Team:Stockholm/Collaborations
We came into contact with NUS 2017 as our biocontainment strategies shared many similarities and we thought it would be interesting to cooperate and achieve more together. We offered them the mini Tn7 kit, previously received by iGEM HQ and the pTNS2 plasmid, necessary for the genome integration of their biobricks. They confirmed to have received the plasmids and successfully integrated biobricks into the genome of their bacteria. NUS 2017 offered us their expertise in modelling and they simulated our biocontainment system. Our collaboration was of great help to us as NUS were able to pinpoint a few undesired responses and limitations of our design. To read more about our modelling, please click here.
We collaborated with the Uppsala iGEM team in organising and hosting a panel debate with the title of “The Ethics of Engineering Life”. We invited three experts in the field, and in total over 80 persons showed up to the event. This was one of our events for public engagement and education. For more information, please click here.
In the beginning of June we all went down to Copenhagen to participate in the annual Nordic iGEM Conference (NiC), this year hosted by iGEM Team Copenhagen. The teams present at the conference were DTU-Denmark, SDU-Denmark, UCopenhagen, Aalto-Helsinki, Chalmers-Gothenburg, Linkoping_Sweden, Stockholm, Uppsala and Lund. During the weekend we got the opportunity to take part in workshops and presentations about ethics, fundraising and business development. There was also a “mini Jamboree” where each of the 9 teams got to present their project (still in its early stage for most of us). After the mini Jamboree, there was an organised feedback session where every team had the chance to discuss inputs and raise questions.
We are grateful for iGEM Team Copenhagen for arranging this fun conference, and for the meaningful feedback we received from all the teams that took part.
In September, some members of iGEM TU Darmstadt visited us in Stockholm together with a high school class from the Johanna-Geissmar-Gymnasium Mannheim. It was nice to meet a new team as well as potential iGEMers while exchanging ideas on both of our projects, sharing our good and not so good experiences with iGEM so far. TU Darmstadt also helped us by taking part in our recruitment event for iGEM Stockholm 2018, where they explained why they joined iGEM, and why the attendees of the event should join Stockholm’s next iGEM team. Furthermore, we are helping iGEM TU Darmstadt to establish and refine the structure of their iGEM organisation.
Throughout the project we have been in a close collaboration with SGEM, the iGEM Stockholm alumni organisation created by the very first iGEM Stockholm team in 2015. For more information about SGEM, please click here
A meme is most often a picture with a humorous text. Memes are mostly used to spread feelings of humour, recognition and a sense of belonging. We know that working on an iGEM project all summer can be tough, and that is one of the reasons we decided to create iGEM memes: to try to bring the whole iGEM community together through laughter. In total, we have gathered over 900 followers on both accounts, resulting in a collaboration with almost 1 000 old, current and new iGEMers across the world.
We have used both Instagram and Facebook as our platforms. All the memes we have posted are created by us, iGEM Stockholm, or submitted by other iGEMers. iGEM memes got so popular, that we ended up creating the challenge “Meme of the week”, where iGEMers would submit memes, and the best one would win the honour of being posted on a Monday.
There was even one person who contacted us on Instagram, who was interested in starting a new iGEM team after finding our meme page!
iGEM Memes has brought the old, the current and the future iGEMers together. Thereby, we consider that social media and humour should be a part of the iGEM spirit and community.
This year (2017), Lund participated in the iGEM competition with their very first team. To set up a team and the structure around it, is a challenging task. We were happy to help iGEM Lund in their initial steps of establishing an iGEM team by providing templates for sponsoring contracts and for bylaws of an association. Furthermore, we have been in regular contact throughout the project to discuss project development, arising issues and how challenges can be solved.
After receiving feedback about how difficult Human Practices can be for someone not familiar with it, iGEM Stockholm decided to create a handbook to help teams to master their Human Practices. We thought that the best way to accomplish this handbook was to collaborate with previous successful teams. We reached out to all previous winners and nominated teams for Human Practices and asked them for their help. The teams we collaborated with was Stockholm 2016, OLS_Canmore 2016, Imperial 2016, Groningen 2016, Bielefeld 2015, William and Mary 2015, UofC_Calgary 2016, Cornell NY 2016, Paris Bettencourt 2016. Read hour handbook here
iGEM teams
NUS 2017 - Modelling our biocontainment system
iGEM Uppsala - Panel Discussion
Nordic iGEM Conference, NiC
TU Darmstadt
Stockholm Genetically Engineered Machines - SGEM
iGEM Memes
Lund
Human Practices Handbook
