For the first time that BJEA participates in iGEM, we take collaboration as a significant part of our experience and as a valuable opportunity to gain knowledge, suggestions, and inspirations to improve and polish our project. Also, we express ideas according to teams we collaborate with, to build a win-win cooperation.
Specifically, we collaborated with iBowu_China at BJEA, and with worldshaper_shanghai online in Tencent meeting.
On July 22nd 2021, by communication on e-mail and Wechat, we made an appointment to start an online meetup on Tencent Meeting with Worldshaper_Shanghai, in order to discuss and introduce both teams’ project, discuss issues we encountered, and explore whether we have other opportunities to develop further collaborations.
Firstly, for the experiment and project idea part, we introduced and explained both of our project with PPT. On one hand, our group demonstrated our method of designing and making a fusion protein to increase the working efficiency of mLCC on PET bottle.
On the other hand, Lyu Jiawen, team leader of Worldshaper_Shanghai also explained the principle and experiment method of their project, under the topic of designing a novel drug screening model of Alzheimer’s Disease. They use fruit fly as a fundamental model. By inserting APP gene, and further comparison between drug treated fruit fly and non-treated fruit fly, they were keep moving on to create such a screening model.
We asked questions to issues we were running into including HP activities, wiki design, learning resources for modeling, and etc. Specifically, for Human Practice part, we found an opportunity to post educational videos designed by each of our teams together online to expand clout. We also shared ideas on HP activities. For example, they mentioned that they had contact some experts associated with their project to consult ideas about their project. This idea inspired our team to contact with government department that is responsible for city operation, which includes garbage management, to discuss prospect of our project and understand current technology and approach on garbage management.
In conclusion, this online collaboration is efficient and helpful for us to improve our project from various angles. What’s more important is that other than experience shared between us, we also gained a chance to post our educational video together, and we became familiar with Worldshaper_Shanghai, which builds a foundation for us to develop further collaboration.
We met in person with iBowu_China which taught us a completely different skillset than the online meeting we had with Worldshaper_Shanghai
On July 22nd 2021, by communication through Wechat, we made an appointment to start an off-line meetup in Beijing Etown Academy with iBowu_China, in order to discuss and introduce both teams’ project, communicate on problems we encountered, and explore whether we have other opportunities to develop further collaborations. In this meeting, the experiment group leader, Ji Zhangcheng and their team advisor of iBowu_China both attended the meetup activity while all the students of our team attended.
Initially, we had a simple ice-breaking activity by giving a brief self-introduction, which includes our responsibilities in the team, from each of us.. Then, we started the meeting.
Firstly, for the experiment and project idea part, we introduced and explained both of our project with PPT. On one hand, our group illuminated our methods of designing and making a fusion protein to increase the working efficiency of mLCC on PET bottles.
Ji Zhangcheng, the experiment group leader of iBowu_China then demonstrated their project. They wanted to reduce the cost of the more expensive glycyrrhetinic acid by hydrolyzing better collected glycyrrhetinic acid into more cost-effective glycyrrhetinic acid. In addition, they wanted to increase the cancer-inhibiting effect of glycyrrhetinic acid by synthesizing proteins such as beta-Gd into glycyrrhetinic acid in a synthetic biological way.
We watched promotion videos from both of our teams. Through this process, we got a closer look on the other team's project. What’s more, we had a deeper and further understanding on different forms and methods that two teams focused on.
We exchanged and asked questions in modeling, HP and other aspects. For modeling part, we learned from them that modeling not only needs the support of its own experimental data, but also needs references from relevant documents. They wanted to promote the knowledge of Chinese herbal medicine through their iGEM project, so they planned to make a documentary about Chinese herbal medicine, in order to promote the quintessence of Chinese culture. We were inspired by this, and we hoped to spread biological knowledge by making videos. Furthermore, they suggested us to do interviews for relevant experts, and shared their interview experience with us. For notebook, which belongs to wiki part, we learned that they were using photographs of their notes and create a PDF document.
Finally, we took each other on a tour of the campus, during which we asked and answered some detailed questions about our projects. In a word, we gained a lot from this offline meetup. We not only expanded the idea of conducting HP activities, but also learned from each other's experimental experience and improved the details of our team's work.
This event also laid the foundation for our future cooperation with iBowu_China, also gave us enlightenments on how to improve our project.
