Safety

Collaborations

Collaborations with other iGEM teams

Team AshesiGhana

New techniques developed for space could, like many others in the past, be used on Earth and have a major impact in a world where the population is growing and where resources are diminishing. For these two important reasons, we wondered about the possible use of our production device on Earth. We looked for areas in the world where vitamin A deficiency occurs. As subsaharian Africa is part of the areas that suffer the most from this deficiency, we contacted Team iGEM AshesiGhana.

We needed their help to collect data through a survey about the acceptability of our vitamin A production device. Such surveys in France would not have been as relevant as in Ghana since there are no concerning vitamin A deficiencies reported in our country. Not only did they help us with the survey but they also contacted a biology teacher from their country to obtain a broader feedback on our educational video game. In return, we advised the AshesiGhana team on their tetrapods project design. We provided them with tools such as life-cycle and business model to implement their project in the real world. We also shared contacts from different companies that might be interested in their approach about fighting coastal erosion and degrading plastic.

Given the numerous and continuous exchanges we had with this team, we agreed on creating a partnership.

Click here to learn more about our partnership with iGEM AshesiGhana

Team Concordia

We started to collaborate with iGEM Concordia through their collaboration request on the iGEM 2020 website. Following our interview with Natalie Leys, head of the Microbiology Research Unit at the Space Life Science, we wondered about microgravity effects on cells. We agreed that collaborating with an iGEM team working on yeast in microgravity would be beneficial for both teams. As their project will be a 2-years project, their first goal is to create AstroBio, a database for differential gene expression analysis in microgravity studies. Our projects are complementary as we are using an engineered yeast to provide nutrients for astronauts while iGEM Concordia is trying to focus on the behavior of yeast in microgravity conditions. Next year, iGEM Concordia will bioengineer a space-compatible yeast that is tolerant to these microgravity effects.

As both of our teams would like to bridge the gap between synthetic biology and space, we invited iGEM Concordia to take part on our contribution for future iGEM teams. Together, we provided a guide to help the building process of space-related projects for future iGEM teams around the world. iGEM Concordia created a database in which we took part by giving constructive feedback to improve their software. We also did an experiment for them that will give them a head start next year, when they begin their experiments with the promoter GAL10 as a proof of concept for nutrient producing microgravity-resistant strains.

Like iGEM AshesiGhana, we had numerous and continuous exchanges with the iGEM Concordia team, and equally agreed on creating an formal partnership.

Click here to learn more about our partnership with iGEM Concordia

Team Pittsburgh

We answered a post from iGEM Pittsburgh which called for a collaboration with a team working on optogenetics. From this meeting with them, we expected to enrich our knowledge about optogenetics systems by exchanging what we had learned and by challenging our choices. Their system involves the regulation of gene expression by radio waves. They are using nanoparticles whose temperature increases when exposed to radio waves. The nanoparticles are attached to the cell wall. So, when the nanoparticles receive radio waves, the temperature of the cell increases and genes activated by heat-sensitive promoters, are expressed.

The advantage of their system over ours is the response time. Our photo-inducible system needs about 10 hours for the red light regulation system instead of 1h for the regulation of gene expression by radio waves. Nevertheless, their system implies to heat cells up to 42-45°C. Our system is a coculture so there would be a high risk of jeopardizing the equilibrium between the two microorganisms with such stress. Another issue would be background noises from space. We would need a reactor isolated from radio waves in order not to receive those coming from the environment.
This meeting taught us a new regulation system and allowed us to compare it with the one we chose and ensure that we made the right choice.

iGEM Pittsburgh invited us to do a podcast for them in which we would explain our project (Click here to discover it). Their podcast channel allowed us to discover other projects and offered us a platform where we could express ourselves about our project and the problems we faced during the iGEM competition.

Team Calgary

The Calgary iGEM team contacted us because they were also working on producing vitamin A in yeast. Their goal was to mitigate Vitamin A deficiency in the affected regions of the world using a nutritive yeast able to grow from local resources. We shared with them the metabolic pathways for vitamin K2, B12 and E production to help them for next year as they are doing a two-years project. They are planning to engineer the Yarrowia lipolytica strain already modified to produce vitamin A in order to make it able to grow from straw or other crops containing cellulose. They are also working on bio-containment and trying to find a synthetic system to prevent yeast from escaping the device and spreading in the environment. We also shared our video game and got their feedback as well as tips from a high school biology teacher in Canada.

Challenges

iGEM France video challenge

The aim of this collaboration was to gather all French teams together and create a video to present all French-speaking iGEM teams (click here to watch it). Multiple iGEM teams joined forces to build an project initiated by iGEM Grenoble with iGEM Montpellier, iGEM Aix-Marseille, iGEM Ionis, iGEM Nantes, iGEM Sorbonne, iGEM Go-Paris Saclay, iGEM Evry, iGEM Nantes, iGEM Ionis Paris and iGEM Lausanne. All together, we have created a brand new logo based on the iGEM logo and the official Francophony flag as all the teams participating were french speaking teams. All French-speaking iGEM teams prepared a video to present their cities.

A World of SynBio - Delft iGEM team

Synthetic biology is an interdisciplinary field within biology and engineering. The aim of "A World of Synbio" is to share the endless possibilities of SynBio through a short description of 2020 iGEM projects to the general public. This video has been shared with tens of iGEM teams around the world and is available on Youtube. (Click here to watch it)

The light bulb challenge

The GW iGEM team had a great idea this year! This challenge was mainly created to symbolize the idea that iGEM teams, although competing against each other during the Giant Jamboree, are all united towards the same goal: making this world a better and more habitable place. Because of the different ideas and problem-solving skills that each team has, we decided to compile iGEM teams’ logos and recreate a light bulb, symbolizing our distinct ideas for our overall goal. To represent the expansion of iGEM worldwide and the importance it has in our lives, we decided to make our light bulb collage an integral addition to the world.

German meet up

We attended the German meetup organized by the Marburg iGEM team on the 4th and 5th of July 2020. This meetup allowed us to create a fun team presentation video. We also did a poster describing the outlines of our project. This weekend really helped us to practice presenting our project. We are grateful to have participated to this amazing meet-up that was very well organized by the Marburg iGEM team. We shared a lot of information and made contacts with other teams around the world for potential collaborations. We even won the first prize for poster presentation and a Sigma centrifuge that will be more than useful for our future iGEM Toulouse teams.

Surveys

We were very happy to support iGEM teams by filling in their surveys. We filled out surveys from BGU, UCL, NCKU Taiwan, KSA-KOREA, Technion-Israel and HKUST.

Conclusion

This year, our aim was to share, think and build together in order to achieve common goals with several iGEM teams around the world. Even though we were not able to meet other teams, we have been delighted to collaborate with them and meet them through so many fun and exciting online meetings.