Team:ULaval/Collaborations
COLLABORATIONS
During the 2020 edition, our team collaborated with several iGEM teams. We took part in multiple events organized by them such as JulyGEM, a global video collaboration, a mini-Jamboree, and a reflection on the contribution of our project to the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations. We also organized, with the iGEM Concordia team, a series of scientific communication conferences.
Figure 1: Timeline of the collaborations done with 2020 iGEM teams.
Calgary (JulyGEM, July 25th - 26th)
JulyGem was an event organized by Team iGEM Calgary around the theme of translating synbio to the real world. It included workshops on public engagement, science communication, and entrepreneurship, as well as presentations by 14 iGEM teams.
This event was a nice opportunity for our team to have a first glance of the diversity of iGEM projects at this year's competition. Participating in this collaboration really helped us put our ideas into place. Also, summarizing our work in a 5-7 minute presentation was a challenge, but we were able to showcase all the twists and turns our project took before reaching its final form. We received very helpful feedback from the judges at the event and were able to meet members of the different iGEM teams that participated. It is always fun and interesting to learn about the problems that others choose to focus on.
TU Delft (August 14th)
Team iGEM TU Delft organized a worldwide video collaboration for teams to get to know the diversity of projects from this year's competition. Briefly, teams submitted a 10-second video explaining who they are and what their project is about. We were very happy to participate, so we contributed with our own video.
The video was very well done and we were proud to have our video featured first. This video allowed us to learn about the diversity of all iGEM projects done this year and was shared on our social media to let people know about the interesting projects done through iGEM.
Concordia (Science communication conferences: August 19th)
Team iGEM Concordia was one of our closest collaborators from last year's iGEM adventure. We wanted to continue working with them, so our teams started communicating and sharing our experiences early this year. We decided to organize a series of science communication conferences around how synthetic biology can impact the food industry in terms of sustainability since this was the common ground of our projects. The format of our conferences was set to be a panel discussion, featuring panelists from academia, industry, and investors. Concordia 4th space, an organization within Concordia University, helped us organize the panel discussions and took care of the logistics behind the events.
The first of the two panel discussions took place on August 19th, 2020. Our panelists were: Michael Selden (CEO and Co-Founder of Finless Foods), Michelle Oeser (R&D Manager at Lallemand), and Ahmed Khan (Founder of Cellagri). The event engaged 102 unique participants from 16 different countries and was a major success. Our attendees were very highly motivated and asked questions that our panelists answered either directly on the call or on the Q&A box. After the talks, we created breakout rooms to have open discussions with the participants. One room was D3, an organization within Concordia University that talked about Entrepreneurial and Innovation themes. Our speakers were also involved in the breakout rooms, Ahmed Khan answering questions about cellular agriculture and Michelle Oeser focusing on the regulations and impact of bioproducts in industry. The last room was for people looking for more information about iGEM. The conference was recorded and is free to watch on Team iGEM Concordia’sYouTube channel.
Concordia (Science communication conferences: September 3rd)
The second panel discussion took place on September 3rd, 2020. Our panelists were: Morgan Irons (Founder and Chief Scientist of Deep Space Ecology), Marie Filteau (Professor and researcher at Université Laval), and Karen McDonald (Division Lead at NASA - Center for the Utilization of Biological Engineering in Space). We had a great participation, which included 51 unique participants from 12 different countries. Once again, our attendees were very active and asked very interesting questions that fueled the discussion.
Being a part of this science communication initiative helped us learn about all the hard work behind the organization of these kinds of events. There were several challenges to overcome, which included having to coordinate everything remotely with team Concordia and doing the advertising in the face of tight deadlines. However, facing these challenges made it all the more gratifying when we saw all the people who were interested in our events. The conference was recorded and is free to watch on Team iGEM Concordia’sYouTube channel.
Concordia (Mini-Jamboree, September 19th - 20th)
Team iGEM Concordia organised a simulation of the Giant Jamboree in an abbreviated format. The event was scheduled on September 19th and 20th. In addition to different workshops presented during the event, teams could show their 20 min presentation, poster presentation and their wiki to receive feedback and mentorship according to the iGEM judging handbook and 2020 presentation requirements.
Team iGEM Calgary, Lethbridge, Queen's participated in addition to team iGEM Concordia and us, team iGEM ULaval. We only participated for the poster presentation part because of time restriction. It was a great opportunity to readapt our Giant Jamboree presentation thanks to the pros and cons given by the judges at this event. The event allowed our new members to get in touch with scientific communications and learn from their experience.
UPCH Peru
Team iGEM UPCH Peru organised a collaborationin which several iGEM teams shared information about their projects and discussed how they contribute to the United Nations Organization Sustainable Development Goals.We liked the idea because it helped us realize how iGEM and synthetic biology contribute towards these goals. Thus, we reflected upon how our project fits with these goals in the broader picture. In particular, we identified:
- Industry, innovation, and infrastructure: Our project innovates by helping transform would-be wastes into a usable product and fosters further innovation by providing a source for new maple products.
- Sustainable cities and communities: Our project aims to help maple producers reduce their waste output and increase the sustainability of their industry.
- Responsible consumption and production: Our project helps reduce the energy used to deal with waste products and improve the productivity of the maple industry in a sustainable way.
Team AUC-EGYPT
Team AUC-EGYPT 2020 aims to use toehold riboswitches to detect SARS-CoV-2. As such, they were interested in our online webinar from the Dry Lab Impulse seriesthat discussed how to design toehold riboswitches and use the tooldeveloped by our team last year.They reached out to us and identified a couple of issues with the tool when working with newer versions of some libraries. From our resulting communication, we were able to debug the tool together and they were able to produce candidate toehold riboswitches. Finally, we have discussed the possibility of them committing those changes to the tool to help future users.
