The Junior Jam of the iGEM Team Münster was a great success

We were invited by the iGEM Team Münster of the Westfälische Willhelms-University (WWU) to participate in this year's international European Junior Jam. In total, representatives of 20 teams from all over Europe met including Belgium, Netherlands, Switzerland, Denmark and Finland. The event took place in the first weekend of August in the heart of Münster. We were enthusiastic about the openness and the efforts on the part of the University, the iGEM team of Münster but also of the other teams. Within a very short time a platform for scientific exchange and discussion was created. Besides the team presentations and social activities, talks of top-class professors were on the agenda.

Prof. Dr. Schmid introduced the field of synthetic biology. He pointed out the importance behind iGEM by drawing attention to the key factors of synthetic biology - whether low-cost scale production, degradable plastics, or biomaterial-based approaches; synthetic biology thrives on biofoundries. Designing novel, high-output methods that allows the evolving of engineering cycle. Dr. Schmid presented different directions of biotechnological engineering: biological fertilizer to increase the yield by reducing the nitrogen contamination in soil; design of effective living cell therapies; high oleic oil from soybeans. In particular, the difference between American and European laws and regulations is one of the greatest barriers to global scientific growth.

In addition, we received a detailed introduction to the world of optogenetics from Prof. Dr. Andres Möglich. This discipline deals with the regulation of gene expression by light energy. Protein structures, dynamics and functions are controlled by light oxygen voltage receptors via blue spectrum or phytochromes via red spectrum in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, for example. He emphasized the need for tools to design synthetic biology and referred to the biodiversity of nature and the use of different model organisms.

As a member of the committee of metabolic engineering, Sonja Billerbeck has accompanied the iGEM competition for years. She highlighted the importance of fungal pathogens and taught us about the yeast toxicome. This was followed by informative workshops on the topics "from Science to Startup" and "How to pitch your Startup". Here we were taught in an interactive way how to best present and market our project.

Besides the scientific talks, each iGEM team had the opportunity to give a short presentation in Grand Jamboree style about their own project. This gave us a broad insight into the different projects for the first time. From the fight against microplastics in drinking water to the treatment of caries via bacterial polysaccharides, all topics were covered. We were also able to personally exchange ideas with the participants about the structure and organization within the iGEM team. We were able to come out of the Junior Jam stronger as a team. The progress of the other teams motivated us to work even harder on our project.

We would like to thank the iGEM team Münster for their efforts and are looking forward to partying through the night and philosophizing about synthetic biology again next year.