For controlling the efficiency of the newly developed methane biosensor, it was necessary to have an equipment as reference. Therefore, we looked for former iGEM teams who dealt with methane and might have a basic gadget which is able to determine the concentration of methane. The iGEM Braunschweig (https://2014.igem.org/Team:Braunschweig) modified
E. coli in order to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases. They intended to place these bacteria in cow’s rumen, which is a serious source of methane emission, where the bacteria would have transformed methane into non-greenhouse gases. They wanted to know how much their bacteria can reduce the methane emission, therefore, they created collaboration with iGEM Aachen (https://2014.igem.org/Team:Aachen), and thanks to this collaboration, they was given a low-cost DIY methane sensor (https://2014.igem.org/Team:Aachen/Collaborations/Braunschweig).
We liked the construct very much, so we asked Team Aachen for the plans and the program of the sensor and we received valuable help, which we appreciated very much. Thank you!
UNebraska-Lincoln 2017
Since all scientific work should be carried out at the highest level human and environmental safety, we found it important to spread the priority of biosafety. Team UNL 2017 (https://2017.igem.org/Team:UNebraska-Lincoln) aimed to teach other teams to form their Safety cases. They asked us to help creating their Safety case, and we advised them some further aspects how they could develop their well-written work (https://2017.igem.org/Team:UNebraska-Lincoln/Collaborations#hungary). We also received useful help from UNebraska-Lincoln team so we could accomplish the Safety part of our project.
To be able to finalize our construct, it was needed to have an effective promoter, which can be used in the bacterium Methylococcus capsulatus. We inquired whether they know a possible promoter, and hopefully it was not an unknown question to the UNL 2017 Team. Thank you very much!
European iGEM Meetup organised by TU Delft
Two of our teammates participated in a European iGEM meeting in the Netherlands in Delft as the only high school iGEM team and also the only one from Eastern Europe. It was held on the 7th and 8th of July and we had the chance to meet several iGEM teams and scientific researchers there. Participants had the opportunity to attend lectures held by university professors about synthetic biology and responsability while working on a synthetic biology experiment. It was a great pleasure for us to talk to others with similar interests about our scientific research work. Every team brought a poster to this excellent meeting as a result of which we could have a deeper insight into other iGEM teams' project. In our experience, the TU Delft team provided a great chance to make friends from the iGEM world and collaborate with other participant teams. We extremely appreciated all of the precious, practical and helpful collaborations given by others. In the name of the Methungeny team, I would like to thank you the possibility to show our project to others, TU Delft! (https://2017.igem.org/Team:TUDelft)
