Team:UCL/Collaborations
Exeter & Warwick
The Exeter and Warwick iGEM teams were both designing bioreactors that would allow them to clean up water. Bioreactors are large containers that allow for substrates to be converted into products under the correct conditions - often requiring organisms to catalyse the reactions. he Exeter and Warwick iGEM teams wanted to be able to put contaminated waters into a bioreactor and have the microbes clean it up. We provided a crash course in bioreactor design, which in turn helped them troubleshoot their designs.
The Exeter iGEM team hopes to put their bioreactor on Mars. To achieve this they initially chose graphene as their main construction material due to its lightweight. However, as graphene is very malleable it would be unable to withstand forces generated within the bioreactor by the impellers. To resolve this issue and using our knowledge of bioreactors, we suggested stainless steel. This resulted in them designing a theoretically functioning bioreactor and taking their idea to other experts.
The Exeter iGEM team helped us design our Wiki page by troubleshooting errors we had in the interactive webpage. This enabled us to produce a more aesthetically pleasing and user friendly
website. This is essential for stakeholders to better engage with our work. Without them, a large interactive aspect of the page would not have been functional.
The Warwick iGEM team collected water samples around the United Kingdom by asking iGEM teams to pick three tubes full of river sediment and water. We assisted in this
by collecting London river water. In return, the Warwick iGEM team provided us with their samples, allowing us to measure the metal concentrations in the water.
Aalto-Helsinki
The Aalto-Helsinki iGEM team also worked with silk proteins, providing us with the opportunity to collaborate with them. We held several meetings where we helped each other design experiments and troubleshoot problems. More specifically, we looked at the protein purification
and silk spinning methodologies we could each implement. The Aalto-Helsinki iGEM team taught us about heating our product as a less-harsh method of purification. We also shared ideas about outreach event ideas that would be appropriate to the silk protein domain.
Imperial College, KCL & Westminster
The iGEM teams at the four London universities - UCL, Imperial College London, KCL UK and Westminster UK - held a graphics workshop (hosted at KCL) and a general troubleshooting session where we helped each other various questions.
This session helped us to develop our understanding of integrated human practises. We also provided feedback on the Imperial College London iGEM team’s communication app by helping them single out weak points for improvement.
Westminster was in need of competent BL21 (DE3) cells for the production of their polystyrene degradation proteins. We provided the cells on a plate and handed them over safely. Westminster reported back to us the success of the cells for their project.
Gower St, Bloomsbury
London
WC1E 6BT
