Contribution

iGEM is a competition in which we have to work on many different aspects of a project and not only on the scientific part. This is why the contribution of the Toulouse INSA-UPS team of 2020 consists of three parts related to central aspects of iGEM such as parts, brainstorming and implementation:

Characterization of registry’s parts

How to build a space project

How to build a product life-cycle

In the first part, we characterized parts of the registry with new information from the literature and from our experiments.

In the second part, we constructed a guide in collaboration with Concordia team with tips and resources to start a space project for future iGEM teams. Space is an unconventional theme for a synthetic biology project, this is why we decided to help the future iGEM teams with our experience.

In the third part, we constructed another guide about how to do the life-cycle of a product but also its issue table and the quantification of its impact. These are tools to help implementation of a project. We have worked hard to use these tools for our iGEM project. We thought that a detailed guide of our approach will be helpful for the other future iGEM teams.

Characterization of registry’s parts

Lists of the parts that we characterized:

Name	Type of characterization	What have we brought?
BBa_I757007	from literature	new information on the functioning of the PhyA-FHY1 optogenetic system
BBa_I757002
BBa_I757004
BBa_K2753003	from our experiments	a new analysis technique for geraniol detection using HPLC

Why did the registry need new information about the PhyA-FHY1 optogenetic system?

We noticed that there was a lack of information on the PhyA-FHY1 optogenetic system in the registry. Despite some parts about PhyA and FHY1, this lack of information slowed us down in our research. To facilitate the research of future iGEM teams, we characterized the parts on the registry which are about PhyA and FHY1.

Why did the registry need new information about geraniol analysis?

Geraniol is usually analyzed by Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (GS-MS) and this is how previous iGEM teams analyzed it. This was not convenient for us since we do not master nor have the equipment to perform GC-MS analyses. So we tried to find another method and succeeded in analyzing geraniol by High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC). Even though we were not able to produce geraniol via our recombinant strains, we still have used the HPLC analysis method to obtain a standard curve. We wanted to share our research and results to the future teams.

Tips and resources to start a space project

With iGEM Concordia we had numerous meetings to grow our Partnership (click here to learn more about our Partnership). As both of our teams would like to bridge the gap between synthetic biology and astro-exploration, we invited iGEM Concordia to embark on our guide for future iGEM teams who are undertaking space projects. This guide is a thoughtful reader-friendly starting point for future iGEM teams and student space associations as they embark on a space-related project. We collaborated together on the content and design and are proud to offer it in English and French. It includes information which we both sought out at the beginning of our projects such as the conditions and resources we can find in spacecraft, what bionutrient production is, an overview of microgravity conditions, past iGEM space projects, astro resources and more!

Our guide for future space projects

How to build a product life-cycle

Building the life cycle of a product is an essential step for anyone who wants to adopt a marketing strategy with a sustainable approach. It is therefore crucial to analyze the different stages our product goes through from the extraction of raw materials to its end of life and the issues raised by its product from an economic, ecological and social point of view.

Through this contribution, we wanted to help the iGEM teams build more sustainable projects, following a realistic marketing strategy adapted to the targeted market.