Team:NYMU-Taipei/Collaborations
Collaborations
Chung Shan Medical University
- CSMU iGem Team
We did collaborations with multiple IGEM teams. One of the ways of our collaborations was through a meetup, and due to pandemic reasons, we arranged an online meetup instead. During our meetup with Chung Shan Medical University (CSMU), both teams gave concise introductions on each other’s research topic and research designs. After the introductions, each team would then ask questions and give feedback to the other team letting each team see their own research from an outside perspective, helping each other find problems or details that could be improved on. For our team, we received feedback regarding the safety issues on our product applications, on the other hand we gave team CSMU feedback on their research methods. Through this discussion, both teams were able to change and improve research methods accordingly. We also discussed about additional collaborations for human practice, including becoming a part of the “I’ve gotta PHD” project where multiple IGEM teams collaborate to write on issues related to their research topics.
National Cheng Kung University
- NCKU iGem Team
Another online meetup we had was with the National Cheng Kung University (NCKU) IGEM team. In this meeting, we also went with giving introductions first then receive feedback then discuss additional collaboration. During the introductions of each team’s research topic, we realized that both our teams wanted to apply our research on contact lens, and thus opened up a path for further collaboration between us teams. Through this meeting, we set up plans for collaborations between human practice and also gave each other valuable feedback regarding each of our research topics. We later assessed the feedback and changed some of our research methods accordingly. We also gave suggestions and opinions on team NCKU’s research details.
National Chung Cheng University
- CCU iGem Team
In order to make sure the validity of our experiment result, we invited Taiwan’s National Chung Cheng University (CCU) to repeat our PCR experiment. The material we provided was a plasmid containing hACE2 and a pair of primer to make linear hACE2 fragment. The major difference between NYMU taipei and CCU’s experiment was the choice of PCR enzyme.
Our original experiment uses KOD polymerase to amplify our target gene, while CCU uses GoTaq polymerase in their PCR experiment. Their experiment environment contains 1 µl template, 2 µl primer, 10 µl mastermix, and 7 µl ddH2O. In comparison to GoTaq, KOD has a better thermostability and proofreading accuracy (which is even better than pfu polymerase family). Nevertheless, the disadvantage of this enzyme is that it requires strict environmnet to polymerize, making it sensitive to ion concentration shift and contamination. These factors mades it hard for us to find out the right condition. In a nutshell, the reason why we choose KOD is to reduce possible mutation which could cause serious protein mulfunction in our product. The electrophoresis result below is taken by the CCU igem team. Although DNA smear could be seen in the background, the major band is on our expected position(roughly 2200bp). This result indicates that our design is representable and correct.
References
- Taq and Other Thermostable DNA Polymerases. (2008). Principles and Technical Aspects of PCR Amplification, 103–118. doi:10.1007/978-1-4020-6241-4_7