Team:Uppsala/Collaborations
During 2018, our team has collaborated with many other igem teams worldwide. Besides keeping close contact with all Nordic Teams through a common slack workspace for the project managers we have worked together in various other ways.
Vidilab
From the start Vidilab has been a loyal partner; giving us not only information about the problem that needs solving but also with the equipment needed for RNA sequencing. In addition, they sponsored us with financial support in order to further develop the field of veterinary diagnostics.
Vidilab has throughout the summer been kind enough to provide us with fecal samples. This company has been a bridge between us and horse owners, giving us invaluable contacts and sharing our market analysis.
Figure 1. iGEM Uppsala representatives together with Bitte Ljungström, Vidilab CEO; Sara Ljungström, head of research and researcher Alice Anlind.
iGEM Stockholm
Since 2017, iGEM Uppsala and iGEM Stockholm have been collaborating to host panel discussions. This year we have evolved the concept making it a science symposium with two sessions, the first about how to maintain a healthy mental state while working in science and the second about biohacking. What’s also new is that Lund has also joined the event and the work in arranging it. The work started in June and we starting having meetings in early July, with a session every second week. The symposium was held at Uppsala University in late September where students, professors and previous iGEM participants attended. You can find more information about the event on the human practices page!
Furthermore, iGEM Uppsala and iGEM Stockholm have had a close relationship this year and held several social events together such as BBQs.
Figure 2. Barbecue with iGEM Stockholm at iGEM Uppsala facilities.
iGEM UC Louvain
The iGEM team from UC Louvain has kindly distributed our market analysis form in several Belgian horse community forums. In exchange we have been helping them by trying to find the source of error in why their interlab data didn’t get accepted by sharing our advice from our personal experience with the Interlab protocol.
Figure 3. From the left: Nina De Sousa Oliveira, representant from iGEM UC Lovain, Belgium; Matilda Brink, Uppsala; Elin Ramström, Uppsala; Ruta Upite, Uppsala. Picture taken during a visit to the iGEM Uppsala team at Biomedical Research Center, Sweden.
iGEM Lund
In addition to co-hosting the limits of life event with iGEM Stockholm, iGEM Uppsala and iGEM Lund has this year been collaborating on one of our subprojects in Human Practice. iGEM Uppsala 2018 has made a booklet containing useful information regarding the topic of burning out while working as a researcher, as a student and/or as an iGEM participant. We have been exchanging information and ideas with Lund while discussing the various topics related to stress and project management. While we are looking at the problem from the perspective of an individual, iGEM Lund are focusing on burnout related to management and group dynamics. Together we aim to create an overview of different sources that can cause exhaustion and also what you can do to avoid it.
Danmark Tekniske Universitet (DTU) Biobrick Tutorial
This year 9 team members attended the DTU Biobrick Tutorial. A great event arranged to introduce many of the nordic teams to each other. This generated a perfect opporunity to create a great starting point for future collaborations. Nevertheless, the Biobuilder weekend also brought some great opportunities to practice transformation. It turned out to be especially valuable for early year students and students that never had performed a transformation before. In general we found the registry tutorials and the information about the InterLab study very useful since we before the event had a lot of questions about it. In addition we got the possibility to meet our headquarters contact Abigail Sison. All of the teams attending the event along with the hosts DTU-Denmark was University of Cophenhagen, Linkoping University, Stockholm, Lund, Chalmers-Gothenburg and Ui Oslo.
Figure 4. All of the teams attending the DTU Biobrick Tutorial.
Nordic iGEM Conferance (NiC)
More than half of the team managed to attend this years Nordic iGEM Conferance hosted by Lund. This turned out to be a great oppertunity to reconnect to the nordic iGEM community that we met earlier in spring. It was very useful since all the teams shared advice among each other in the purpose of making all nordic teams better. Most of all, it was a huge opportunity to get a taste of the feeling of being at the Giant Jamboree since all teams had to present their project with a poster and a presentation to later be judged. All teams participating along with our hosts, Lund, was: Aalto Helsinki, Uppsala, Stockholm, Linkoping University, Chalmers-Gothenburg, University of Oslo, University of Copenhagen and Copenhagen Technical Univeristy.
Figure 5. The team attending a gala dinner during the event.
iGEM Work Environment Evaluation
As a part of our subproject with the booklet, this year's human practice group have created a form to evaluate the work environment in the iGEM competition. In order to get as many representative answers possible, we posted the evaluation form on the iGEM collaboration page and on the iGEM community page to be able to let iGEMers worldwide answer our questions. Several teams chose to collaborate with us by filling in the form and we could not have completed the evaluation without their answers. This gave us valuable content for the booklet and a broader perspective of how extensive the problem of burning out is for iGEM participants. However, we want to continue this investigation and would be thankful if even more teams would like to answer this survey . Help us build a better iGEM environment!
Figure 5. Booklet Cover.
Participating teams:
University of Oslo, IISc-Bangalore, Ruia-Mumbai, University of Waterloo, Bielefeld-CeBiTec, Copenhagen, NCKU_Tainan, Mexico City, Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education, Unesp Brazil, USP-Brazil, USP-EEL-Brazil Amazonas_,Brazil, iGEM TEC CEM 2018, Manchester, IISc Bangalore, IISc - Bangalore Calgary, Central iGEM and Halifax, Dalhousie iGEM, India, US_AFRL_CarrollHS from Dayton, Ohio, Thessaloniki,Toulouse INSA-UPS, Stockholm, iGEM Pasteur Paris, DTU-Denmark, Queen’s Canada, SDU, Pittsburgh, WashU St. Louis, Bonn, UPS Toulouse, iGEM Bielefeld-CeBiTec, University of Washington Edinburgh UG, IISc-Bangalire, Vilnius-Lithuania, Lambert iGEM