzi (Vrije Universiteit) - for supporting us with funding from the VU and letting us participate in the DemonstratorLab
  4. Prof. Dr. Bas Teusink (Vrije Universiteit) - for supporting us with a the letter of recommendation from the VU
  5. Genootschap t.b.v Natuur, Geneeskunde en Heelkunde (GNGH) - for providing travel funding
  6. Jasper Buikx (Coordinator), Ruben Janssen (Education) & Ruben Theunissen (Content Marketeer) from Micropia - for helping us organizing a workshop about sustainable microbial factories in the middle of Micropia
  7. Prof. Dr. Jeroen Hugenholtz (Wageningen University) - for insights in the academic point of view about the current biotech industry
  8. Dr. Harald Ruijssenaars (Corbion) - for giving industrial insights in biotechnology
  9. Dr. Tjeerd van Rij (DSM) - for giving industrial insights in biotechnology
  10. iGEM team Eindhoven - for providing us with distribution kit from iGEM
  11. Just One Giant Lab (JOGL)
  12. Peter van der Sijde - Research Ethics Review Committee (BETHCIE) - for formally confirming that our survey complies with the ethical guidelines of the Faculty of Science (VU)
  13. Dr. Brett G. Olivier (VU) - for providing us with insights concerning our data management plan for the survey 
  14. Nicole van ‘t Wout Hofland (Editor of Biotechnologie.nl) - for providing feedback on the blogs and giving us the opportunities to reach out to the readers of biotechnology.nl
  15. Joana Lima Alves - for making team pins 
  16. All members of the MMP-SILS department - for presentation coaching 
  17. All members of Photanol - for support in the lab and giving valuable feedback on our presentations.
  18. All previous iGEM teams - for setting a solid base on which we could build

Individual contributions

Team members Supervisors
Dry lab Dennis Robin Samira Mingdong Vicky Joris Kelly J. Jongbloets M. Guillaume W. Du W. Wu
Parse Databases x x
Multi-database Merger x x
Sequence Optimization x x
Cheap Lunch Strategies x x
Engineering 24-well Cultivator x x
Downstream Path Optimization x x
Gene-Protein-Reaction-Associations x x x
Network Transformation Method x x x
Plumber x x
Wet Lab Dennis Robin Samira Mingdong Vicky Joris Kelly J. Jongbloets M. Guillaume W. Du W. Wu
Synechocystis Salicylic Acid Producer x (x) x
Synechocystis Lactate Producer x x
Synechocystis Mannitol Producer x x
E. coli Salicylic Acid Producer x x
Synechococcus UTEX 2973 Lactate Producer x (x) x
24-well Cultivator x x
Biobrick Dennis Robin Samira Mingdong Vicky Joris Kelly J. Jongbloets M. Guillaume W. Du W. Wu
Backgroud Research x
Human   Practices Dennis Robin Samira Mingdong Vicky Joris Kelly J. Jongbloets M. Guillaume W. Du W. Wu
GMO Online Workshops x x
Entrepreneurship x x
Survey about GMO in Products x x x x
Market Reserach x x
Interview with Jeroen Hugenholtz x x
Discussion about GMO at CRIPScon x
Science/Collaboration Dennis Robin Samira Mingdong Vicky Joris Kelly J. Jongbloets M. Guillaume W. Du W. Wu
Postcard challenge x x
Lecture about Linear Programming at the BeNeLux Meet-up x x
Biotechnologie.nl Blog (x) x
Sugar Rush Challenge x
Micropia Workshop (x) (x) x (x) (x) x x
Safety Dennis Robin Samira Mingdong Vicky Joris Kelly J. Jongbloets M. Guillaume W. Du W. Wu
Safe-by-design x x
Following Lecture Organised by RIVM x x x x
Funding - Mainly   Dennis & Joris Dennis Robin Samira Mingdong Vicky Joris Kelly J. Jongbloets M. Guillaume W. Du W. Wu
Amsterdam University Funds x
GNGH x
RIVM x
Crowdfunding x
Contact with University Departments x x x x
Outreach   - mainly Robin & Vicky Dennis Robin Samira Mingdong Vicky Joris Kelly J. Jongbloets M. Guillaume W. Du W. Wu
Promotion Video x
Thank You Video for Sponsors x
Brochures x
Social Media :
Facebook x x
Instagram x
LinkedIn x
Weekly Newsletter (x) (x) (x) (x) x (x) (x)
Wiki Pages Dennis Robin Samira Mingdong Vicky Joris Kelly J. Jongbloets M. Guillaume W. Du W. Wu
Experiments Protocols (x) x x
Front Page x x x
Acknowledgement (x) x x
Notebook x x x
Members x x (x) x
Collaborations x x (x)
Research Description x x
Design x x (x)
Results x x x x x x x x x x x
Contributions x x x (x)
Parts x x (x)
Education & Engagement x x x x
Sponsors x x x
Proof of Concept x
Survey x x x x
Human practices page x
iGEM Competition Parts Dennis Robin Samira Mingdong Vicky Joris Kelly J. Jongbloets M. Guillaume W. Du W. Wu
Poster
Title and Abstract x
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