Team:Northwestern/Collaborations
Fostering relationships within their synthetic biology community is a crucial component to the iGEM journey. By collaborating with other teams, we were able to aid our peers across the world while getting to know them a little better. Team VesiCure collaborated with iGEM teams by answering surveys, exchanging protocols, planning experiments and participating in an international effort to spread awareness and make synthetic biology more popular.
Oxford University collaboration
The University of Oxford iGEM team also spent the summer working with outer membrane vesicles and constructing fusion proteins. By Skyping with their team, we had the opportunity to discuss different OMV purification protocols and exchange ideas about mathematical modeling translocation pathways, protein size considerations for export and periplasmic targeting. Learn more about Oxford's project by clicking here.
UIUC Collaboration
In our project we have used signal sequences to direct a large protein (saCas9) to the bacterial periplasm. We have used Gibson assembly multiple times to switch between different signal sequences. UIUC is working on developing a cheaper, but equally effective, Gibson assembly method. We collaborated with UIUC and prepared a cloning experiment swapping signal sequences to test their new protocol. Click on the bubble below to view the test conditions:
Postcard campaign
Interview with Dr. London
Dr. London is a WGN radio correspondent and currently resides in rural Maine. Dr. London practices general medicine and is active in healthcare policy. Dr.London recently made news as she devised a reusable epinephrine autoinjector to combat Epipen’s controversial price increase.
Dr. London emphasized the importance of physician-patient relationships and public health policy to lowering the rate of antibiotic overuse. Hospitals are essentially hotbeds of bacteria, more so than individual physician practices. People without insurance (due to de funding) also have the tendency to wait until things are bad before rushing to the emergency room, where carers unfamiliar with the patient prescribe antibiotics “just in case” the problem is a bacterial infection, which it's often not.
Dr. London believes our project is a clever idea, as antibiotic resistance must be attacked on all fronts with as many new ideas possible. The onus, however, lies with us to educate the public about gene editing, which often sounds like a dangerous idea to the average citizen.
Takeaway: We tried to take Dr.Londons emphasis on educating the average citizen that genetically modified does not inherently correspond to something negative. For example, while presenting to CTD students, we made an “ethical consideration slide” that balanced the pros and cons of potential genetic engineering applications. Projects such as experimental mosquito (i.e to fight Zika) or GMO foods often get a bad rep in the media, but have many positives such as disease eradication and feeding hungry populations.
