Stony Brook Collaboration

Throughout the 2020 iGEM competition year, the Stony Brook and OhioState iGEM teams worked together to create a video explaining biocontainment systems. The teams took part in frequent inter-team meetings to establish meaningful relationships and collaboration. At the start of the meeting period, Stony Brook iGEM team and the OhioState iGEM team fully presented each team’s project to one another. Critical feedback and suggestions were shared among teams. This was an essential share of knowledge and expertise that was mutually beneficial. The greatest result of these continued conversations however, was the discussion regarding public GMO acceptance. Great discussion was shared regarding each team's research of public perception of GMOs. OhioState spoke on research we conducted into the Anti-GMO project while the Stonybrook team spoke about their experience interviewing indoor farmers and their perception of GMOs. Among this increase of understanding regarding the common viewpoint of GMOs, both teams pinpointed a commonality of the importance of kill switches in both team projects.

Therefore, to combat common public misconceptions regarding genetically modified and genetically engineered organisms, both teams equally shared duties in crafting a newscast video about GMOs, biocontainment, and kill switches.

The final video product is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2Geyv061XE

In addition to the fruitful message addressing common GMO misconceptions and the emphasis of the importance of kill switches, this video is a tangible representation of the hard work, comradery, mutual mentorship, and inter-team support that was shared among Stonybrook iGEM team and the OhioState iGEM team.

What SBU contributed to OSU

Asked for Ohio State’s kill switch consulting expertise
Enlightened OhioState regarding common misconceptions held by indoor farmers regarding GMO plants
Pinpointed the common integral areas of biological kill switches and the necessity of public education as a commonality of both team projects.
Participated in Ohio State’s integral tele-survey
Agreed on crafting a video to integrate necessity to educate the public and spread awareness on the importance of kill switches.
Wrote one half of the video script
Filmed news anchor, and public opinion section.
Crafted backgrounds and other animations for news anchor, news channel rep, and miscellaneous artwork.
Edited the video
Shared in extensive communication, camaraderie, and mutualistic mentorship roles.
Invited OSU to participate in their intro iGEM 2020 social media outreach
Highlighted our collaboration meetings on social media.
Active participation and commenting on OSU Instagram posts
Shared in friendship, especially empathizing with one another during times of quarantining and inability to access the laboratory. Boosted OhioState’s Morale.

What OSU contributed to SBU

Gave OhioState critical feedback their overall project
Advised and informed SBU on various systems for a transgenic plant kill switch.
Gladly assisted Stony Brook’s pursuit of a viable biocontainment system by sharing thoughts, literature, and other useful resources.
Shared insight and research on the anti-GMO project
Pinpointed the common integral areas of biological kill switches and the necessity of public education as a commonality of both team projects.
Agreed on crafting a video to integrate necessity to educate the public and spread awareness on the importance of kill switches.
Wrote one half of the video script
Filmed scientist, public opinion, and news Chanel representative section.
Crafted backgrounds and other animations for scientist, and public opinion section.
Storyboarded the video idea
Shared in extensive communication, camaraderie, and mutualistic mentorship roles.
Accepted the online invitation to participate in social media outreach events. Posted and tagged StonyBrook iGEM team on various photos.
Active participation and commenting on SBU instagram posts
Shared in friendship, especially empathizing with one another during times of quarantining and inability to access the laboratory. Boosted Stony Brook’s morale.

Consulting

Teams: MichiganState, Stony Brook, Costa Rica, BITSPilani-Goa India, Manipal Biomachines india, IISER-Pune-India, Sweden iGEM team, FCB-UANL, UNILausanne, Thessaly

Biocontainment is a field that requires attention and finesse. To this day, PhDs are devoting their career to perfect these systems. In order to translate these high devotion areas of synthetic biology into iGEM projects, teams must fully understand all precautions. In order to best facilitate this synthesis of information, we decided to offer our expertise in biocontainment and assist other teams that implement biocontainment systems into their project.

Through promotion in the global iGEM slack and social media, multiple teams contacted us with biocontainment questions. We offered our consultation service to ten other iGEM teams. Our team advised, designed plasmids, shared resources and papers, and steered teams in the right direction to implement useful systems into other team projects.

Teams responded greatly to our services. Many teams commended our assistance, unpromptedly saying, “This help was very, very useful”, "Thank you very much, you are being very helpful”, and “You guys did a very good job helping us".

Video collaborations

SBU kill switch collab

The Stonybrook and OhioState iGEM team decided to collaborate on the common point of both of our projects, which is the topic of biocontainment. Both teams observed the shortfalls of genetically modified organism knowledge and killswitch knowledge in both society and industry population. With this in mind, both teams decided to create a video that addresses common misconceptions regarding biocontainment in an attempt to inform the public in a fun and engaging way.

iGEM Breaking Down Synthetic Biology

A collaboration between iGEM teams to make synthetic biology resources available and accessible in video format! Presented by Cornell University, Michigan State University, Ohio State University, Purdue University, University of Maryland, and College of William & Mary iGEM teams. We discuss this in more detail on our Education and Outreach page.