Team:Stony Brook/Collaborations

Collaborations

One of the best things about iGEM is that we are all a giant family. This allows us to easily communicate and work together to accomplish a common goal of furthering the field of synthetic biology. Since the first team began in 2014, Stony Brook iGEM has been committed to creating unique collaborations with other teams. This year, we were able to further enjoy our iGEM experience by working together with many teams. Through our collaborations, we realized that when we come together and join forces, we are able to accomplish anything. From getting to know multiple teams through our #introGEM challenge, learning the ins and outs of video production, writing a journal, to educating our peers, we were able to foster beautiful friendships with other iGEM teams. We hope that the connections we've fostered will not only aid the team's future endeavors, but add to the field of science as a whole.

#introGEM

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As summer began, our team wanted to create a fun way for iGEM teams to get to know each other. This led us to create the #introGEM challenge on Instagram. Through this challenge, we were able to connect with other teams as well as strengthen our own. Each week, our team came together to create new content to match the week’s challenge and motivate other iGEM teams on Instagram to participate. Through this challenge, we got to know iGEM teams from all around the world and learn about their projects.

Participants

• University of Rochester
• Ohio State University
• Oneonta University
• Patras University
• Düsseldorf
• King’s College London
• Shenzhen University
• University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez
• NovaLx

Ohio State University

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When we learned that the iGEM team at Ohio State University (OSU) was also working with kill switches, we were very quick to reach out to them. We instantly connected with the team due to our common focus and arranged a Zoom call in June. From the very beginning, we saw that OSU would be a great team to work with as both teams wanted to spread awareness of kill switches and how beneficial they are.

In late June, we reached out to the team again and asked them if they would be interested in creating a video that teaches the public about kill switches and their benefits and were really excited when OSU said yes. When we met again, we discussed how we would carry out the collaboration. Both teams decided that we could create a news channel themed video that would be accomplished through drawings and voiceovers.

Throughout the months of July and August, both teams came together to finalize a script, create backgrounds from scratch, animate, and edit. After months of hard work, we were extremely joyful at the end result. Watch our collaboration video here!

Maastricht University

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Good research constitutes proper science communication. For this reason, our team decided to collaborate with Maastricht University in their journal collaboration. Here, we set off to write about our project in proper article format, discussing topics such as the problem we hope to solve, how we aim to solve it, and our project’s future applications. We also worked to peer-review other teams’ articles, making sure what they have written is proper and legible. Participating in this collaboration taught us the importance of having a coherent summary of our work and the importance of effective writing in the science field. We are proud to say that, out of about 60 journals, we are one of the 27 iGEM teams chosen to be featured on the printed journal! Feel free to learn more about Maastricht University's Journal Initiative here!