A Global Problem

The planet’s ecosystem is currently on a path out of balance, caused by our extreme abuse of its natural habitat and valuable resources, for the advancement of our society. An ecosystem in imbalance can have a severe impact on our everyday lives. The unique diversity of the Earth’s inhabitants, will not be the only consequence of such an imbalance. As a more extreme example; scientists believe that humankind, could go extinct, as our fervor drives us to further better our ways of life. Restoring this balance should be the highest priority, in the advancement of our civilization.
One of the most recognized approaches to restore this balance, is the advancement and implementation of technologies for renewable energy. However, there are currently certain limitations on the existing solutions for renewable energy; the intermittency- and the diluteness problem. The intermittency problem describes the discontinuous energy production, with inefficient storage. Whereas the diluteness problem is described as the resource demanding production of technical devices, such as solar cells and batteries.

In a Local Environment

We are a team of young adults, raised to be aware of climate changes and the potential limitations to the continuation of our way of life. We are also a generation that appreciates open source and shared information. A generation, that has been encouraged to constantly challenge the ideas of our peers. With this in mind, we decided the best solution to the eventual energy crisis, would be to seek out experts, the general public, even children, in order to rethink the current notion; That the only way to save our planet, is to compromise our living standards.
Thankfully, through interaction with local experts, we learned that a great deal of people share our belief; that we ought to pursue the advancement of low energy cities with a high quality of life. In fact, we even discovered that our own hometown – Odense – wants to be the greenest, most renewable city in Denmark by 2050 https://www.odense.dk/borger/miljoe-og-affald/klima.
We decided to pursue this goal, by taking on the challenge to create a truly green solution, which will provide both an environmentally friendly source of energy, as well as green aesthetics and naturalistic ambience to compliment a high quality of city-life.
Please keep scrolling if you wish to read more about our solution, or go straight to bioethics, if you wish to read about why we not only could, but ought to do something about the current energy crisis.

Inspiration

Our early ideas were reviewed after attending the Danish Science Festival, where we met several young minds with creative and inspiring ideas. The children would come to our booth with their parents to learn about bacteria, GMO, ethics and iGEM. After which, they would attend our “Draw-a-Bacteria”-competition. While drawing their own unique bacteria, they would present us with detailed stories about their design.

See a selection of their amazing drawings here.

Through this, we felt inspired and decided to revise our ideas. At this point, our project was starting to take shape. They even inspired the physical design for our final product; the PowerLeaf.

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Proper Risk Management

Biosafety and proper risk assessment are important aspects to consider before any handling of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). There are several concerns that must be properly addressed. The safety of the public as well as of the environment, is of the utmost importance, but the safety of the person in direct contact with the GMOs shouldn’t be compromised either. The risk associated with laboratorial work can be evaluated using the statement “Risk = Hazard x Probability” (link). To responsibly assess this inquiry, the entire team was given a mandatory lab safety course held by Lab Technician Simon Rose. In addition, we received a detailed handbook regarding lab safety. This ensured that all our team members were well equipped to work safely in the lab at all times. Throughout the project we have continuously been evaluating the safety of our work. These assessments can be found in the safety form (link).
Furthermore, our team participated in the 5th annual BioBrick workshop hosted by DTU BioBuilders. Here we engaged in a lab safety course before entering their lab. Both of these lab safety courses gave us the necessary knowledge to work safely with GMO, proper handling of waste and the according procedures in case of an emergency.
In the lab, we worked with several potentially harmful chemical agents such as DMSO (dimethyl sulfoxide), ethidium bromide, chloroform, phenol, Congo red, antibiotics and autoclaved glycerol. These chemical agents were handled using gloves at all times, and, whenever deemed necessary, handled in a fume hood. We used a UV board to visualize bands in agarose gels. UV rays are carcinogenic when exposed frequently and for longer periods of time. To reduce the amount of exposure, several precautions were made; gloves, long sleeves and a facial screen were worn at all times and the time spend at the UV board was no longer than the necessary. GMOs were always handled wearing gloves, and all team members wore clean lab coats restricted to the laboratorial areas.

Public and Environmental Risk Assessment

The chassis organisms containing the system is meant to be contained within a container, which should be incorporated into an urban environment. While this device would be a safely enclosed container, it still possess the risk of physical breakage from violent acts or environmental disturbances. It is for this reason, that we consulted a plastics expert, who advised us to use the plastic known as Polycarbonate. This plastic is remarkably durable, with the ability to ward off most physical traumas. As such the plastics expert believe that the container would last in an urban environment for at least 20 years, and most likely more than that. To illustrate the durability of the plastics, he notified us of several devices from the 1970ies made of the same plastic, that still stand strong today.
One of the biggest concerns would be the release of GMOs into nature. While the GMOs used aren’t pathogenetic, they would be able to share the plasmids containing antibiotic resistance selectors to other pathogenic bacteria. Antibiotic resistance in pathogenic bacteria, complicates the treatment of an infected individual, and could in tragic cases be the line between life and death. However small this scenario is, it should be addressed properly. Furthermore, antibiotic resistant E. Coli strains could outmatch some of their fellow E. Coli strains through natural selection. This could negatively affect the natural balance, that we are aiming to restore with the development of the PowerLeaf.
To safely avoid these risks, there should be implemented several kill switch mechanisms into the final device. This could be performed by implementation of a light sensing system into the energy converting unit, which would turn on the kill switch if exposed to light. This would of course mean, that the energy converting unit’s container, would need to block all sunlight. A task that could easily be carried out by adding Carbon Black to the required areas of the container. The energy storing unit, which requires light to actively function, could then have a kill switch which makes it completely dependant on presence of the container. This could be accomplished by having harmless molecules not naturally found in nature circulate in the system. Which should be required for the survival of the energy converting unit. A similar effect could be accomplished by making the energy converting and the energy storing units codependent on each other for their survival. The implementation of such kill switch mechanisms, would tremendously improve the biosafety of the device, by opposing hazards related to any kind of physical breakage.

List of Assessed Items

Chassis Organisms
Escherichia coli strains: K12, TOP10, MG1655, KG22, BW25113, ER25663127
Geobacter Sulfurreducens strain: PCA

Vectors
pSB1A2: An iGEM plasmid backbone carrying an ampicillin resistance gene
pSB1C3: An iGEM plasmid backbone carrying a chloramphenicol resistance gene
pSB1K3: An iGEM plasmid backbone carrying a kanamycin resistance gene
pSB3K3: An iGEM plasmid backbone carrying a kanamycin resistance gene
pSB4K5: An iGEM plasmid backbone carrying a kanamycin resistance gene

Bacteriophages
P1 phage, using its site-specific recombinase for transduction of E. Coli

lets goo

A Statement from the Mayor of Odense

We first decided to reach out to the mayor of Odense, to investigate the possibilities for iGEM to help in the government's endeavours to make Odense a CO₂ neutral city, with a high quality of life.

“We face a series of challenges that we have to recognize, in the chase of a good and sustainable life in the city of Odense. Some of these concern local circumstances, while others contain national and even global issues. We as the municipality can only go so far on our own. So we are entirely dependant on the help of local agents. It makes me so happy, when the students of the city, have taken on the mantle of developing new green technologies, which global issues while also contributing to the city's high quality of life.”

Peter Rahbæk Juel - Mayor of Odense

The core philosophy of our integrated human practices has been to integrate local experts in the development of our project; in order to better comprehend how to use the knowledge gained in the laboratory to shape a product that would compliment Odenses (or beyond) green values. We have also made use of experts in other fields in order to better understand how to shape our project - and so our human practice has influenced everything from the design of our prototype(s), laboratory work to ethical considerations.
We will now walk you through our integrated human practices, so scroll on down to find out more about who we spoke with and how their input and advice came to influence our entire iGEM experience.

Meeting with Kristina Dienhart

For the purpose of a possible implementation of the PowerLeaf into the different areas of Odense city’s renewal, we decided to reach out to Kristina Dienhart. Kristina Dienhart was at this point in time project manager of Smart City Odense – a project within Odense Municipality that seeks to combine urban planning with new technologies and open-data, in order to create a smarter city. We decided to consult mrs. Dienhart, as Smart City Odense shares our core values; working transparently, openly and collaborative, while also sharing know-how. Mrs. Dienhart made us aware of the following necessities for Odense and its citizens - feedback that we have integrated in numerous areas of our overall project. It is important to note that at the time of our meeting with Mrs. Dienhart, our vision of the PowerLeaf was exclusively in the shape of a leaf; a leaf designed to be implemented on various buildings around Odense.

• From Mrs. Dienhart’s point of view, one of the most advantageous attributes of our device, is the the potential for changeability in the size and shape of the PowerLeaf - as this means it could be shaped depending on what urban area we wish to integrate the PowerLeaf within. We had yet to consider the PowerLeaf as a device not limited by physical dimensions, and it’s perhaps the most significant element we took away from our meeting with Mrs. Dienhart. Changeability is a necessity to a city planner, as various laws and aesthetic aspects need to be taken into consideration, when altering or creating an urban environment.
• Accessibility – the citizen will not use our device if it is not easily accessible. This means that the overall design of PowerLeaf – regardless of its aesthetic – always needs to be designed with a user in mind. Offering a mobile-charger in a city-space is only clever insofar that the citizen using the public space is aware of the device and how to easily access it. Reflecting on the advice of Mrs. Dienhart, we decided to reevaluate the means of implementation of our bacterial solar battery in the prototype, to ensure that the need for accessibility and user-comfort is met.
• Mrs. Dienhart supported our notion that offering free and accessible energy within public space could help ensure that the ordinary citizen of Odense uses and stays in the public space for a longer amount of time. Something that is valuable not only to the individual citizen but also to the community as a whole, as it creates a sense of city-cohesion and hence a high quality of city-life.
• Overall Mrs. Dienhart confirmed that our PowerLeaf could play a part in Odenses dream of developing into an even greener and more lively city. She also made us aware that not every neighbourhood in Odense will be desiring the same design, and that we ought to focus on the changeability aspect in the development of our prototype’s design.

Overall Mrs. Dienhart introduced us to several considerations that shaped large parts of our project. Her call for ‘the changeability aspect’ of the PowerLeaf has been used to reconsider the construction of the solar battery’s exterior and sustainability. We do not know the needs of every urban area in Odense; and consequently - with Mrs. Dienhart in mind – we have aimed to create a device that is changeable to a city in movement such as Odense. Mrs. Dienhart therefore challenged what we thought we wanted from a prototype - namely a fixed design - into the belief that we ought to create a prototype that can be shaped and reshaped depending on the requested necessities of the customer.
Furthermore the conversation with Mrs. Dienhart was also a source of inspiration in regards to our ethical and safety thoughts. The belief that while we ought to create a better more sustainable tomorrow for ourselves and future generations, we do not necessarily have to provide an exhaustive description of what that future should like, very much evolved from the changeability aspect, which was brought about by our conversation with Mrs. Dienhart.

Meeting with Rikke Falgreen Mortensen

Mrs. Dienhart also helped to establish contact with Rikke Falgreen Mortensen, manager of the Bolbro’s city-renewal project called MyBolbro. We arranged a meeting with Mrs. Mortensen with the intent of further investigating how the PowerLeaf could and should be integrated into an urban area of Odense - in this case the neighbourhood Bolbro.
Bolbro is an old neighbourhood in Odense historically known to be the home of the working-class, and while Bolbro provides a homely atmosphere known to the locals, it has had a hard time attracting new residents. However, this is subject to change as the neighbourhood in 2016 received a reservation of approximately 1,6 million us dollars to renew its city-space and create an even more appealing and vibrant neighbourhood. This will be achieved by including the locals, as Bolbro is characterized by having a strong, engaging civil society. Mrs. Mortensen is not only an expert in urban renewal but also in how to include local citizens in reshaping the public space in which they reside.
Mrs. Mortensen, as Mrs. Dienhart, also argued that a changeable design would be the optimal solution to fit the challenges, One faces in creating a vibrant, green city-ambience. As such a task depends on preferences, laws and needs. Instead a technology needs to be both flexible and accessible in order to successfully contribute to the process of creating a successful city environment. Furthermore we had a discussion with Mrs. Mortens about the creation of a prototype based on the wishes of Bolbro’s local citizens.

“Hauge’s square is a spot in Bolbro, which we aim to make a central place in Bolbro; a place that invites the citizen to meet and dwell. At the same time it must also be an orientations point, from where citizens and visitors can find their way to other places and attractions in Bolbro. Today the possibility for enjoying the outside consists of the space in Hauge’s square, which is made up by a bakery, a small local library, and a parking lot. However, we believe that the space contains better opportunities. In short, the space must be transformed from primarily being a parking spot to a recreational place with a much more aesthetic design. Your solution should be able to contribute to help citizens recharge their phones, ex. A solution could be implanting the PowerLeaf into a ‘living’ furniture, but where demands for the aesthetic design still remains”

“A part of the vision of this project is the concept of making a pop-up park with differently designed multi-furniture, preferably in wood and organic design, which are removable to the various areas where we are going to develop in the district. It is furniture that should be able to be used to relax in and at the same time also motivates children to move - and there should also be platforms that invite to activity ex. table tennis or a more screened seating for lovers, conversation or work. There is also a need for charging devices and it therefore demands that your solution is an integrated but still mobile solution, as the park will move physically over time”

“Finally, the church / playground is to be developed especially for the young audience, which is a major consumer of power for phones. The place must be a place where the youngsters hang out after school, still a green space where the solution should be integrated into the interior and could keep the target audience children and adolescents. The site is in a socially charged area, so it demands a robustness from of the solution, to help when faced with ex. vandalism”

The making of the furniture as a prototype called for a re-visit of our safety concerns, as children will be climbing and playing on the furniture, it is crucial that the material of the PowerLeaf will not break; a concern we discussed with Flemming Christiansen, which you will be able to read more about next. Just keep scrolling!

Flemming Christiansen

Criteria to the Prototype
Having decided that the exterior of the device would be made entirely from plastic, we set out to.
Plastic is thought of as an undesirable material, due to the difficulties in its disposal. This is due to plastic being of a xenobiotic nature, making it generally recalcitrant to microbial degradation. This predicament is complicated further by biodegradable plastics being of a compensatory nature; sacrificing form-stability and strength for biodegradability. Following these concepts, we can identify the following set of criteria for our material:

• Solar exposure - The material covering the solar cell, must allow sunlight to pass through it to the bacteria.
• UV resistance - As the material will be exposed to the sun, it should be resistant to the UV radiation.
• Bacterial growth - The material must support, or not be toxic to the bacteria.
• Easy to mold - As the device is only dependant on the insides, the outside could be molded depending on the co
• Durability - material must be able to withstand hard conditions and heavy weight.
• Temperature -The material must allow for appropriate temperature for the bacteria, despite the constant sun exposure.
• Longevity - We would like for the material to have as long a durability as possible, as replacing the leaves often would prove cumbersome. In this regard we are aiming for at least twenty years.
• Price - We are looking for a material that is as cheap as possible, without sacrificing the necessary criteria.
• Environmentally friendly - Considering the goal of this project being the creation of an environmentally friendly energy source, the ideal material would be as environmentally friendly as possible.

Interview with Flemming Christiansen
For the purpose of finding the necessary materials for our prototype, we contacted one of the leading plastic experts in Denmark, Flemming Christiansen, who acts as the market development manager of SP Moulding. He has been acting as a plastics consultant, since his graduation as a master of science in Engineering with a speciality in plastics in the 1970ies. A meeting was quickly arranged, where we fleshed out the criteria, the technical design, the material and the possible price of creating the PowerLeaf.
In accordance with our established criteria, mr. Christiansen suggested that we use the plastic known as Polycarbonate, specifically Lexon 103R-III (kilde). The material, however, cannot fulfill the criteria on it’s own. Therefore, Mr. Christiansen suggested that we take a few liberties with it. In order to prevent the exposed part of the prototype from degradation by UV radiation, we will be adding certain additives to the surface of the exposed part. This doesn’t hinder the sunlight from entering the device and thus the bacteria, but just increases the UV-resistance of the material. During our consultations with Mr. Christiansen, we reached the topic of what to do in case of a breach. Should the container against all expectations be damaged, the GMOs inside would be exposed to the environment. The solution we came up with was the possible implementation of a kill-switch in the energy storage unit, making it vulnerable to light. Should the bacteria of said unit be exposed to sunlight, they would die, and since it’s counterpart in the solar cell unit would be dependent on the continued coexistence of the two units, the entire GMO system would be purged. With Mr. Christiansen’s help we designed the container for Cell 2 of the same material as Cell 1, albeit with an added compound. The container for Cell 2 would be covered with Carbon Black, which has the ability to absorb sunlight, thus leaving the compartment itself in darkness.
The process of constructing our device would be through an extensive use of Injection Moulding, which is considered pricey equipment. Next, one must purchase the required material, which at above 1 ton would cost around 4-5.5 USD per kg. As such it’s an expensive material compared to others, but it’s longevity and durability means one would not be required to replace the devices for a long time. Lastly, we discussed the reusability of Polycarbonate, which Mr. Christiansen assured us was of no concern, as the material could be reused and recycled with ease.

Meeting with Ann Zahle Andersen

During our iGEM experience we met with Business Developer Ann Zahle Andersen twice. Mrs. Andersen had arranged two workshops for us based on a business canvas. This helped us to understand our project in a larger perspective. She encouraged us to view our project as if it was supposed to be a startup business, and through this perspective we gained a better comprehension of society’s pull and pushes on a project like ours. In a time of crisis she discussed our project’s advantages and disadvantages from a business perspective. A perspective and talk that forced us as a team to get to the bottom of what we found important about our project. And to truly appreciate the advice we have been given throughout our human practice work, as if we were a business trying to understand the needs of a costumer.

Upcoming Meeting with Borgernes Hus

‘Borgernes Hus’ is a new initiative offered by the city’s central library. The name translates to ‘House of the Citizen’s’. The house aims to offer guidance and advice to projects such as our own. It is meant to aid Odense in its journey towards the status of a modern, danish city. Unfortunately, the building remains under construction until after our trip to Boston, meaning that they have been busy finishing said construction while our project was underway. It is for this reason, that we along with director Jens Winther Bang Petersen decided that a future collaboration would be the most suitable solution.
It is our hope, that a collaboration with Borgernes Hus will be of assistance to future iGEM SDU-Denmark teams as well as students from Odense. In extension of this, we hope that such a collaboration will help them see the benefits in collaborating with local agents.

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Building a Product for a Better Future

The purpose of the PowerLeaf, is to provide a greener alternative to the currently available energy sources. An important aspect of such an undertaking, is to limit the use of depleting resources, such as silicon, in the construction of the device itself. This is accomplished through the use of the most common resources available. This will contribute to our dream of building a better future, where fear of reaching a critical shortage of natural resources has been eliminated. The production of the PowerLeaf itself is made easier too, as the device benefits from the bacteria's ability to self-replicate, if provided with essential nutrients.
As tools for genomic editing improves, the advancement of biological devices will conceivably become even more complex and independant. They will do so by introducing new metabolic pathways inspired from other organisms using genetic engineering. This could potentially allow the PowerLeaf to become completely independent through its self-replication, by producing their own essential nutrients directly from unwanted pollution in the environment. A process that would lead to cleaner cities, along with providing a natural solution to sustainable energy.
The PowerLeaf will be representing a natural leaf design, thus leading to a nature-in-city ambiance, which can have a soothing effect in the ever so stressful cities. Not only will the design represent a plant leaf, but some of the key functionality aspects of the device are inspired from those of a plant leaf. Hereby, we refer to photo synthesis and building cellulose as a biological product.

Genetic Code Expansions for Biological Engineering

Expanding beyond those technologies used in today's Synthetic Biology, many research groups are working on genetic code expansion. We had an interesting talk from post.doc Julius Fredens, about his work on genetic code expansion. Once a technology like this advances, it will completely revolutionize biological engineering, including that of the PowerLeaf. Genetic code expansion could be used for optimization of the systems in the PowerLeaf; optimization of nanowires, improvement of the light-sensing system and making the breakdown of cellulose inducible.

Further Development of Our Project

For those of you, that found interest in our project this year and would like to continue on improving it; this is the section you were looking for. We have listed the systems and the related information on theses needed for the device we envisioned, however you should not be limited to those. You are more than welcome to contact any of us regarding questions to the project, you can find our email addresses to each of us in the Team section of the Credits.

Systems that did work:

• Light sensing system, this is used by the energy storing unit to reduce metabolism during times of the day with low amounts of solar energy available for the energy production, i.e. night time. We had several failed attempts during the development and optimization of the system and have through this learned a lot about the system. Furthermore, the system was modelled to gain an even greater understanding about the regulation of its light sensitivity. You can read about the work we did regarding the light sensing system here.


• Cellulose consumption, this was used by the energy converting unit to degrade cellulose to glucose from which electrons could be retrieved. This system is probably the most straightforward, but was also worked on very extensively. You can read about the work we did regarding cellulases here.


• Optimisation of the nanowires, this system was heavily inspired by the following article (link). We did create the required BioBricks to make the system work, but still requires some extensive work to actually implement it. You can read more about the work regarding the nanowires here.

Systems that didn’t work:

• CO₂ fixation, we retrieved the parts from the Bielefeld 2014 iGEM team and worked on assembling their parts into one fully functional BioBrick. However, we had a lot of trouble assembling it, and it seems that Bielefeld 2014 didn’t succeed on combining all the components needed for CO₂ fixation either. So be aware of this. It seems like a simple assembly, but has caused us lots of problems. Some of the larger BioBricks tend to do that when they reach a certain size. You can give it a go anyways, but make sure to have a backup-plan, or maybe even try to redo the CO₂ fixation by using a system from a different organism. We essentially decided to let go of this system of the PowerLeaf to focus on some of the other components. You can still read about our work done regarding the CO₂ fixation here.


• Cellulose production and secretion from the fixated CO₂. These parts were retrieved from the Imperial College London 2014 iGEM team, this, much like the CO₂ fixation, gave us trouble when it came to the assembly of the large BioBricks. It did seem that Imperial College London 2014 made their system work, but in the end, they proved it to be very inefficient of producing cellulose. So, this part could be the very thing to improve. You can still read about our work regarding the cellulose production and secretion here.

Systems we didn’t work on, but should be implemented in the device:

• ATP production from solar energy comes to mind as one of the most essential system needed for the PowerLeaf to actually work. We had to pick the some of the systems to work on, and at the end of the day, this was the project our supervisors recommended to cut, if we wanted to work on more than just one system. Instead, we had a great Skype call early in the project with the Australian Macquarie iGEM team, whom has been working for many years with the implementation of the photosynthetic systems in E. coli. You could always contact them regarding the photosynthetic systems, they are super nice.


• Making the interaction between the cellulose and the cellulases a controllable element, so it could be controlled in the same way of an on/off switch. This is also a very crucial part of the PowerLeaf, since it would otherwise be generating an electrical current non-stop. Even when it is not needed, and thereby overthrow the potential for long term-storage of solar energy. We believe this can be solved either through precise gene circuit regulation or by physical compartmentalization, however there might be even more elegant ways to solve this issue.


• Physical engineering of the hardware required to make the device work. It should be possible for the energy storing unit to convert CO₂ to cellulose, which will produce O₂, thus making its chamber aerobic. For the energy converting unit to effectively transfer retrieved electrons to an anode, it will need to be in an anaerobic chamber. This will be a very difficult obstacle to overcome and requires some out-of-the-box thinking, to come up with a novel idea without having to require more energy than produced by the system. Engineering of the hardware required, e.g. anode, chamber, circulation of important nutrients and use of the correct plastic, is really important to make a workable prototype of the PowerLeaf. We worked out the optimal type of plastic for the system with the help of local experts. You can read about our work regarding the plastic here.

Ideas from Our Idea Generation

List of ideas from our idea generation

Laboratory, Technical and General support

We would like to give a special thanks to our supervisors:

• Assistant professor Mikkel Girke Jørgensen, for his general support and advice on the project, the laboratory, the fundraising and our team synergy.
• Ph.D. student and former iGEM participant Patrick Rosendahl Andreassen, for his guidance and technical assistance in the laboratory.
• Ph.D student and former iGEM participant Thøger Jensen Krogh, for his help in developing the wiki, as well as his laboratory guidance.
• Cand.phil student and former iGEM participant Tim Munk, for his focus on team dynamics and advice for our human practices.

We would also like to thank:

• Academic assistant Tina Kronborg, for her guidance in the lab, as well as for providing us with lab equipment.
• Medical Laboratory Technician Simon Rose, for giving us a course in lab safety, risk assessment and general guidance in the lab.
• Postdoc Oona Sneoyenbos-West, for providing us with Geobacter Sulfurreducens PCA and the necessary knowledge on how to grow this particular bacterial strain. Furthermore, she helped us greatly with helpful discussions regarding the advancement of our project. We would also like to thank her for lending us her laboratory, for the cultivation of Geobacter Sulfurreducens PCA.
• Postdoc Satoshi Kawaichi, for his assistance in measuring the electrical conductivity of our nanowires, as well as providing us with knowledge on the Geobacter Sulfurreducens.
• Business scout and PhD Ann Zahle Andersen, for presenting us with the necessary tools for the development of innovative business ideas.
• Stud.scient Kristian Severin Rasmussen, for helping us use the oCelleScope for testing.
• Stud.scient Brian Baltzar, for hosting a workshop regarding Adobe Illustrator, which has been a great help to the development of graphics for our wiki.
• Ph.D student Richard Xavier Etienne Valli, for helpful discussions in the lab.
• Software Developer Jonas Hartwig, for his help with some JQuery functionality on the wiki.
• Stud.scient Birka Jensen, for general advice and suggestion on how to build an iGEM wiki.
• Stud.med Ida Charlotte Hvam, for helpful discussions on the development of our wiki, helping with last minute figures to the wiki, as well as proof-reading of its content.
• Ph.D student and current iGEM advisor of the team from Bielefeld, Boas Pucker, for providing us with BioBricks created by former iGEM teams from Bielefeld.
• Our iGEM HQ Representative, Traci Haddock-Angelli, for her general guidance and assistance in registering our meetup to the official iGEM meetup page.
• iGEM HQ Representative and Lab Technician, Abigail Sison, for her help in registering our meetup to the official iGEM meetup page.
• Stud.polyt Oliver Klinggaard, for helpful discussions on the implementation of a pan-tilt system and for providing os with his project report on the subject.
• DTU BioBuilders, for hosting their 5th Annual Biobrick Workshop. And for attending our meetup.
• The UNIK Copenhagen iGEM team, for hosting the Nordic Meetup. And for attending our meetup.
• The TU-Delft iGEM team, for hosting the European Meetup.
• Mimo Antabi, for adding our adverts to the university info-screens preceding the Danish Research Festival.
• Allan Haurballe Madsen, for helping us with our appearance at the Danish Science Festival.
• Outreach Coordinator and PhD Lise Junker Nielsen, for for helping us with the Danish Science Festival as well as with the visit from the Academy for Talented Youth. We would also like to thank her for providing us with iPads for laboratory use.
• The Danish Science Festival, for having us at their annual event. We would also like to thank all the visitors who attended our booth.
• The high schools Odense Technical gymnasium, Mulernes Legatskole and Academy for Talented Youth, for letting us present our project.
• The UNF Biotech Camp, for having us present our project to the attending students.
• The elementary school, Odense Friskole, for letting us present our project for their 8th grade students.
• All former iGEM participants from SDU, for attending our preliminary presentation and giving us feedback before the Giant Jamboree.
• The following groups and associations, for helping us develop our human practices: SP-Moulding, Borgernes Hus, Kommunens bygninger, Bolbro - områdefornyelse, Odense Byudvikling.
• Matlab user Nezar, for an easy implementation of the gillespie algorithm into matlab.

Sponsors

Thanks to:

• The Faculty of Science at University Southern Denmark, for providing us with the fundamental funds required for our participation in the iGEM competition, and for providing us with lab benches and essential equipment.
• The Faculty of Health Sciences at University of Southern Denmark, for their much needed funding of our project.
• Integrated DNA Technologies, for providing us with 20 kilobases of gBlock gene fragments.
• SnapGene, for providing our team with memberships to their software during the duration of the competition.
• PentaBase, for sponsoring us with 10.000 DKK worth of oligos and a further 10% discount.
• Eurofins Genomics, for providing us with an 80% discount on a Mix2Seq kit.
• CO₂NeutralWebsite, for attributing to green energy in our name, and thereby eliminating the carbon footprint our wiki makes.
• Piktochart, for extending their student-offer to our mail aswell, providing us with easy access to great graphics.

Litterature

Project Synergism

We have all been working together in every aspect of our project. Nevertheless, some people have had to focus on some areas more than others. The main groups are listed as follows;

• The group focusing on fixation of CO₂, production of cellulose and light-sensing dormancy consisted of Sarah Hyllekvist Jørgensen, Ellen Gammelmark, Sofie Mozart Mortensen and Emil Bøgh Hansen.
• The group focusing on the breakdown of cellulose to create an electrical current and optimisation of nanowires consisted of Felix Boel Pedersen, Frederik Bartholdy Flensmark Neergaard, Jonas Borregaard Eriksen and Malte Skovsager Andersen.
• The group focusing on the implementation of the device in an urban environment, as well as our outreach consisted of Emil Søndergaard, Frederik Mark Højsager and Lene Vest Munk Thomsen.
• The mathematical modelling of our project was single-handedly performed by Emil Vyff Jørgensen.
• Coding and design of the wiki was performed by Felix Boel Pedersen and Frederik Mark Højsager.

Danish ethics and wiki workshop at SDU

In the spirit of the iGEM community, we hosted a meetup in August for our fellow Danish iGEM teams: InCell from the University of Copenhagen (KU), and the Snakebite Detectives from the Technical University of Denmark (DTU). A total of seven members from these two teams joined us for breakfast and attended our meetup. This was the first ever iGEM meetup hosted by our university, so we decided to make it memorable. We decided to take advantage of our interdisciplinary team roster, and designed a wiki and ethics workshop to aid our fellow Danish teams.
We utilised the broad interdisciplinary profile of our team, to have Emil S. and Lene present the perception of science throughout the history and the bioethical aspects of GMO, respectively. Emil S. has a Bachelor of Arts in History, and Lene has a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy. The ethical presentation was purposely turned into an ethical debate, where viewpoints of ethical conduct were exchanged and discussed. After the presentations and discussions on bioethics, it was time for the wiki workshop.
The SDU-Denmark iGEM teams have won the Best Wiki prize several times in the past. As such, we wanted to share the knowledge gained from our university's past. To facilitate this exchange of knowledge on wiki development, we recruited our current supervisor Thøger Jensen Krogh, to hold presentations on how to design a good wiki. He was qualified for this task through his role as the designer of the SDU iGEM 2013 and 2014 team wikis, which won the special prize on both occasions. During the presentation, Thøger had arranged several exercises where the attendees got to mingle, discuss and evaluate their wikis. This resulted in a steady flow of information and constructive feedback between all three teams.
After a long day of learning and discussing, we went for a tour around campus under the summer sun, which concluded in a visit to the roof terrace of the campus dormitory, followed by dinner. It was requested, by our fellow Danish teams, to make the SDU meetup a tradition. They suggested for all of us to meet again closer to the wiki deadline, to evaluate each team’s progress.

Attending meetups

Besides hosting our own meetup, we also attended several ones during our iGEM experience. The first of which, was the 5th Annual Biobrick Workshop in March, hosted by the Technical University of Denmark. This meetup not only gave us our first experience with Biobricks, but also worked as a foundation for friendships across the teams.
Our second meetup, the Nordic iGEM Conference, was hosted by the University of Copenhagen in June. The main focus of this meetup, was the traditional mini Jamboree. Participating in this gave us useful feedback from the judges, as well as from our fellow iGEM teams. This helped us greatly shape and develop our project for the better.
To celebrate the beginning of our iGEM summer, we went on a road trip to attend the European Meetup, hosted by the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. Here we discussed ideas regarding our project at a poster session, learned from all the other great iGEM projects, and made new friends from all over Europe.

Further collaboration

In our project, we have been in contact with the iGEM teams from Bielefeld and Imperial College, who helped us by sending crucial parts relevant to the execution of our project.
As our project revolves around global warming and green sustainable energy, we were thrilled to hear about the iGEM Goes Green initiative from the TU Dresden iGEM team. Following their guidelines, we have calculated the carbon footprint of our laboratory work and travelling. We have, in part, tried to make up for our carbon footprint, by changing our travelling and eating habits in our everyday lives. Furthermore, we have reduced our daily electricity consumption, our wiki became CO₂ neutral and we made an effort to sort our waste. The full report can be scrutinized here.
We sought expertise from the Macquarie iGEM team, who has worked with the implementation of photosynthesis in E. coli since 2013. We had an interesting Skype call with their team, where we discussed the particular challenges the previous teams had experienced throughout their projects. During the skype conversation, we realised, that they could benefit from our knowledge on the electron transport pathways, that we used for our project.
We were also able to help the Stony Brook iGEM team by facilitating communication with members of the SDU iGEM team from 2016. Shortly after the European meetup, we received an email from the Cologne-Düsseldorf iGEM team regarding a postcard campaign, which we gave some feedback on.
During our project we received several questionnaires from fellow teams. We were delighted to help the teams by answering their questionnaires. The questionnaires were from:

• Waterloo - regarding 3D printing of lab equipment
• Dalhousie - regarding the common conception of science literature
• University of Washington - regarding communication platforms used by teams
• Vilnius-Lithuania - regarding cotransformation
• Nanjing-China - regarding whole-cell sensor for formaldehyde
• University of Sydney - regarding the use and accessibility of insulin
• Georgia State - regarding disabilities
• Greece - regarding modular RNAi-based logic circuits

lots of fun stories and pictures

All the best,
SDU-Denmark 2017