Collaborations

The SECA-NZ Take on Collaborations

The University of Auckland iGEM is a relatively new team located on the other side of the word from most iGEM teams, hence our collaboration takes a different flavor to many other teams. That being said we were still able to be an active member of the iGEM community!

Our Collaborations this year have mainly focused on building an international network which future teams will be able to leverage and build upon.

University of Linkoping, Sweden

At the beginning of the year the University of Linkoping team, from Sweden, got in contact with us looking for help with a local 'show and tell' they were a part of. This show and tell was designed to showcase the broad applications of the iGEM competition and we were able to provide a detailed outline of our project to help showcase the iGEM brand. Importantly for us this provided an international connection outside our standard area of Australasia, connecting us (however briefly) with the other side of the world. These connections are what we were looking to form with our collaborations this year in the hope that future Auckland teams can expand on our work.

Australasia Collaborations

University of Sydney iGEM

The USYD iGEM team this year has been our major collaboration partner, with productive outcomes for both teams. Beginning the wiki-help our techie Max was able to provide, our teams have worked extremely hard to develop a partnership which will continue for many years. The culmination of this partnership was the Synthetic Biology Australasia (SBA) conference held in Sydney.

The conference was designed to showcase the wide variety of Synthetic Biology around the world and enabled us to talk to experts from many universities and biotech companies, including projects such as the Synthetic Yeast 2.0 genome and many more areas.

With regards to iGEM the conference also provided us with an excellent opportunity to meet the USYD team. This event was our major collaboration effort this year and was extremely helpful for our team culture, providing a unique glance into the management of another iGEM team.

The event also gave both teams a valuable chance to practice their presentation skills for the Giant Jamboree in November. Each team was provided a short 10 minute slot in which we were able to present the major problems, applications and experiences of our year so far. Following this we were able to provide feedback which should result in more effective presentations from both teams.

Overall the SBA conference was a fantastic experience for all involved, creating strong connections between our two teams which will be continued for many years to come.

University of Melbourne

NTHU iGEM, Taiwan

This year we, SECA NZ, collaborated with NTHU iGEM in the exchange of international view points and software. NTHU is developing an ingenious system to monitor and adjust the level of contaminants in irrigation drains using copper filters and a Watergates. The filter cleans the water, and a complex set of sensors monitors the output. If the level of contaminants exceeds the capacity of the filter, the water gate will reduce the flow to a manageable level. They are also investigating the water quality in aquaculture. New Zealand’s economy is largely based on agriculture and fishery industries, and so as a team we participated in a questionnaire to assess our opinions on aquaculture and water quality in the agriculture industry. This provided NTHU with both an international and consumer perspective on the issue. Our own project focuses on the development of crop plants capable of surviving snap frosts. NTHU contributed to our project by graciously providing software and specifications on how to build a temperature sensor which would allow us to monitor the temperatures of cropping land.

Silver Medal Criterion #2

Complete this page if you intend to compete for the silver medal criterion #2 on collaboration. Please see the 2017 Medals Page for more information.

Which other teams can we work with?

You can work with any other team in the competition, including software, hardware, high school and other tracks. You can also work with non-iGEM research groups, but they do not count towards the iGEM team collaboration silver medal criterion.

In order to meet the silver medal criteria on helping another team, you must complete this page and detail the nature of your collaboration with another iGEM team.

Here are some suggestions for projects you could work on with other teams:

Improve the function of another team's BioBrick Part or Device
Characterize another team's part
Debug a construct
Model or simulating another team's system
Test another team's software
Help build and test another team's hardware project
Mentor a high-school team

Team:SECA NZ/Collaborations