Our Collaborations

Participating in iGEM during the COVID-19 Pandemic has made collaborations all the more important for success this year. Over the duration of our iGEM project we were fortunate enough to collaborate with six amazing, international iGEM teams. Each of these collaborations has been detailed individually below.

Feel free to view our collaborators wiki pages, this can be done by simply clicking on their corresponding university logo.

University College London

UCL's project involves degrading polyethylene terephthalate (PET) derived plastic to generate bioelectricity. The bioelectricity formed in the microbial fuel cell would be capable of desalinating water by transferring electrons from the anode chamber to the cathode chamber.

Over the duration of the project, we were fortunate enough to speak weekly with the team from University College London. We discussed with each other our aspirations with our projects, and how we were aiming to achieve these (especially in light of the COVID-19 pandemic). The support we received from them aided us a lot. Our work with UCL is discussed in much greater depth on the Partnershippage on our Wiki.

"Our partnership with Exeter has been central to the success of our project. Since the start of the partnership, they kindly offered to conduct laboratory experiments that we could not conduct due to social distancing restrictions at UCL. Exeter's communication was outstanding, as we changed our construct designs and synthetic biology approaches multiple times, requiring us to constantly update each other on the changes to ensure we could make the most of the partnership. In spite of this global pandemic, we have been elated to be able to improve both of our respective projects through partnering, and we look forward to meeting with Exeter in person when this becomes possible!"

Pedro Lovatt Garcia - UCL iGEM 2020

Ashesi University

Team Ashesi are aiming to incorporate plastic bioremediation (using PETase) and bioconcrete systems into a living coastal defence system.

Our collaboration with Esther, Michael, and the rest of the Ashesi Ghana iGEM team has been incredibly important to us as a team, as we were both working with microbially-induced calcium carbonate precipitation – it was amazing to discuss the SynBio elements of our project that aligned so closely to one another. As the Ashesi team is primarily made up of engineers, they were able to fill a gap in our knowledge base (we have no engineers on our team). Where we had identified a tendency for our initial nozzle design to clog easily over time (due to calcium carbonate precipitation), Team Ashesi narrowed the problem down to the heavily intersecting right-angled flow interaction between the two feeds as well as the more contained design of the nozzle chamber. They also identified a new issue which was that when not in use our nozzle design was unlikely to fully drain out as there was little inflow pressure. Team Ashesi reshaped our chamber and altered the nozzle positions to improve flow within the nozzle chamber. The tilt top feed position of the inlets helped produce a natural draining flow through the nozzle, decreasing the tendency of residue to adhere. They also added barbs onto our inlets to better fit a connecting hose. In turn, we provided them with mathematical and biological support, assisting with the design of their genetic circuits and troubleshooting a flow chart they proposed of their system.

"On behalf of TeamAshesiGhana, we are extremely glad to have collaborated with you and if at all gotten to understand the work your doing, and the impactful and relevant solution you arrived at. It's always beautiful to connect with persons miles apart and share knowledge, establish friendships for a common goal".

Ronny Panford - TeamAshesiGhana

The nozzle that was designed by Team AshesiGhana (left) (18.10.20) compared to our original nozzle design (right) (10.09.20)

To see more of how our collaboration with Ashesi influenced the design of our nozzle please visit our Engineering Page!

University of Nottingham

Nottingham are aiming to modify Clostridium sporogenes to produce D beta hydroxybutyrate, which could be introduced into the gut as a biotherapeutic to protect against neurotoxicity and therefore delay the onset of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's and dementia.

We received a message from a member of the Nottingham iGEM Team on the 12th August, as they were impressed with the work we had done with our wiki. As a team that had no computer scientists and had self-learnt how to do the coding required – we were thrilled to be able to provide wiki-building mentorship to another team that also lacked any experts – and so we sent them sections of our code until they were happy with their set margins.

City of London School

CLS are engineering E. coli with a mutant cocaine esterase enzyme and synthetic adhesives, to create an organism that can be attached to the wall of the lamella clarifier in the sewer system which breaks down cocaine before it can reach rivers.

Speaking to Louis and Kaavya from the CLS iGEM team has been invaluable in ensuring that our science communication efforts (for example, the webinars) are appealing to the target audience and their feedback has been incredibly encouraging. In turn, we created a ‘Whatsapp’ chat in which we tutored them, not only in synthetic biology but also in the iGEM competition (they are a new team). We have tutored them on topics as diverse as GM DNA, Spacer DNA, how to make a scientific poster, and what level of science to speak at in their presentation video.

University of New South Wales

UNSW are constructing plasmids which contain small heat shock proteins, gluthathione synthetase, and glutathione reductase and then transforming this into E. coli. In the second year of their project they are aiming to transfer this into a coral symbiont to help it become more resilient to heat and oxidative stress, reducing coral bleaching.

We reached out to the USNW iGEM team on 3rd August 2020. Despite them being quite literally on the other side of the world, our offer of collaboration was accepted the day afterwards. As one of the few other teams globally with an iGEM project that focused on the assisted conservation of the world’s coral reefs, it was fascinating to us as a team to see such a different and ingenious approach. It was also incredibly interesting to see how they were coping with lockdown, with the laws and government advice being so different in Australia! It was incredibly flattering to receive an invite (alongside the St Andrews iGEM Team) from UNSW to speak at the Coral Symposium they hosted on the 24th September. To be able to communicate our project to such a large number of people from all over the globe with such a range of scientific backgrounds (whether they were experts in the field, university STEM students, or interested members of the public) was a really special opportunity for us. It was especially nice to receive emails from a number of interested members of the public afterwards. We are incredibly grateful to UNSW for all their work in arranging this event.

To see more of our work surrouding the Coral Symposium please vist our Education page!

Kings College London

KCL are planning to engineer E. coli to express mussel foot protein (as an adhesive) and proteases (to degrade the glial scar) to help make a biocompatible and inexpensive scaffold for recovery from spinal cord injury.

Since the very beginning of our project we have been in regular contact with the KCL iGEM team (whether over ‘Zoom’ or ‘Teams’ calls or via ‘WhatsApp’) and we consider ourselves to be very lucky to have their support (both emotionally and academically) during the pandemic. It has been fascinating to share with them ways in which we have been working together despite lockdown restrictions, and in turn we are incredibly grateful for the support they gave us to help us get to grips with modelling software such as Pymol (as we have not been introduced to these in our academic careers thus far).