Team:Groningen/Contribution

Benelux trophy: creating a tradition!

When we organized the Benelux Meetup this year, we became aware that unlike other meetups, the Benelux Meetup always changes in format and structure. Other meetups around the world have traditions such as a trophy that is passed on every year to motivate the teams to keep meeting each other. This is why we built a trophy that will be awarded every year to the winning team of the meetup. The winning team of each year will leave their marks on the trophy so that many years from now, it will serve as a memorial for their success

This year, the trophy went to team Phocus from Delft University from the Netherlands. They will keep the trophy in honor for next year and continue the tradition in next year’s Benelux Meetup. Below we show how we made the trophy so that other meetups around the world can do the same. In our trophy design, we decided on a classical trophy with a white, 3D-printed DNA-helix as a figure and a simple wooden block as a platform. The block could then be used by future teams to leave their mark. We thoroughly protocolled the production process of our trophy from conception to application. Follow the process by clicking on the pictures in our little gallery below!

Preparing the DNA-figure for 3D-Print

The video shows how the trophy was modeled and prepared for printing in silico using the slicer-software Ultimaker Cura. The file for the 3D-model of the DNA-figure in STL-format was retrieved from the open-source library Thingiverse for 3D-printable objects. After adjusting the scale of the trophy, we set specific printing parameters for our trophy such as infill density, infill pattern, printing material, temperature, and printing support. As infill density for the DNA-helix, we chose 20% which is sufficient to provide stability of 3D printed figures which are not exposed to high mechanical forces. The infill pattern was set to lines since line patterns make the smoothest surface in our opinion. As printing material, we chose polylactic acid (PLA) since it is cheap, biodegradable, stable, and well established in 3D printing. PLA is usually printed at 190-220 °C which is why we set the printing temperature to 195 °C. Furthermore, we decided to print the figure without support making the polishing of the printed figure less laborious. Finally, we sliced our customized *.slt file to obtain the printing instructions in the g-code format. The DNA-helix was now ready to be printed. The estimated material usage was 70 g PLA and a printing duration of 7h 49min.

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Printing the DNA-Figure

The video shows the printing of the trophy by a 3D printer. The printing process was completed without complications. Following the printing, the trophy figure was cleaned to remove residual printing material.

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Assembly of the Benelux Trophy

To make our trophy look like an actual trophy, we prepared a wooden block to place the DNA-figure on top. Also, we had a metal name tag manufactured which we attached to the platform. The trophy was now ready to find its new home for the next year in the university halls of the winning team of our Benelux Meetup.

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The Benelux Meetup Trophy in Action

In the pictures above you can see the proud winners of this year’s Benelux Meetup presenting the trophies they won. As you can see in the left image, the first name-tag of the 2020 winner already appeared on it. We are excited to see where our trophy will end up next year.

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Conception

Printing

Assembly

Application

Characterization of Part BBa_J33201

Our team has contributed to the iGEM Registry by improving the characterization of the BioBrick part BBa_J33201 designed by team Edinburg 2006, which is based on the ArsR transcriptional repressor system of the arsenic detoxification operon (arsR-operon) in E. coli (Xu et al., 1995). The BioBrick includes the ArsR repressor binding site, the arsR promoter, a ribosomal binding site and the arsR gene encoding the ArsR repressor protein.

By fusing the red fluorescent protein mCherry to the arsR promoter, we aimed to quantify the expression of mCherry at different arsenate, As(V), concentrations and thereby study the sensitivity of the arsR system for As(V) detection (Figure 1). Our team chose to improve the characterization of this BioBrick as details about the expression rate of the arsR promoter at different concentrations of arsenate (As(V)) were not available. Overall, the results of our experiments suggest that the activation of the arsR promoter by de-repression of ArsR is As(V) dose dependent. Previous characterizations only characterized the activity of the arsR promoter towards As(III). In addition, we did not observe a toxic effect on the cells at high concentrations of arsenate in contrast to what was previously reported for As(III). Details about our experiments and results are found on the main page of the BioBrick on the iGEM Registry pages.

Figure 1: Two of our team-members, Julius and Kim, proudly presenting their positive transformation results.

Socializing in times of social distancing

One of the most exciting aspects of iGEM is the opportunity to meet new people. Not only your team members but people from other teams as well. When the Coronavirus came into our lives a lot changed. Going to other meetups/conferences to meet new people became impossible and even physical meetings with your fellow iGEM team members became difficult in many situations.

The pandemic has driven us, and many others, to come up with creative solutions. Since our team couldn't meet in person, we had to come up with new ways of how to get to know each other. We developed games that can be played on online platforms (e.g. Zoom, Houseparty, Google meet) that help you learn more about your fellow team members.

Below, we present guides on how to play two of these games: a virtual pub quiz (Figure 2) and ”Ranking the iGEMers”. We hope that future iGEM teams won’t have to go through the same situation as many teams this year have gone through. But if they do, they can find help in these guides.

Figure 2: Our team having fun during an online pubquiz.

Virtual Pub Quiz
The online pub quiz is an online quiz that is played by teams consisting of 3-5 people. There is one host that guides participants through a range of questions covering information about fellow team members but also random or iGEM related facts. Little preparation is needed and the duration really depends on the creativity of the host. Check out the protocol to learn how to play this game!

How to do a Virtual Pubquiz

Ranking the iGEMers
Ranking the iGEMers is based on the Dutch television show in which celebrities make rankings on who are the most likely to do something, or to get in a certain situation (e.g. “who is the most likely to make a big mistake in the lab?”). This game does require quite a lot of preparation for the host but, from our experience, can lead to a really fun time while still learning a lot about your team members. The answers to the questions are already filled in before the actual game which allows the game to be played with everyone together at the same time. Check out the protocol to learn how to play this game!

How to play "Ranking the iGEMers"

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