BioBrick Tutorial
For the sixth time we had the honor of hosting the annual DTU Biobrick Tutorial. As a means of meeting and discussing ideas with other nordic teams, and creating possible collaborations, we were joined by the teams from Copenhagen University, Lund, Uppsala, Linköbing, Oslo, Chalmers and Stockholm to join us for a weekend full of learning and fun.
All the teams were excited and when the time came, we were 89 iGEM participants joined under the same roof.
David, Lina and Tenna, with help from the rest of the team, worked full hours the weeks up to the happening to make sure everything would work smoothly. Hotels had to be booked, food had to be planned and ordered, materials and protocols for experiments had to be prepared and a general schedule full of talks and activities had to be planned. Thankfully, we had great help from the iGEM DTU team from 2017 who helped with the experimental part of the weekend.
We had the great honor of having many accomplished people come and educate us in not only iGEM and the creation of biobricks, but also in general team- and project work; alumni from earlier DTU Biobuilder teams held a panel session regarding life after iGEM and what they’ve used their gained skills for. Our PhD. supervisor, and old iGEM participant, Kyle Rotshchild taught the importance of human practice and held a workshop in the art of pitching. Our supervisor, Chris Workman, held a very informative lecture regarding the iGEM registry and biological parts as well as the Interlab study and alternative assembly techniques. And last, but not least, we had the great honor of having Abigail Sison from Headquarters talk about after iGEM and join the big boi panel session regarding team dynamics, outreach, PR, economy and funding activities.
[Indsæt tidsplanen fra weekenden?]
However, it was not all long hours of work and no fun. Small social events was held throughout the weekend, but Saturday night we had a long star run with mixed teams, planned by Nicolai, where the entire team had positioned themselves around DTU with creative, and maybe a bit danish, humoured challenges; at one post, participants would guess whether or not a twitter writing was made by Donald Trump or Kanye.
At another post, teams were given a short time period to create a beer opener using only an onion, elastics, tape and fresh baking yeast. Easy to say there were some interesting solutions. One team even had the brilliant idea of hiding a bottle opener inside the onion.
Even though it was a tiring and stressful weekend, we all enjoyed the opportunity of hosting an event of such caliber and the reviews given made it worth every can of Monster replacing actual food.
“It was a really nice weekend altogether and a good learning experience.”
“I think you did amazing. It might be different for the people on advanced level but as an undergraduate I felt it was a nice overview.”
“All of it was great! Good job arranging!”
“Thank you so much for the lab exercises!! And food, I can’t imagine how hard it was to organize everything 😱❤️”
“I honestly never plated bacteria before and I found it very amusing and necessary.”
“All of it was great! Good job arranging!”