Difference between revisions of "Team:Austin UTexas/Collaborations"

Collaborations

To fulfill the silver medal requirement, we collaborated with the Texas Tech and Rice iGEM teams. We reached out to discuss ways in which all parties involved could cooperate and assist each other in order to enhance each team project.

In the spirit of collaboration, the UT Austin team reached out to both Rice and Texas Tech to formally invite both teams to participate in the University of Texas 2017 Fall Research Undergraduate Symposium. Upon this invitation, each team began electronically communicating with one another in order to brainstorm ways in which collaboration could benefit and improve each of the team projects.

Prior to the meetup, multiple ideas were considered for how each team could assist the others. On September 23, 2017, iGEM teams from Texas Tech University, Rice University, and the University of Texas met at the Undergraduate Research Symposium in Austin, Texas. Here, each team formally presented their projects to an audience and panel of judges as part of the program. After the symposium presentations concluded, all teams met to discuss specific collaboration details and provide feedback to one another. As a relatively new team, Texas Tech received extensive constructive criticism from us because we have more overall experience participating in the iGEM competition and completing the requirements. Texas Tech presented a draft of the initial PowerPoint presentation they were planning to showcase at the iGEM Jamboree. Darron Tharp, newcomer to the Texas Tech team and iGEM, was the main presenter. Tharp presented the research slides in their entirety, then we critiqued each slide to help improve content, formatting, and presentation technique utilized. Texas Tech asked several questions about the physical competition that we clarified to the best of our ability. This series of feedback with the presentation was repeated with team Rice. After both teams had their presentations assessed and critiqued by team UT Austin and vice versa, the joint effort was continued by discussing a more direct means of collaborating.

At the meetup, a GroupMe chat was created with the student leaders from all teams. This was the main source of communication throughout the weeks ahead. In this group chat the UT Austin team reached out to Rice to discuss and collaborate with them on modeling. Eve Sharpee, from the UT Austin team, discussed various ways to improve the modeling mechanisms on their presentation with Jack Terrell, head team leader for modeling from Rice. In the coming weeks ahead, Rice answered any questions from UT Austin and made sure to provide guidance in creating the graphics that would essentially be used for modeling in the iGEM Jamboree presentation and wiki page.

Texas Tech provided assistance by attempting to transform Lactobacillus plantarum with a variation of the Speer (1) protocol previously attempted by team UT Austin. As a way to troubleshoot issues encountered during the initial transformation attempts, we felt it would be helpful for another team to work with the protocol and identify if the procedure was too simplistic or if there was an issue with how team UT Austin performed the procedure. Texas Tech confirmed that the protocol first used by team UT Austin was not efficient and did not function as expected, leading team UT Austin to adapt a different procedure and eventually completing the successful transformation of Lactobacillus plantarum.Through this process, via the protocol provided by team UT Austin, Texas Tech acquired experience with electroporation. They are more familiar with chemical transformations, so Rachel Johnson corresponded with Brandon Palomo to describe general advice on how to successfully electroporate. Quick recovery of electroporated cells, proper resistance and voltage on the machine and proper concentrations of plasmid and cell stocks were discussed as well as various pieces of advice that UT Austin has primarily learned through experience and routine use of electroporation.

Collaboration efforts by the Rice University iGEM team can be found here: Team:Rice/Collaborations

Collaboration efforts by the Texas Tech University iGEM team can be found here: Team:LUBBOCK_TTU/Collaborations