Team:NYU Abu Dhabi/HP/Silver
High School Workshop
On October 1, 2017, the NYUAD iGEM team invited 18 high school students and 2 teachers from Brighton College in Abu Dhabi, UAE, to experience an iGEM research environment. This one-day workshop provided the students with the opportunity to channel their interest in both biology and engineering. This is the first high school workshop that is tailored to exposing talented high school students to iGEM in the UAE.
In the beginning of the workshop, the NYUAD team gave a presentation on iGEM and how the students can get involved by potentially joining future NYUAD teams. Through this presentation, the students also learned the important connection between biology and engineering in the context of iGEM and the synthetic biology field. This presentation was followed by the first workshop of the day: GLO, Bacteria, GLO, which taught the students how to transform pGLO DNA into the E. coli cloning vector using the heat shock method. The NYUAD team walked them through basic laboratory techniques and bacterial transformation, which is integral to an iGEM team’s success. The students then experienced the engineering environment through the second workshop Arduino + LED, which taught the students how to integrate many elements to create a device such as interactive design, programming, and circuitry. The students learned the basics of programming and circuit design by creating their own simple circuit using LEDs and Arduino, an open source electronic platform. Besides completing the workshop, the students also received a copy of the NYUAD team’s magazine Synthetic Biology 101 as a source for further learning about the advances in synthetic biology.
The NYUAD team is proud to have pioneered the first iGEM-specific workshop for high school students in the UAE. The workshop achieved the original aim of propagating the impact of iGEM in the region and encouraging interest in scientific research among high school students. In the future, the NYUAD team envisions similar workshops that can reach a larger audience in the UAE.
How do you start an iGEM Team?
One Saturday evening, inspired by a TED talk that he recently watched on iGEM, a student from NYU New York emailed us, “How can I start my own iGEM team?”. For a freshman minoring in genetics, iGEM must have seemed like a Disneyland for him; a Jamboree of 4000 outstanding minds, representing 300 teams from five different continents, all gathered at the same place to share what they’ve accomplished in the past year. So, how can we answer his question?
Firstly, any school willing to take part in a contest of such caliber should be fully invested in it, monetarily. Bringing something new to the table, whether it’s cheap or not, requires serious prototyping, testing, and resources, which translates to a seemingly hefty bill. IGEM should be a student-led initiative, but it is also crucial to have instructors, who are experts in this field, to be a part of this project. What makes iGEM unique is that although the heart of the project is synthetic biology, engineering a device that runs parallel to the biology is also a must. Wouldn’t a 600hp engine be sweetly complimented by a car with a spider exterior? Computer scientists shouldn’t also be left out – since a significant portion of the evaluation sheet includes elements from the Wiki page, it is wise to add one or two CS enthusiasts beforehand to the team.
What’s next? Apply on behalf of your school for the contest, come up with a cool project idea involving Biobricks, keep dedications high, and take it a step further to Boston to show the world what you’ve accomplished!
