Nordic iGEM Conference

iGEM meetups are a big aspect of the iGEM competition hosted all over the world. They are important as teams get to meet other iGEM competitors to exchange ideas and knowledge, discuss potential collaborations and of course having lots of fun. The number of iGEM meetups have increased dramatically between 2016 and 2018 from 20 to 38. We are proud to be a part of this growth by hosting the 4th annual Nordic iGEM Conference (NiC).

“The Nordic iGEM Conference was one of highlights of my year as European Ambassador. The event was both professional l and a lot of fun! Showcasing not only the high quality of the Nordic iGEM projects but also the strong culture of collaboration and support among the teams - it definitely captured the ambition and optimism of the giant jamboree and iGEM spirit. I look forward to Participating in next years NiC and to following up with this years iGEMer as they graduate into the after iGEM community”

-Will Wright, After-iGEM ambassador

9 teams, 90 participants

We were happy to host our fellow Nordic iGEMers here in Lund. Being a city of big historical value and a strong university culture, our fellow guests were taken on a city treasure hunt upon their arrival. The treasure hunt consisted of different photo-challenges scattered all over the city. This was a great opportunity for the participants to get to know each other and to finally get a break from working with iGEM.

Workshops & Inspirational Lectures

Kunskapspartner is a research and consultancy firm specialised in business development. Their primary competence areas are within strategy development, processes and organization, change management, and leadership. They guested us by hosting a workshop in group dynamics and feedback which was highly appreciated by all teams.

During the Sunday, we had a lecture by one of the NiC sponsors Mandy Wang from Bluepha Lab.. Mandy gave a presentation about the company, and how they managed to turn their iGEM project, related to bioplastics, into a an actual start-up. Bluepha Lab is now operating from China and specialize in developing biomaterials of the future using synthetic biology. It gladdens us to see previous iGEM participants supporting iGEM-activities such as ours. This was followed by a Q&A session from Ana Sifuentes, a representative from iGEM’s headquarters in Boston. After lunch, the PhD student Hanna Sigeman (from RSG-Sweden) held a lecture about bioinformatics.

“All of our team members that have attended the workshop were very positive about it. The topic was well chosen; group dynamics, team-building and feedback are important aspects to discuss during that phase of a project. The speaker was a charismatic person who could convincingly get his message across. The group exercise to practice giving feedback stood out, it was a good way to avoid misunderstandings and discuss eventual emerging problems. We have repeated the same group exercise a few months later and found it to be very good for our group dynamic again. It was also good to open people up and get a better idea of what we could expect from each other.

-Team iGEM Chalmers

Mini-Jamboree

To prepare the Nordic teams for the final event, we arranged a mini-jamboree competition composed of an oral presentation and a poster session. We decided to open the jamboree for the public to attend. It was a great chance for the curious to swing by for a coffee and learn more about the Nordic iGEM projects and synthetic biology.

Researchers, communications consultants and previous iGEM judges were invited to act as judges and evaluate each team with the following questions as guidelines:

How impressive and creative is the project?
Is the project likely to have an impact?
How well are engineering and synthetic biology principles used?
How thoughtful and thorough was the team’s consideration of mathematical modeling and human practices?
Did the oral presentation flow well and was it enganing? Where the graphical elements appealing?
How competent were the team members at answering questions during the judge’s inquiry post presentation and during the poster session?

The participating teams competed for two prizes. One being the Judges Awards where the judges together choose one winning team. Second being the iGEMers Choice Award where each participant vote for the team they liked the most. Due to personal connections with the judges and other natural reasons, our team abstained from competing for the awards.

Due to some judges being completely new to iGEM, we wrote a comprehensive judging handbook explaining what iGEM and synthetic biology is and how the teams could be evaluated. The handbook draws inspiration from the official 2017 judge’s handbook but customized to meet the standards of our mini-jamboree. Our ambition is that this handbook will be used and built upon by future iGEM-teams when organizing similar mini-jamborees.

Meet The Judges

Christopher Workman
Associate professor at the Department of Biotechnology and Biomedicine, Technical University of Denmark

Gustaf Edman
iGEM Judge 2016 and 2017. Synthetic biology engineer at USRA and researcher at Chalmers Technical University, Sweden

Johan Svensson Bonde
Researcher at the Division of Pure and Applied Biochemistry, Lund University

Magnus Carlquist
Senior lecturer at the Department of Applied Microbiology, Lund University

Laila Sakhnini
Industrial PhD student at Lund University and Novo Nordisk

Olle Bergman
M.Sc, Swedish communications consultant, public speaker & professional writer

Gala Dinner

What’s an iGEM meetup without festivities? The gala dinner was a moment to recognize the excellence and achievements of all the participating teams. After an evening of delicious food, singing and speeches; it was finally time to announce the winners of the the NiC.

iGEM Copenhagen managed to scoop both the Judges Award and the iGEMers Choice Award. To keep up the NiC tradition, iGEM Copenhagen will have the honor of hosting the 2019 NiC.