Team:SDU-Denmark/Partnership
Partnership
Partnership with the University of Rochester — UteRus
What started out as extensive collaboration with the iGEM team, UteRus, from the University of Rochester, turned out to a prolific partnership between our respective teams.
Early on in our iGEM 2020 project, we found out that the University of Rochester was competing in the same track as us; diagnostics. Furthermore, both projects involved the diagnosis of disease in the reproductive organs. This became the first stepping stone for our partnership throughout the competition. The UteRus team invited us for an online meeting where representatives from all subgroups were present. This allowed us to identify possible collaboration opportunities and revealed to us the many common aspects of our projects.
Endometriosis, the disease of interest for UteRus, is an overlooked condition that affects the lives of one in ten women worldwide, while prostate cancer is one of the most common cancers among men. Both diseases are followed by complex and extensive symptomatologies, that influence the quality of life of both patients and their relatives. Finally, as diseases of the reproductive organs, taboos have greatly limited the general knowledge about- and willingness to address these diseases.
After establishing these common challenges, we held a second consultation, with a greater focus on tangible steps towards solving them. UteRus’ application of sex education to increase awareness about and research in endometriosis, inspired us to direct central parts of our project towards an educational campaign. They emphasize how important it is to gain knowledge of endometriosis in all stages of life. This inspired us to target men in the climacteric age or andropause for our information campaigns. Andropause has its on-set in the age range of 50-60 and is associated with changes that are remarkably similar to prostate cancer symptoms. These include low libido, urinary problems, and a decrease in physical and mental health. We focus on giving people the tools to make the distinction between the two. As these symptoms are in direct conflict with the normative qualities assigned to men (Eg. being strong and robust), they reinforce the reluctance to discuss these issues. To combat this, our campaign aims to foster conversations and a vocabulary for men in the life transition phase of andropause to both express and learn. We aim to de-stigmatization men being vulnerable beings, both to help people detect issues in their reproductive organs, but also to alleviate their mental health. This partnership aligned and strengthened the work of PROSTATUS and UteRus’ campaigns to facilitate sex education and healthy sexuality regardless of gender and life stage. Read more in-depth details about the campaign content here.
The partnership with UteRus also resulted in both teams taking their projects beyond their own borders. Each team facilitated contact between a local expert and the other iGEM team. As a result, we were put in contact with Dr. Divya Ajay, an expert urologist based in the United States of America (USA). We, in turn, facilitated the contact between UteRus and Dr. Rudnicki, a specialist in endometriosis who is based in Denmark, as well as the Danish Endometriose Foreningen (A Danish endometriosis NGO). With the knowledge of Dr. Divya Ajay, we gained important insights into the implementation of a prostate cancer test in the health care system of the USA. Her insights influenced our proposed implementation to distinguish between a primarily private and public health care systems. This partnership has helped break down borders around our respective projects and specifically helped PROSTATUS on its way to becoming a global solution to prostate cancer diagnostics.
The laboratory department admired Rochester's fine biomarker collection database which gave us inspiration to built our own part collection of biomarkers relative to prostate cancer. Our biomarkers have been contribution to make their database stronger.
Prostatus would like to extent our gratitude to UteRus for the meaningful correspondence and partnership in the 2020 iGEM competition.
