Collaborations | thessaloniki

Introduction
Collaborations we initiated
Collaborations we participated in

Overview

One of the greatest experiences our team has gained through our journey in iGEM is being part of a global network that consisted of people with a cosmic variety of backgrounds, but still shared the same passion for science and synthetic biology with us. Collaborating with other iGEM teams around the world helped us gain a sense of the synthetic biology community, and gave us a chance to communicate about our teams visions and efforts on our journey in iGEM, but also provided us with an insight of other teams activities and goals. After experiencing this collaborative synergy we believe that it not only enhances every team's productivity but also promotes a culture of inclusivity and adaptability in the iGEM organization and is fruitful for all its members.

"When we work together as a global community, there is nothing we cannot achieve." - Paul Polman

Collaborations we initiated

SDG’s Video Collaboration

Sustainability and conservation lie at the heart of our project, since it aims at soil restoration and desertification prevention following wildfires. Marching along with the sustainable development goals,throughout the whole duration of our idea forming into a project and our project taking its final shape, we wanted to urge other iGEM teams to discover how their own projects could be possibly entangled with the sustainable development goals. After reaching out to other iGEM teams, we encouraged them to choose one of the 17 goals of sustainable development and briefly explain in a video how their project correlates with that specific goal. We collaborated with 4 different iGEM teams (iGEM Patras Medicine, iGEM Bulgaria, iGEM IONIS, iGEM KU LEUVEN), that in a few seconds were able to discuss their project and the sustainable goal that they serve. In this collaborative video project the sustainable development goal we decided to represent as a team was goal 17 which refers to “partnership for the goals”, since we initiated this collaboration.

Questionnaire about synthetic biology to celebrate DNA day

In the light of celebrating the National DNA Day, we decided to create a questionnaire about DNA and synthetic biology. This questionnaire aims to assess the level of knowledge, opinions, and concerns people might have about synthetic biology, ultimately contributing to a more informed and inclusive view surrounding DNA-related advancements. We aimed for this questionnaire to be a collaborative effort between the Greek iGEM teams, so we contacted them and suggested that they provide us with some questions that they think would be a good fit for the concept of the questionnaire. We also prompted them to share the questionnaire in their own social media accounts, so that we could collect more data about Greek people's knowledge of synthetic biology. The iGEM teams were really attentive to our request and we managed to unite the Greek iGEM Teams (iGEM Thessaly, iGEM UniCRETE, iGEM Athens, iGEM Thrace, iGEM Ioannina, iGEM Patras Medicine, iGEM Patras Biology, iGEM Patras, iGEM Crete) to create the final form of the questionnaire and help us collect data from all over Greece.

Collaborations we participated in

A day in the life of an iGEMer

iGEM UniCRETE

We had the chance to participate in a collaboration on a vlog type video, where we would be able to share what a day is like for the members of iGEM Thessaloniki. Through this mini vlog we were able to capture moments of working in the lab work, team meetings, seminars and other fun activities our team had planned for the day. Furthermore, we also provided an insight of our work and the passion our team has for our project. These video series were shared on iGEM UniCRETE’s Tik Tok channel .

Video game collaboration

iGEM EPFL

Upon learning that the iGEM EPFL team is creating a video game to promote synthetic biology knowledge and understanding, we were really eager to collaborate with them since we thought of this idea to be a truly innovative and engaging way to educate and inspire ever more people about this exciting field of science. Through this collaboration we were able to showcase some parts of our own project in their video game. After a meeting with the iGEM EPFL team we decided upon creating a minigame that would portray the concept of bacterial encapsulation in a hydrogel, and a level in the main game that is based on quorum sensing. We believe that by playing “bioquest” everyone can get familiar with various significant topics in synthetic biology and this year's team’s projects. Hopefully, everyone would get a chance to try “bioquest” at the Grand Jamboree.

Mascot Collaboration

iGEM UPNAvarra Spain

The iGEM UPNAvarra team suggested a collaboration where teams would create mascots that would capture the essence of their project. Since we often describe our project using words, we thought that the creation of our team’s mascot would be a really fun way of summarizing our project in a design. So we decided to create our very own reincarnation of our project Euphoresis in the form of a mascot.

CHAT WITH US - Questionnaire about Chat GPT

iGEM Puiching Macau

The constantly increasing usage of AI technology led the iGEM Puiching Macau team to create a questionnaire about the use of ChatGPT in iGEM projects. So we thought we would participate in this collaboration by sharing our own experience using ChatGPT and how it can aid in conducting our project.

Something you know - Questionnaire about Celiac Disease

iGEM UM – Macau

The iGEM UM-Macau decided to do a social research project to establish the degree of knowledge of people globally about celiac disease, which is a topic that their project deals with. Through fulfilling this questionnaire, we had the chance to provide the team with information of our own knowledge on this topic but also on some other topics that their survey included like food intolerances, genetically modified organisms (GMO’s) and synthetic biology in general.

Ice box drawing

iGEM Bulgaria

The team of iGEM Bulgaria proposed a fun collaboration that would stimulate creative thinking and put our artistic abilities to test. They suggested that each team participating in the collaboration would draw a story on an ice box that they got from the lab. We decided to decorate the ice box with the story behind our project’s inspiration and how he imagined our project to be the solution to the problem we chose to solve.

Lab playlist

iGEM MSP

Sometimes all you need for an exciting day in the lab is some music to jam to. The iGEM 2023 MSP Team thought that gathering the current favorite songs of other iGEM teams would result in an uplifting lab playlist that we could all listen to. Since we actually enjoy blasting to music in the lab we thought that we would share our team's current favorite song. Seeing the songs that other iGEM teams suggested was truly interesting since it showcased the variety in music taste that fellow scientists enjoy having in the lab while working.

Discoveries that contributed to the advancement of synthetic biology

iGEM IONIS

The team of iGEM IONIS had a notable collaboration concept. They requested from the participating teams to share an impactful discovery that they think has contributed to the rise and advancement of synthetic biology. This collaboration idea was truly interesting, since it displayed the variety of techniques that gave birth to different synthetic biology concepts. Our team's suggestion was the discovery of heat resistant enzymes.

World Health Day collaboration & National DNA Day video collaboration

Patras Medicine

To celebrate World Health Day the Patras Medicine iGEM team invited us to collaborate with them on a photo collage of different iGEM teams. In this array of pictures each team would hold a panel with a quote about health. The phrase our team chose to display is “Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food” by Hippocrates.

To commemorate the National DNA Day the Patras Medicine iGEM team thought of creating a collaboration video to share information about the DNA. We gladly partook in this collaboration and you can find the video on Patras Medicine instagram. Since DNA is the cornerstone of synthetic biology it is a really useful video with important information about this extraordinary molecule.

Video collaboration - What is iGEM?

iGEM Thrace

The team of iGEM Thrace had the idea of creating a collaborative video that would introduce and emphasize what iGEM means to different iGEM teams. The title of the video is “iGEM is …” and you can find it in iGEM Thrace’s social media accounts. The phrase that we decided to display in that video is “iGEM is thinking out of the box”, which is a phrase that truly embodies the essence of our team through our experience in the iGEM competition, as we were challenged to think out of the box numerous times.

Bioethics Case Study

iGEM McGill

The iGEM McGill team took the initiative to create a collective bioethics report that would address the existing ethical issues in each iGEM village. The collaboration is based on creating a case report about our chosen village and this report would constitute a chapter in the final document that would include all the different iGEM villages. Our team is registered in the conservation village, so we got the chance to do a brief review about the village, its possible applications and the ways we can incorporate synthetic biology into it, while our main focus was in discussing the various ethical implications pertaining to our own project and more generally the conservation village. We believe that this is an outstanding collaboration effort that would capture the issue of bioethics in each village and would aid future iGEM teams tackle possible biosafety concerns regarding their village of interest.