Team:Thessaly/Notebook

Notebook

December

• We finished the recruitment of our team!

January

• Brainstorming!

• Searching for inspiration and a cause.

February

• More brainstorming!

• We prepared games about Synthetic Biology for the Athens Science Festival that unfortunately wasn't organized, due to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic.

• Created a board game called “Syn Phase” for “Open Days” an event that the Department of Biochemistry and Biotechnology of the University of Thessaly organizes every March, inviting schools to experience the world of science. Unfortunately, in our country at that time lockdown began to withstand the spread of SARS-CoV-2, so the event did not take place.

March

• More brainstorming!

• We prepared games about Synthetic Biology for the Athens Science Festival that unfortunately wasn't organized, due to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic.

• Created a board game called “Syn Phase” for “Open Days” an event that the Department of Biochemistry and Biotechnology of the University of Thessaly organizes every March, inviting schools to experience the world of science. Unfortunately, in our country at that time lockdown began to withstand the spread of SARS-CoV-2, so the event did not take place.

Finally, we chose our project!

• We talked with people from our environment, who suffer from IBDs, because we wanted to understand their problems.

• On March 26, 2020 our team attended the virtual webinar “Tyler IBD Education Day” organized by Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation.

• We made a list about who can give us more information for our project and where we should start.

• Discussed our project with Mr. Leonidas Anthopoulos, Associate Professor, Mayor's Special Advisor, Municipality of Trikala.

April

We made the decision to participate in the iGEM Competition two phase program

• We sent emails and made phone calls to Biotechnologists, Clinical Nutritionists and Gastroenterologists for help.

• Emailed Mr. Ashram Bin Islam from the University of Asia Pacific.

• Skyped with Dr. Ioannis Serafetinidis Director Gastroenterologist - ELPIS Clinic – Volos, Scientific collaborator of Athens Hospital and head of polyclinics MEDICAL, YASIS – Athens.

• Online game: Syn Phase

• Press Coverage Trikalino papaki 28/4/20

May

We designed our team logo!

• Mr. George Skretas has been the Principal Investigator of the Laboratory of Enzyme and Synthetic Biotechnology at the Institute of Biology, Medicinal Chemistry and Biotechnology of the National Hellenic Research Foundation, Greece, where he currently holds the rank of Research Assistant Professor helped us in several parts of our project.

• We sent emails to various specialists, in order to gain input regarding our project and made more phone calls to Biotechnologists, Clinical Nutritionists and Gastroenterologists to ask for help.

• We met Dr. Oikonomou Konstantinos MD, PhD, a gastroenterologist-hepatologist in Larissa.

• After contacting us, a High School in Thessaloniki - Chortiatis General High School wanted to publish an article about Synthetic Biology, the iGEM competition, and projects of other High School teams that participated in the competition in previous years, in their online school newspaper.

We finished the development of our experimental design

• We contacted the team of Bielefeld 2014 via email.

We organised a Theatrical play

• Press coverage:
  
  Larissanet 06/05/20
  Larisa New 6/5/20
  Magnesia News 06/05/20
  ΝEWS1 12/05/20
  Taxydromos 13/05/20
  Limnos FM100 26/05/20

June

We designed our project logo!




We handed in the Safety Form for the Competition

• Created an interactive tutorial video for Synthetic Biology for the 1st elementary school Nea Maditos in Thessaloniki.

We started developing our experimental design

• We sent emails to various specialists, in order to gain input regarding our project.

• We made more phone calls to Biotechnologists, Clinical Nutritionists and Gastroenterologists to ask for help.

• We skyped with Ms. Adamantia Kyriakou, Associate Professor in Microbiology at Department of Nutrition and Dietetics at Harokopio University of Athens, who helped us to the biotechnological part of our project and with Ms. Kontogianni, Assistant Professor at Harokopio University of Athens, Department of Nutrition and Dietetics, Clinical Nutrition, who informed us regarding her scientific field.

• Sent emails to Greek organizations about IBDs.

• We organised the program for our Big Greek Meetup.

We finished the designing of our constructs and ordered the materials that we needed for our experiments

July

• We sent emails to various specialists, in order to gain input regarding our project and made more phone calls to Biotechnologists, Clinical Nutritionists and Gastroenterologists to ask for help.

• Members of our team met a Member of the Board of Directors and representative of the Region of Thessaly, Mr. Costas Demertzis and discussed with him their problems, the treatment they receive, and our project.

• We met Dr. Paroutoglou George, Director of the Infusion Unit of the Gastroenterology Clinic of the General Hospital of Larissa George Paroutoglou and Dr. Helen Papadimitriou a specialist for IBDs from the General Hospital of Larissa

• We finalised the program for our Big Greek Meetup.

We hosted our Big Greek Meetup at 24-25-26/6/20



• We contacted the iGEM team from Ohio State University, in order to help us design our kill-switch module.

• We discussed our ideas with the Dietician, Nutritionist in Larissa Mr. Mekras Apostolis.

• We trained for our lab protocols.

August

• We sent emails to various specialists, in order to gain input regarding our project and made more phone calls to Biotechnologists, Clinical Nutritionists and Gastroenterologists to ask for help.

A week-long tribute 9-17/8/20 about Women in Science

• Our team communicated with the European Federation of Crohn's and Colitis Association (EFCCA).

• We designed a poster with a QR code to boost morale, strengthen the self-esteem and the self-confidence of people who suffer from IBDs.

• We created questionnaires that were distributed to the patients from the General Hospital of Larissa, with the help of Dr. Helen Papadimitriou.

We began our experiments in the lab

September

• We got the questionnaires that were distributed to the patients from the General Hospital of Larissa, with the help of Dr. Helen Papadimitriou.

• We handed in the Safety Form for the Competition.

October

We performed our experiments for Characterization and tested the Prom Module, conducting, at the same time, our Proof of Concept

• Press coverage Kriti TV (Kalo Mesimeri) 15/10/20

We created a video that’s available on our online platforms, to inform the public about nutrition and health

• We organised a Presentation about Synthetic Biology and IBDs for schools.

We created our Presentation video

To Be Continued...

Contact

• igemthessaly@gmail.com