Team:Bielefeld-CeBiTec/HP/Silver

Human Practice Silver

Literature Workshop

On the 14th and 22th of January 2017, we organized our own literature workshop to facilitate in depth discussion about synthetic biology projects. The entire iGEM Team Bielefeld-CeBiTec 2017 as well as additional students with a strong interest in synthetic biology participated successfully. Everyone presented an iGEM project to inform us about previous projects and the possibilities the iGEM competition provides. Additionally, presentations about current research were given to enhance discussions about novel projects. By analyzing and discussing former iGEM projects we gained great insight in the structure and the requirements of iGEM. Among other projects like “The Transformers – from Carbon Dioxide to Biofuel” from the iGEM Team Bielefeld-CeBiTec 2014 and “MARSS - Modulated Acetosyringon Receptor Sensor System” from the iGEM Team Bielefeld-CeBiTec 2010 have been presented. It demonstrated that neither the fixation of carbon dioxide, producing the biofuel isobutanol from carbon dioxide nor a sensor for capsaicin have an innovative character, which is a critical criterion for any successful iGEM project. Already at the beginning of our project phase, we kept the giant jamboree and our final presentation in mind. Therefore, each team member prepared two presentations in English, to improve our presentation and communication skills in front of a bigger audience. Several scientific discussions had a great impact on our project. The presentation about the minimal genome promoted the work on our biosafety report. One talk described the application of a FRET system to investigate quorum sensing. This inspired us to utilize FRET for one application in our project. During the entire weekend, there was one topic that always recurred: CRISPR/Cas9. Due to the very broad range of applications, we identified its huge benefit for our own project. CRISPR/Cas9 is critical for our retention system, to ensure that the unnatural bases are preserved in the genome. Since this literature workshop contributed significantly to the development of our project, we recommend it to other teams. Looking at previous project is very helpful to identify a novel topic for the next iGEM participation.

Figure 1: Some impressions of our literature workshop.

Merck

Merck is a leading company for products in the pharmaceutical and chemical sectors. Their expertise consists of three mayor sectors: Healthcare, Life Science and Performance Materials. This wide variety of subject areas ensures Mercks status as a global player. Their close collaboration with scientists ensures the high-quality of their products and know-how. Merck has supported the iGEM Bielefed-CeBiTec teams for seven years. We are grateful for their continues scientific support and expertise. Back in August, we visited Merck to present our final project idea and the first results. Our visit was organized by Prof. Dr. Herget, who has been a great supporter of the iGEM-Teams Bielefeld for several years.

Figure 2: iGEM Bielefeld-CeBiTec 2017 team members Olga Schmidt and Markus Haak presenting our project in front of the Merck scientists.

The following discussion dealt particularly with possible in vitro and in vivo approaches and the ethical concerns regarding our project. They confirmed our idea to add in vitro experiments as an additional control for our project. The moral concers have also been addressed. Therefore we designed a survey and asked for second opinions in a variety of meetings with ethicists. This eventuated in our report “ChImp - Chances and Implication of an Expanded Genetic Code”, from which we derive guidelines and recommendations for work awareness in science. Visiting Merck is valuable in more than just one way: we did not just gain experience in holding a presentation in front of experienced researchers, but also received great advice for the future development of our project. We are excited to visit Merck again next year to present our final results and the progress we have made.

Figure 3: iGEM Bielefeld 2017 team members Olga Schmidt and Markus Haak with representatives from the iGEM Bielefeld 2016 team and Merck.