Revision as of 20:15, 14 October 2018

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 informing us 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 the field of veterinary diagnostics.

Vidilab has throughout the summer been kind enough to provide us with fecal samples from a broad range of horses. This company has been a bridge between us and horse owners, giving us invaluable contacts and sharing our market analysis.

Figure: 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 were held at Uppsala University in late September were 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: Barbecue with Stockholm iGEM 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: 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

Our team this year has been collaborating with iGEM Lund for 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 working close to iGEM Lund since they are also writing a booklet addressing the issue, but from another point of view. 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.

iGEM Work Environment Evaluation

As a part of our subproject with the booklet, this years 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 let iGEM teams 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!

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