Team:Jiangnan/Collaborations
Collaborations
This year is the first time for Jiangnan team to participate in the iGEM competition. Therefore, we know the importance of cooperation and communication with the external world. We have established cooperation with the outside world in many ways, including academic exchange, biosafety disscussion, industrial production, and human practice. These interactions are of great significance to the smooth progression of our projects.
Academic collaboration
Collaboration with UESTC-China
This year, UESTC-China aims at using a biofunctional enzyme, xyn10D-fae1A, to directly break down the lignin-polysaccharide crosslink between straws and convert them into useful chemical materials.
They introduced a group of cellulases (cex, cenA, xyl3A) to convert the cellulose produced by straw degradation into glucose, and then designed two pathways to ferment glucose to produce butanol and hydrogen, respectively.
However, there is a problem that when the conventional Escherichia coli BW25113 is used as a chassis organism for butanol fermentation, the yield is very low, so they hope to replace the chassis cells to try to increase the yield of butanol.
Through the discussions between our two teams, we offered UESTC-China our Escherichia coli B0016-050 from our laboratory as a new chassis cell and we hope that it could help them further increase the yield of butanol.
This year, UESTC-China aims at using a biofunctional enzyme, xyn10D-fae1A, to directly break down the lignin-polysaccharide crosslink between straws and convert them into useful chemical materials.
They introduced a group of cellulases (cex, cenA, xyl3A) to convert the cellulose produced by straw degradation into glucose, and then designed two pathways to ferment glucose to produce butanol and hydrogen, respectively.
However, there is a problem that when the conventional Escherichia coli BW25113 is used as a chassis organism for butanol fermentation, the yield is very low, so they hope to replace the chassis cells to try to increase the yield of butanol.
Through the discussions between our two teams, we offered UESTC-China our Escherichia coli B0016-050 from our laboratory as a new chassis cell and we hope that it could help them further increase the yield of butanol.
Collaboration
with
XJTLU-China
We held a mini meet-up in our university in April. Both teams shared the project introduction, and discussed the background of the topic and details of the experimental plan. XJTLU-China also shared lots of experience that helped us run our project more smoothly.
Collaboration
with
NUS_Singapore-A(NUSGEM)
Our team and NUS_Singapore-A iGEM team (NUSGEM) held a meet-up in National University of Singapore to discuss various problems encountered during project progression. Their project focused on developing a novel biomanufacturing platform for engineered bacteria, and they produced natural dyes using that platform. We also highlighted the principles and experimental design of our project to produce vaccine. We exchanged suggestions to each other on problems encountered in experiments, modeling, human practice framework, etc. In addition, they also led us to visit their laboratory, as well as SynCTI, Asia's largest synthetic biology center. Through this meet-up, we have a better understanding of synthetic biology and our project, which will make our goal much more clear.
Collaboration with XMU-China
We offered XMU-China the information of our team, including team introduction, project description, etc, which will be used to record on the Newsletter edited by XMU-China. Through this platform, more people could learn about our projects and we have more opportunities to exchange and cooperate with the external world.
We offered XMU-China the information of our team, including team introduction, project description, etc, which will be used to record on the Newsletter edited by XMU-China. Through this platform, more people could learn about our projects and we have more opportunities to exchange and cooperate with the external world.
Biosafety Collaboration
Since we are conducting the experiments associated with “High Titer” and “Broad Spectrum” of viruses, which is identified to have some potential dual-use biosecurity considerations, we deeply understand that we need to be more sensitive to these concerns. Following the advice from The Safety and Security Committee of iGEM, we have contacted with Fangzhong Wang, who is at the Center for Biosafety Research and Strategy at Tianjin University. Through the exchange and discussion, Prof. Wang kindly offered us lots of quite pertinent suggestions and we recognized that we need to take more safety issues into consideration. Therefore, we followed his advice, increased management training in experimental safety, and implemented many safety measures, which would all ensure the safety and the security of our project.
Industry
Collaboration
This year, our project is dedicated to reduce the excessive cost of producing cell-based animal vaccines. This problem was identified by our strategic collaborator, Beijing DaBeiNong Company. Thus, we are financed by them to carry out virus related experiments in this project. The outcome of our project can greatly help the factory to reduce the cost of producing a series of vaccines by using MDBK cell line.
Human Practice Collaboration
Collaboration with ZJU-China, ZJUT-China, ASTWS-China, HFLS-ZheJiangUnited, WorldShaper-XSHS
On August 19, our team and ZJU-China, ASTWS-China, HFLS-ZheJiangUnited, WorldShaper-XSHS held the Synthetic Biology Technology Festival at the Science and Technology Museum in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province. In order to introduce children with the preliminary understandings of biology and to stimulate children's interest, we organized many mini games. We introduced them some basic biological concepts while having fun.