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This page is designed to clearly reflect the work done by our team members, and the part of the good people who helped us along the way to make the idea into reality.

"Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much" Helen Keller

Our iGEM 2020 team, which represents the Technion, includes 14 undergraduate students from the Faculty of Biotechnology & Food Engineering and the Faculty of Biomedical Engineering. We are accompanied by 4 advanced graduate mentors who also study in the above-mentioned faculties. This project is a direct continuation of a practical course named Synthetic Biology which was held in February 2020 and included laboratory work, frontal lectures, and exercises in techniques related to synthetic biology and molecular biology under the guidance of Professor Roee Amit. All members of the project were selected from students who participated in this Synthetic Biology course. The content of the course cannot be accessed from the outside due to rules of copyright practiced at the Technion academic institution. We can guarantee that all the students who participated have experienced two different cloning techniques: classical cloning with restriction enzymes and the Gibson Assembly. Practical instructions were also given for the use of PCR, gel-electrophoresis, purification, chemical/electroporation transformation, glycerol stock preparation, DNA extraction, and microscope observation.

The brainstorming to search for project ideas began during the course, resulting in some interesting and unique ideas. However, due to the COVID-19 outbreak, we saw it as our duty to try and take part in the fight against the pandemic using synthetic biology. The start of the lab work occurred during June 2020, during which we examined preliminary protocols. The start of the work on the product itself took place from July 2020.

You can get to know our group members and the mentors on our Team page, where detailed information is given about the responsibilities of each group member.

"If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants" Isaac Newton

We would like to thank all those people who understand the great importance of sharing their knowledge and experience that are necessary tools in the development of science.

Team attribution

Amir Betker

As part of the "Bacillus subtilis" sub-group, Amir succeeded to create plasmids containing the Sybodies sequences, using Gibson assembly reaction. He was also part of our HP group as the responsible person for our surveys and helped with the notebook page editing.

Dor Josef

As part of the "Bacillus subtilis" sub-group, Dor succeeded to create plasmids containing the Sybodies sequences, using Gibson assemble. He was also part of our HP group as one of the team members who in charge of consulting with experts and companies. Alongside that, he oversaw the protocols page.

Ella Samuel

As part of the “Sybodies” sub-group, Ella succeeded in expressing and purifying Sybodies from E.Coli bacteria. She was also part of the Media team as our main wiki designer and code writer. Ella was also in charge of building our wiki site and designed our poster.

Hadas Yung

Hadas was one of our team leaders. She was also part of the “ACE2” sub-group, where she managed to adapt the AGAP protocols according to the project’s needs and applied them on one of the variants she designed. Hadas was one of the media sub-group members where she translated all the content into Spanish and helped create our presentation video.

Ilana Elizarov

Ilana was part of the “ACE2” sub-group, where she managed to adapt the AGAP protocols according to the project’s needs and applied them on one of the variants she designed. She was one of the HP sub-group members and was among those in charge of consulting with experts and companies. Besides, Ilana was one of the poster writers and the results summarizer.

Niv Skarbianskis

Niv was one of our lab managers, making sure that each of the sub-groups has the equipment needed. He was also a significant part of the “Gel” sub-group creating both the Microgel Beads and the hydrogel. Also, Niv was one of the poster writers.

Noa Weiss

Noa was part of the “Gel” sub-group creating both the Microgel and the hydrogel. She was also the Media manager helping with the task management and video creation. She was our main illustration maker, building our wiki site, and designed our poster.

Saar Shaviv

As part of the “ACE2” sub-group, Saar designed 97K variants and reduced them to 2K using MATLAB and PyRosetta. He also created a heat-map of all the 2K variants to find out the most suitable one for the project.

Shanny Ackerman

Shanny was one of our lab managers, making sure that each of the sub-groups has the equipment needed. She was also in the "Sybodies" sub-group. As part of that group, she succeeded to express and purifying Sybodies from E. Coli bacteria. As part of her work in the HP group, she has collaborated with the Israeli teams, planed our Eastern-Mediterranean meetup, creating the Kahoot! game and organized the surveys.

Shany Greenstein

Shany was one of the “Bacillus subtilis” sub-group members. As part of that group, Shany succeeded to create plasmids containing the Sybodies sequences, using Gibson assemble. She oversaw our contribution and collaboration pages and she also was one of the poster writers.

Shay Bamany

Shay was in the "Bacillus subtilis" sub-group. As part of that group, Shay succeeded to create plasmids containing the Sybodies sequences, using Gibson Assembly. In the Media team, Shay was our main editor who created our promotion and presentation videos. He also oversaw the protocol and notebook pages.

Tomer Antman

Tomer was one of our team leaders. He modeled the effectivity of ACT. and the number of proteins on the Microgel beads. He was one of our English inspectors and edited videos for the “inclusion collaboration” and took part in the planning of our meetup. Besides all this, he helped create our presentation video.

Yara Zeibaq

Yara was one of the “Gel” sub-group members and took part in the production of both Microgel and hydrogel. As part of the HP group, she was responsible for the second survey and was one of the team members who were responsible for consulting with experts and companies. Yara translated all of the Media group content into Arabic. Besides, Yara was also one of the poster writers.

Zixuan Li

Zixuan was one of the “Gel” sub-group members and took part in the production of both Microgel and hydrogel. In the Media team, Zixuan translated all the content to Chinese and was one of our English inspectors. He also helped in creating the promotion video. Alongside all these, he oversaw the proposed implementation page and helped with the lab-note and the results pages.

General Support

We would like to thank the Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Engineering at the Technion, where most of the work has been done in a fully equipped lab assigned to us under strict and clear instructions of the "Tav Sagol", purple label, guidelines as part of the Corona Emergency Regulations. It is important for us to give credit to the different laboratories, companies, and people who provided us with help of all sorts. Further details can be found on this page. We would also like to express our sincere appreciation to Jianhan (Jeff) Hu, iGEM Middle East and North Africa Ambassador for being a general address for questions and inquiries.

Project Advisor Support

First, we would like to thank our advisors, who accompanied us throughout the project and provided key tips that helped us develop both individually and as a team. For that we want to thank our mentors – Noa Eden Navon, Tzila Davidov, Naor Granik, and Inbal Vaknin, our principal investigator - Prof. Roee Amit, Dr. Sarah Goldberg, Research Assistant from Prof. Roee Amit’s lab, and Or Willinger, a Ph.D. student from Roee's lab.

Project Support & Advice

Special thanks for Prof. Boaz Mizrahi for his guidance and instruction on the preparation of both Microgel and thermo-responsive hydrogel, as well as providing us with relevant equipment. This project could never come true without his contribution.

Prof. Yuval Shoham and his lab manager Dr. Smadar Shulami have provided us with materials and the main plasmids we were working with (pBS1CLacZ and pET-9D). We also want to thank Dr. Smadar Shulami for helping us modify our bacterial protein purification protocols to yeasts.

Sari Cohen, MSc student from Prof. Yuval Shoham's lab, who gave us detailed protocols and explanations regarding the work with the B. subtilis.

Prof. Yechezkel Kashi and Inbar Kesten, a Ph.D. student from Kashi's lab, who helped us to modify our bacterial protein purification protocols to yeasts.

Dr. Justin Walter from the Institute for Medical Microbiology, Zurich University, who published an article on which we based our work with the Sybodies on, and advised us regarding the project.

Dr. Ilana kolodkin-Gal and Dr. Alona Keren-Paz from Kolodkin Gal lab, Weizmann institute, who provided us with the PY79 B. subtilis strain.

We also would like to credit people who advised us on the directions of our project:

Prof. Ayelet Fishman from the faculty of Biotechnology and Food Engineering, Technion, Israel.

Prof. Ofer Mendelboim from the faculty of medicine, The Hebrew University, Israel.

Dr. Ron Diskin from the department of structural biology, Weizmann institute.

Dr. Yotam Bar-On, a virologist from the Ruth and Bruce Rappaport Faculty of Medicine at the Technion.

Lab Support

Noa Ben-David, MSc student from Prof. Mizrahi's lab, who helped us with the preparation of thermo-responsive hydrogel.

Prof. Roee Amit's lab, which supported us with equipment, materials, and devices. Dr. Sarah Goldberg, Research Assistant from Prof. Roee Amit’s lab, who gave us instructions regarding protein purification, plasmid design and cloning. Or Willinger, Ph.D. student, also from Prof. Roee Amit's lab, who helped us with cell culture, transfection, and protein purification.

Mor Sela,a Ph.D. student from Prof. Avi Schroeder's lab, who helped us operate the rotary evaporator.

lana Obcharenko and Dina Shahar from Prof. Sima Yaron's lab, who provided us with sterile lab tools.

Modeling Support

Special thanks to Prof. Ester Segal and Sofia Arshavsky-Graham who helped us by guiding us through the difficult process of constructing the mass transfer (diffusion-reaction) model and the realization of the equations in Matlab.

Human Practices support

Sharon Gertler and Nurit Harel, R&D Team Leaders at Dr. Fischer, Co-Chairman at Fischer pharmaceuticals, who provided us with some guidelines regarding different parameters of the gel product such as color, smell, skin nourishment and, regulations.

Rauf Nsier, a Ph.D. student from Prof. Dganit Danino's lab, Dr. Samah Simaan from Hadassah & Oranim Academic colleges, and Avraham Fridman, a Ph.D. student from Prof. Marcelle Machluf’s lab, who participated in an influenced "You Can’t Ask That" video as part of the Israeli HP video collaboration. We thank the musician Nick Kendal for allowing us to use his musical track “Soul Searching” as background music for those videos.

We would like to thank the teachers who participated in our Kahoot! trivia:

Yamit Cohen, "Dror" elementry school, Haifa .

Dalit Arman, "Sadot" elementary school, Karkur.

Ziva Keren, "Nordau" elementary school, Netanya.

Presentation coaching

We would like to thank Lior Levy and Shilo Ohaiun, who invested their time to share their experience to help us succeed in the presentation.

Wiki support

We would like to thank Ilan Brajzblat, the wiki designer of iGEM Technion 2019, for his help and for the good tips he gave us.

Corona around the word video support

We would like to thank all the people that cooperated with us and helped us show that the Corona affects the entire world: Patricia Mabel Zecler from Argentina, Dany Paez from Mexico, Daniel Martinez from Chile, Joseff Brook representing Finland, Ada Paez from Canada, Ximena Miranda from Uruguay, Micael Kopelevitch representing Russia, Aldo Baquis representing Italy, Christopher Heuer from Germany, Clotilde Ambrosini from France, Moran Michaeli representing Latvia, Nanami Kikuchi from Japan, Yana Osherov using the Israeli Sign Language, Ruichao Li from China, Khudatova Liliya representing Azerbaijan, Dalia Michaeli from Georgia, and Ilana Elizarove from Israel.

Promotion video support

We would like to thank several people without whom the video would not have reached the level it reached:

Hillah Hassan for the English narration voice, Elona Danishevsky for the animated part, Jorge Enrique Yung for lending us the photographic equipment and coming to photograph us as well and Frank Yen for the translation of Traditional Chinese subtitle.

This video uses many sounds from freesound:

Fundraising Help and Advice

We would like to thank Shauli Talmor from Merck (Sigma-Aldrich), Roni Tuttnauer from Labotal, Amitay Samuel from Holand-Moran, Eyal Zcharia from Ornat, Icy Tang and Felis Fu from Genscript, Tammy Farcas from Biological Industries for the support and courteous service they have given us along the way. We also would like to credit the companies listed below for supporting us financially and providing us with the equipment and materials we needed throughout the work of the project.