Team:Sorbonne U Paris/Collaborations

Our collaborations

The availability of new technologies has facilitated the exchanges worldwide and so promoted multidisciplinarity and collaboration in science. Collaboration is a key part among iGEMers. Indeed, collaborations help to achieve goals that would not be fulfilled alone. This year the Sorbonne U Paris 2018 team has been collaborating with 9 iGEM teams from all over the world. Herein, we detail the nature of all of our collaborations with these awesome teams with whom we shared great moments for which thank them a lot!

By clicking on our collaborators' logos, you will have access to the abstract of their project.

iGEM Go Paris Saclay

The iGEM Go Paris Saclay team and us have built a very strong relationship and have faced various challenges together. Their mathematicians introduced us to the bio-modeling bases. We could implement our essential retrotransposons' biological data into the model created together. Indeed, this model aimed to simulate the behavior of our retrotransposons. So, we are able to generate a data bank to select the best parts for our system.

For more information about our modelling visit our modelling page.


On our side, Céline, our former wiki manager, taught some members of the iGEM Paris Saclay team to code, in order to realize their wiki page and Saniya has been an advisor.

Marie-Charlotte realized several sketches of their logo for a submission to a design agency.

They also took part in the organization of the conference untitled “What will synthetic biology bring to the future?” hosted on the Campus Pierre et Marie Curie of Sorbonne Université. They helped us contact experts and purchase food and materials for the buffet through a communal fund.

Further information about this conference are available on the Human practices pages section “Public engagement and education”.



Meeting with The iGEM Saclay team for modelling
Figure 1: Meeting with The Paris Saclay Team for modelling
From left to right : Raphaël GUEGAN, Kenn PAPADOPOULO, Guillaume GARNIER, Ousmane DAO, Victor SAYOUS and Céline MORIN

iGEM Bordeaux

“Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: “What! You too? I thought I was the only one.” (C.S Lewis). It is the perfect quote to sum up our collaboration with the iGEM Bordeaux team. We first met at the Parisian meetup in Paris (7th July 2018). As we share the same conception of an iGEM project, our partnership was obvious. We invited them to participate to the organization of the conference “What will synthetic biology bring to the future?”. They helped us a lot to contact experts.

Poster of Conference
Figure 2: Poster of the conference intitled "What will synthetic biology bring to the future?" (26th September 2018)

iGEM Newcastle

One of our team member, Charlotte Bellamy, went to Newcastle University to meet the iGEM Newcastle team and discuss about a collaboration. The team worked on the 3D prototype of our initial photobioreactor. Furthermore, after meetings with experts, they kept supporting us in the improvement of our photobioreactor design.

schema of photobioreactor
Figure 3: 3D prototype of our initial photobioreactor

iGEM Montpellier

Léa Meneu and Léo Carillo, two students from the iGEM 2018 Montpellier team are pursuing their master’s degree at Sorbonne Université in Paris. So we invited them to help us introduce synthetic biology and the iGEM experience to high school students. To do so, practical sessions were organized. Several meetings between our teams were set to prepare the slides and purchase the equipments. Teaching students was a very nice opportunity to learn how to explain our project with simple words.

To learn more about this practical work at High school Maurice Genevoix (city of Montrouge),go to our Human practices page section “Public engagement and education”.



Practical work
Figure 4: Pratical work for 2nd-year high school students at Maurice Genevoix High school (Montrouge, France) (8th October 2018) Léo CARRILLO, Léa MENEU (Montpellier team), Asmaa FODA, Saniya KARI (Sorbonne U team) and the high school students

iGEM Marburg

As a part of their Human Practices project, they aim to make the iGEM competition accessible to everyone. The iGEM Marburg team sent us a message to participate in the design of an accessible wiki to everyone. Through several emails, we helped each other to write the guide “Accessible webdesign”. We tried to write the guide with easy words and bring examples so that beginners can easily apprehend this wiki concept. The long-term goal is for all iGEM teams to design their wiki without difficulties. We also helped each other improve various parts of our respective wikis. They made a logo to indicate that our wiki is accessible and we put it in the footer of our wiki.

To read the “accessible webdesign-guide navigation”, visit the Human practices page of iGEM Marburg.



Accessibility logo
Figure 5: Accessibility logo made by the iGEM Marburg. This logo informs people that the wiki is accessible.

iGEM IIT Madras


IIT Madras asked us for a collaboration to translate educational synthetic biology videos into our native languages. So we translated some of their video scripts to French, Italian and Persian. We also recorded the audio of some videos: the “DNA and RNA” video in French and Italian and the “introduction of synthetic biology” video in Persian. It was a real pleasure to help them in this fantastic initiative!

The italian version of DNA and RNA is available on youtube at this link Italian - DNA & RNA : Language Project

The French version of DNA and RNA is available on youtube at this link French- DNA & RNA : Language Project

The Persian version of DNA and RNA is available on youtube at this link Persian - DNA & RNA : Language Project

iGEM Washington


iGEM Washington team has created a Synthetic Biology Activity Booklet. This Booklet contains outreach activities for children. They wanted it to be accessible to the entire iGEM community. Therefore, they asked us to translate their booklet in French. This aims to allow the future French teams to improve their public engagement part by explaining synthetic biology to children with fun.

Cover of synthetic activity booklet
Figure 6: Synthetic biology activity booklet cover that we trannslated into French

iGEM Duesseldorf

Duesseldorf created a project to promote synthetic biology using self-designed postcards. Every participating team designed a postcard related to synthetic biology or their respective project topic. To spread the iGEM team’s innovative ideas, different teams exchanged their postcards. The postcards were then received and collected all over the world and could be shared with the general public during events... The postcard we made reinvented the famous painting of the Liberty guiding the people: "La liberté guidant le peuple" by Eugène Delacroix. Our microalgae, Claude, is there leading the way to the Sugar Revolution.

Figure 7: Postal card sent to the iGEM teams "La liberté guidant le people" by Eugène Delacroix,

iGEM Pasteur


Logo iGEM Pasteur

We collaborated with the iGEM Pasteur team on the InterLab measurement study. We gave them the E. coli DH5 alpha strain they needed for the InterLab. In return, they answered some questions concerning the InterLab.

Pasteur team
Figure 8: Meeting with the iGEM Pasteur team (24th May 2018)
From top to bottom and left to right : Ellyn Redheuil, Dounia Chater, Sarah Porte, Antoine Ehret, Victor Sayous, Emma Picaud-Lucet (1st row), Léa Guerassimoff, Alice Dejoux, Samuel Jaoui, Sarah khalilian and Saniya Kari (2nd row)