Team:Tec-Chihuahua/Collaborations
iGEM offers the opportunity to hang around with teams from all over the world, get to know their cultures, share experiences, and, above all, work shoulder to shoulder towards the development of synthetic biology. During our time at iGEM, we seized this opportunity. From discussing our projects to characterizing a promoter, iGEM Tec-Chihuahua joined forces with our fellow iGEMers to build a tighter community through collaborations.
Characterization of Tec Monterrey’s inducible promoter
This year, team Tec-Monterrey is working in the development of a system that can store data in vivo of different stimuli by changing the promoter. In an effort to contribute to the achievement of their goals, team Tec-Chihuahua characterized the PyeaR promoter (Part BBa_K381001: PyeaR-GFP composite) by proving its sensitivity to different concentrations of nitrates.
The collaboration developed as follows: On April 14th we established the first contact through a video call in which we shared our projects, troubleshot some of our problems, and shared some advice regarding raise funding and collaborations. On May 28th, we defined the objective of the collaboration. On June 10th team Tec-Monterrey sent us the protocols to follow. Finally, from June 14th to June 25th, we performed the required protocols to get the results. We are happy to mention that during the development of this characterization, we had the opportunity to know and work with one of the members of team Tec-Monterrey in our lab.
The complete protocol followed during the characterization, including the results, can be seen below.
TecCEM Collaboration
One of our main collaborations was with TecCEM. Thanks to the support between the teams we could achieve the construction of our BioBricks. Since the beginning, communication was fundamental. We shared our problems and searched for the best solution; working together contributed to the success of both teams. Basically, the problem appeared when we couldn't build our BioBrick because there were missing base pairs. TecCEM designed primers to add them to the prefix and suffix, thus amplifying the genes and allowing a correct digestion and ligation.
Entrepreneurship
The area of entrepreneurship is essential for the development of any project, for our team, this area is very important because in our institution we have a lot of support from experts to develop it and some teams do not have the support of experts in entrepreneurship in their universities, that is why as part of our activities we decided to make all this support available so that other teams have the opportunity to develop this area as we do.
We conducted an online survey format that was sent to 209 teams from all educational levels and from all countries, where we questioned some aspects such as what their doubts were regarding entrepreneurship and what difficulties had been presented to them in this area throughout its development.
We received a response from approximately 20 teams, to which we devoted about a month of work on their questions along with our experts, we decided to classify the questions based on the approach we had in each question, and then consult them with experts in various areas, such as Raúl Lizarraras, entrepreneur immersion coordinator of Coworking TEC and professor
at the Tecnológico de Monterrey, Campus Chihuahua, also advisor to the support network for entrepreneurs at the National Institute. of the Entrepreneur (INADEM), Elías Solís Rivera, Director of Research and Graduate Studies in Development, Innovation and Entrepreneurship of Monterrey, Campus Chihuahua, has been certified as an instructor for the Environmental Leadership Program for Competitiveness by SEMARNAT and PROFEPA, likewise we received support from Alan Ventura Hernandez Talavera, Larissa Uribe Marioni, and
Itzeel Córdova Martín del Campo, graduates of the Tecnológico de Monterrey from the Biotechnology Engineering career and co-founders of Diagtech, a Molecular Research and Diagnostic center dedicated to the detection of specific genetic indicators for the prevention of diseases based on genes, as well as research and development of new diagnostic methods.
Thanks to the support we received from our experts, we managed to answer the doubts of the teams and with this benefit them for the development of their business plan and their activities in the area of entrepreneurship, thus achieving that more teams have the advice they need to carry your project to the market.
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Team Valencia UPV
Besides getting to know each other, talking about our projects, and troubleshooting, Valencia's team helped us reach a beekeeper in their region to discuss our project.
May 16th
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Team Tec Monterrey GDL
We first met before getting to know each other in the Latin American Meet-up, we talked about our projects and further collaborations.
May 20th
Team NYU Abu Dhabi
We introduced ourselves and NYU team explained to us about their science sketch collaboration with all iGEM teams, we were glad to join us to this playlist!
June 19th
Team UChile Biotec
In this reunion, we had the opportunity to discuss different topics; from sharing about our projects to talking about social situations that were happening in our regions. We shared with them one of our lab protocols and different contacts from our region related with the implications of their project. In August we joined the UChile Biotec magazine project where the said team compiled the iGEM experiences of Latin American teams.
June 29th
Team NCKU Tainan
Our projects and their possible implications were front and center during this pleasant video chat.
July 9th
Team TecCEM
Latin American Meet - up was the big event in our region. We had the opportunity to get to know Ricardo Camilio Chávez, iGEM’s Latin American ambassador. We also met team members from Monterrey, Guadalajara, and our hosts, from Mexico State. We learned about several teams’ projects: TecMonterrey_GDL, Ecuador, Tec Monterrey, USP-EEL-Brazil, USP-Brazil, UChile_Biotec, and TecCEM. Thanks to the feedback from specialists attending this meet-up, we started validating different possible implications of the project like bioaccumulation of the antimicrobial peptides in the bee and immunogenicity of our molecules.
In August we were glad to join the “Labs Like You” collaboration, where Tec CEM compiled videos of teams of all around the world to create a music video about laboratory life in iGEM.July 14th
Team Dusseldorf
Dusseldorf team yearly organizes a project to promote synthetic biology using self-designed postcards from all around the world. We are glad to be part of this distinctive and quaint collaboration.
July 27th
Team Tec-Monterrey
Tec-Monterrey helped us create a protocol to encapsulate apidaecin, for the experimentation presented in our mathematical model. We are especially grateful for their patience and understanding regarding shipping issues that eventually led to the cancellation of further experimentation.
September-October
Team UAlberta
The team at UAlberta was incredibly helpful, and assisted us in asking their local experts for the time elapsed until a peptide ingested by nurse bees made its way to the brood's feed. This was used to better simulate our mathematical model.
October 12th
We thank all the teams involved in these collaborations; for sharing their time with us, giving us advice, supporting our project and making this experience more amusing.
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