Team:Groningen/Collaborations
Virtual iGEM Benelux Meetup
This year, our team took up the responsibility to host the Virtual Benelux Meetup halfway through the iGEM competition. There were many difficulties in organizing an online event that is helpful for the projects and fun to join. We didn’t want to do this alone, so we invited all the teams from the Benelux community to contribute. With the input and help from the teams Leiden, Delft, Maastricht, Amsterdam & Rotterdam, we were able to set something up which turned out to be a great success. With many teams joining from the Benelux countries (but also outside!), we were proud of the end result and are happy that our meetup has helped many teams in improving their project!
To learn more about our meetup, visit the Virtual iGEM Benelux Meetup page!
Journal initiative iGEM Maastricht
On the first day of our Benelux meetup, iGEM Maastricht organized a pop quiz with questions about iGEM and Molecular Biology. During this pop quiz all the other teams played against each other to win. The teams were also invited to write an article for their journal. The winning team would be featured in the printed version of their journal. We wrote a review article for the journal. This article discussed the uptake of NLPs by the nervous system of nematodes and their potential as crop protection methods. In addition, we used the article to introduce the concept of RootPatch to the reader.
Check out the journal (and our article) here!
Pollution booklet
High levels of pollution worldwide raise concern among experts about the sustainability of local ecosystems, contamination of natural reserves, and healthcare. The Global Pollution Booklet is a creative initiative of iGEM Athens, who put in their effort to describe the problem from different angles and to focus the reader's attention on the ways to reduce it. Since this problem requires cooperative action from many nations, we realized the importance of making it recognized people from different cultures. We were very enthusiastic to contribute by translating it to Dutch, German, Romanian, Russian, and Hindi. We want to thank iGEM Athens for the opportunity to contribute to such an important project.
Song collaboration with iGEM Thessaly
Team iGEM Thessaly 2020 organized Project Amalthea which is a personalised and modular platform that diagnoses and evaluates gut flora and suggests treatment of Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD). Improper intake of nutrients, lack of patient-centred care and even genetics can lead to IBD which affects 10 million people worldwide. To raise awareness on this chronic disease and to educate lay people on the factors that contribute towards IBD, iGEM Thessaly collaborated with team iGEM Patras and iGEM Groningen in making a music video about the issue. The song was sung by Sucharita Sarkar, a member of team iGEM Groningen. The goal of this collaboration was to shed light on this disease so that we can educate more people and destigmatize the shame that patients of IBD feel trying to discuss their discomfort.
Watch the song below:
iGEM Global Meetup Webinar: "What can we do to preserve soil biodiversity?"
We collaborated with team NOVA from Lisbon to host a webinar session for the iGEM Global Meetup. The topic of our webinar was the preservation of soil biodiversity. This issue is currently plagued by (1) a lack of public awareness about the importance of soil community, (2) a lack of scientific knowledge on soil biome, and (3) a lack of policies and collaborative actions on addressing it. Considering the above, we wanted to design a webinar to inform the people of the current state of the matter and the responsiveness of the environmental organizations and governments. Ilya and Tiago presented this webinar at iGEM 2020 Global Meetup, but we'd also like to give special thanks to Daniela, Ana, and Joao from NOVA Lisbon, who all contributed to this initiative. Together, we learned how to work cooperatively and to produce high-quality work in a short period of time (1.5-2 weeks).
Click here to rewatch the webinar!
Dry lab collaboration with team NOVA
In addition to hosting the Global Meetup webinar together, we helped team NOVA with their project with modelling. Our projects are very similar since both our teams attempt to tackle the problem of a harmful plant parasitic nematode. The nematode that team NOVA aims to combat is the pine wood nematode (PWN). The PWN kills many pine trees and team NOVA designed an organism that is injected into the pine trees and secretes a nematicide to kill the PWN. We modelled how effective their solution would be based on a model from Awan et al. (2018).