We participated in the following collaborations:

8.1 meet up by QHFZ-China

Please refer to: https://2020.igem.org/Team:QHFZ-China/Collaborations#meetup2 We participated in the meet up on Aug. 1 hosted by QHFZ-China. During this meet up, we formulated and practiced presentation, and reflected upon our project based on questions people asked us. We also introduce our project to other teams and learnt from their interesting projects. We also met BUCT-China in this meetup, whose project is on PE plastic degradation. Spotting our similarities and how our projects are complementary to each other, we became partners. Please read more in: https://2020.igem.org/Team:KEYSTONE/Partnership We also presented two projects we would like to collaborate with other teams: 1) The Synbio fair to present project from each team and introduce what is synthetic biology. 2) An interactive game for primary and secondary students about the basics of synthetic biology. We were able to attract several teams who reached out in interest of joining our collab projects.

8.4 meet up by Worldshaper-Shanghai

In this meet up we translated our previous presentation into English. We practiced our presentation and a mock debate. In this part some professors questioned the feasibility of our project on will the tourists want to use our trashcan and how do we make sure they throw the correct plastic in our trashcan. These questions help us to reflect on our explanation in the presentation and thinking solutions to the defect of our project.

Asian meet up by iBowu-China

In this meet up we got in touch with more teams for future collaboration, such as iBowu, who participated in our fair later. We practiced English presentations and learnt from other teams about their projects and had fun. Please refer to https://2020.igem.org/Team:iBowu-China/Collaborations

QHFZ-China 2nd Meet up

Please refer to: https://2020.igem.org/Team:QHFZ-China/Collaborations#meetup2 In this meet up we mainly shared about the experimental experiences with other teams and listened to their experience during experiments. We also got QHFZ-China from Tsinghua University High School who said they were willing to host a second Synbio Fair which we’ve done earlier in their school. Please read more about the fair here: https://2020.igem.org/Team:KEYSTONE/Public-Engagement

iBowu-China charity sale

We shared our merchandise with iBowu-China who hosted a charity sale in a shopping plaza for fundraising for cancer patients, as well as public education. Please read more in: https://2020.igem.org/Team:iBowu-China/Collaborations

We initiated the following collaborations:

Synbio Game

We come up with an interactive game facing primary and secondary students about the basics of Synthetic biology. We were joined by JNFLS, NFLS, BJ101HS, LINKS_China, Estonia_TUIT, BHSF, and Worldshaper-Shanghai who each created a chapter of the game.

Synbio Fairs

We hosted two Synthetic biology fairs introducing students and visitors to projects from each team joined and giving the audiences a better understanding of Synthetic biology in an interactive way. We were joined by teams including UCAS-CHINA, RDFZ-CHINA, iBowu-CHINA, BHSF, BJ101HS, and KEYSTONE-A to share their projects.

Lab, hardware and public education collab with LINKS_China

Due to equipment restrictions in Beijing, we traveled to Shenzhen and produced most of our results in LINKS-China’s laboratory. Before we arrived, we sent our genes and bacteria stored in glycerine and LINKS completed some basic steps of our experiments or us, such as cotransformation of the two plasmids for linalool production into DH5α E.coli, which was very helpful for us as we had limited time to spend in the Shenzhen lab. Please read more in: https://2020.igem.org/Team:KEYSTONE/Public-Engagement In terms of hardware, we would like to utilize LINKS’s investigation on biological electricity production by pili to eventually enhance our hardware by replacing the solar panel as the energy source, since the manufacturing of solar panels itself also consumes large amount of energy and generates waste. On our hardware model, this will be reflected by replacing the energy storage section of our bin. However, since the current voltage that could be generated by LINKS’s pili is not sufficient for our hardware, we came up with the short-term application of adding a light bulb that is supported by LINKS’s pili system which is will allow the bin to be easily identified and noticed in the dark when solar energy runs out. This will help tourists and attendants locate the bin in certain circumstances.

In terms of public education, we shared our game with LINKS who used the complete first chapter to carry out educational activities in ShenZhen, reaching our game to a wider audience. In return, they sent us one of their education kits for us to educate students about synthetic biology, for example, in the weekly synbio club activities program that will be organized by our members starting from the next semester.

Lab help for BJ101HS and BHSF

In Beijing, we shared a lab with BJ101HS and BHSF. Therefore, we helped each other occasionally on doing and finishing some simple experiments when our/their members didn’t have time to stay in the lab, such as DNA gel electrophoresis.

Team:KEYSTONE/Collaborations