Team:Imperial College/Collaborations
Oxford University Collaborations
SoxR promoter Library characterisation
When we heard that the Oxford team would be using SoxR/S parts we were excited to form a collaboration with them. During construct designing we came to a fairly significant limitation to using SoxR system is that it has not been characterised. We saw a gap in the knowledge of this system, and thought that as scientists we need to fill this gap and share it with the community. So in collaboration with the Oxford team, we designed a SoxR promoter library and characterised their expression strengths, the results of which can be found here. We would like to thank the Oxford team for collaborating with us on this endeavour, with whom we are glad to have contributed to the iGEM and synthetic biology community.
New Scientist Live
New scientist Live is an amazing platform for communicating science with the general public, however majority of the visitors to the event are children.
London Universities Collaborations
Troubleshooting Meetup
We knew that in the in the last month or so of the project there would still be much work to do and we could be facing many roadblocks at this time, potentially stressing us out and preventing us from being able to think clearly about our problems. So, we reached out to our fellow London iGEM teams and with them organised a troubleshooting meet-up well in advance, so that we can all tackle each of our roadblocks as an iGEM community. Thank you UCL, KCL and Westminster for all your advice and help in getting us over our limitations.
Outreach
One of our favourite aspects of iGEM is that it allows young scientists (like us) the opportunity to do cutting edge science on a global platform. Every year the number of teams participating is increasing and we want to see this trend carry on. So we, the London teams, decided to reach out to A-level students on the eve of their university applications, and show them what synthetic biology is and how cutting edge science is not as foreign or far from their grasp. We would like to thank the London teams for helping us organise the guests, and especially we would like to thank Cherelle of the Imperial Outreach program for all her help in making these events possible.
Construct assembly with Valencia UPV
For this year’s competition, the UPV Valencia team developed a novel microfluidic based technique to do Golden Gate construct assemblies, calling their innovative technology Printeria. When we heard about their idea through one of our supervisors, we contacted them to form a collaboration. In our collaboration, UPV Valencia assembled our 1-state and attempted to assemble our 2-state constructs, which we were having tremendous difficulty assembling ourselves. They were successful at assembling the 1-state construct using Printeria, which we were excited to compare with our manually assembled structures. The results of this collaboration can be found through this link. We would like to extend many thanks to the Valencia team for assembling constructs for us using their innovative technology.
Team communication App: Let’s talk about this
The theme of communication is present all throughout our project and has been something on the forefront of our mind the whole time. We understand that working in a team, especially one that is formed of members who may not know each other, can be quite stressful and awkward at first, especially when it comes to raising issues and conflicts. For this reason we took the initiative to develop an app that allows the seeding of difficult communication Let’s talk about this. The development of the content for the app couldn’t have been possible without all the help from the iGEM community who gave us their valuable time and attention by answering some awkward and even difficult questions regarding team communication issues. We would like to thank the whole iGEM community for helping us broaden our perspective on issues faced by other teams, and helping us take a step towards addressing them.
Collaboration with 5 groups
Two households, both alike in dignity, In fair Verona, where we lay our scene, From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
Collaborations with Art Students
Art commission
Communication from scientists to non-scientists can have its challenges, sometimes words and explanations are just not enough to bring across the emotion and inspiration that scientific endeavours are made with. For this reason, we want to approach the whole topic of communication without words at all, and we collaborated with artists to help create art pieces that would be able to convey what words cannot. Thank you to all the talented art students who took valuable times off of their summer to help us convey our passion, enthusiasm and vision of synthetic biology to world through their art pieces.
Web design by UAL Graphic Designer
Two households, both alike in dignity, In fair Verona, where we lay our scene, From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean. From forth the fatal loins of these two foes A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life; Whose misadventured piteous overthrows Do with their death bury their parents' strife.
