A first meeting with Theresa Wörmann and Lasse Middendorf of last year‘s iGEM team took place to exchange ideas and start to plan the formation of this year‘s team. Stefanie, Emelie and Dennis K. got together as this year‘s student leaders.
A meeting with our PI Prof. Jochen Schmid was held to discuss the next steps on the way to a new team. Afterwards, an information event took place to recruit potential iGEMers.
Up until December 31st, future team members applied via e-mail.
General matters: Applications were reviewed, and the student leaders talked to some of the applicants to determine the most dedicated ones.
General matters: The first team meeting was planned, and the next steps were discussed with our PI.
General matters: We held our first team meeting, beginning to get to know each other as there were only a few members of our diverse team that already worked or studied together. Our team consisted of ten MSc Biotechnology students, nine BSc Bio Sciences students, one MSc Mathematics student, one BSc Physics student, and one BSc Informatics student, adding up to 22 highly motivated students.
General matters: We established a weekly team meeting and divided into six subgroups for further work unrelated to the wetlab: Sponsoring/Finance, Organization, Social Media, Education/Human Practices, Teambuilding, and Wiki.
General matters: We started our search for a project by splitting into duos. These duos researched potential projects and prepared short presentations.
Sponsoring: In the first weekly meeting, a general division of work was developed, and the sponsorship folder was designed.
Organization: The contact with the REACH EUREGIO Start-Up Center was established, and we brainstormed potential working fields.
Education: We decided on several future projects we will want to pursue: a podcast, school visits, and visits to other institutions.
General matters: The first potential project presentation was held. We cleaned up and decluttered our iGEM office in the Institute of Molecular Microbiology and Biotechnology of the University of Münster.
Fundraising: The texts for the sponsoring folder were written, and photos and citations of each team member were integrated.
Organization: A vacation plan was developed to maintain the overview about absent team members throughout the year.
Education: Research for the first few episodes of our podcast started.
General matters: Three new project propositions were presented. In addition, our Principal Investigator Prof. Dr. Ing. Jochen Schmid and our first Project Instructor Pia Lanvers introduced themselves to our whole team.
Sponsoring: Last improvements of the sponsoring folder texts were realized, and the sponsoring packages available for potential sponsors were developed.
Organization: Planning of the research weekend began.
Social Media: A first Instagram post presenting our team was posted.
Education: Research of the first podcast episode was finished.
General matters: Five additional projects were presented, and Theresa and Lasse were introduced as Project Advisors as well as Maximilian Zander as a second Project Instructor. A meeting with members of the last team was held to exchange some ideas and thoughts with them.
Fundraising: Design of the sponsoring folder was finished, and texts for the OnePager were redacted.
Organization: Plans for the research weekend were finalized.
On February 26th and 27th, we organized a research weekend, during which we informed ourselves about the thirteen project propositions we held over the course of the last weeks. Finally, we decided on three projects we wanted to present to an expert audience.
Student Leaders: Coordination of the feedback regarding our proposition of projects in front of several professors and other experts.
Sponsoring: Work on the OnePager continued.
Social Media: Post of the research weekend was posted, and a large Instagram group with all iGEM teams that will be at the Grand Jamboree was joined.
Education: The first episode of our podcast "GENial" was recorded, and research for the second one continued.
General matters: We presented the three projects we voted for on the research weekend to an audience of experts and thereafter decided on the one we wanted to continue: BeeVAX, a method of vaccinating honey bees against an entomopathogenic fungus that can then be brought out to combat Varroa mite infestation without harming the bees.
Student Leaders: A meeting with our PI was held to gain further insights on how to continue to work on our freshly elected project by taking it into the wet lab.
Fundraising: The sponsoring folder was finalized, and a meeting with Jana Rohlfing took place to inform ourselves about the tax policy of the university. A list of potential sponsors was prepared as well as a script for sponsoring calls.
Organization: A list of the existing materials, chemicals, glassware, etc. in our lab was started.
Education: The first episode of our podcast was cut, and a Spotify account to post it on was created.
General matters: The whole team started to research aspects of our project, and a provisional lab plan was created.
Fundraising: The first calls of potential sponsors proved to be partially successful: several lab equipment companies agreed to sponsor materials, but as of then, no financial sponsoring could be secured.
Organization: The work on the inventory list continued.
Social Media: Several posts regarding the research weekend, our podcast, sponsoring, and synthetic biology were posted.
Education: The first episode of the podcast was published on Spotify.
General matters: A more detailed lab plan was made, and necessities of each of the four newly created lab groups, Expression of Vitellogenin, Binding assay, Directed Evolution, and Rational design, were collected in a future list of orders. The planning for the Junior Jam started with an approximate timetable and the search for suitable locations.
Social Media: The immw (iGEM Münster Meme Wednesday) was started.
Fundraising: Calling potential sponsors continued as well as searching for new ones.
Organization: A first ordering list was finalized.
Education: Planning of the school visits began, and the second episode of our podcast was recorded and cut.
Expression of Vitellogenin: Komagataella phaffii was decided on as an optimal expression organism, as it uses several methods that ensure the protein will be correctly folded and post-translationally modified.
General matters: A MiniModule was planned by the Master students to teach the Bachelor students and all non-biology students some fundamental experiments commonly used in molecular biology.
Organization: Research for electronic lab books showed eLabnext to be an optimal solution to maintain the overview about all four of our wet lab groups.
Education: A senior citizen home in Münster was contacted and expressed their interest in having us there to teach the elderly residents a little about synthetic biology.
Expression of Vitellogenin: Research was finished, and definite experiment plans for the first weeks were made.
General matters: We officially registered for the iGEM competition. The first order of the vitellogenin sequence and some primers were ordered, and the first materials from New England Biolabs arrived. A first speaker for the Junior Jam was found: our PI Prof. Dr. Ing. Jochen Schmid. A lecture room in the castle of Münster was booked.
Fundraising: First material sponsorings were approved.
Social Media: The second episode of our podcast was uploaded.
Education: Visits of schools and retirement homes were further planned out.
Expression of Vitellogenin: Plasmid maps and Primers were created, and the workflow was discussed with our Project Instructor Max Zander.
Rational design: Research for a docking software was started.
General matters: On April 24th, one of our three Student Leaders, Dennis Kloster, decided to end his work on iGEM due to high levels of stress caused by the simultaneous work for his Bachelor studies, iGEM, and his courses of study’s student council.
Expression of Vitellogenin: Media and buffers were prepared, and new primers for the work with the iGEM distribution kit were ordered.
Rational design: Research continued in the fields of structure prediction/ binding site prediction.
General matters: As a replacement for Dennis Kloster, we unanimously elected Emil Beurer to serve as our third Student Leader.
Fundraising: Shipments from Roth and Sarstedt arrived.
Expression of Vitellogenin: Work in the wet lab started by amplifying the genes necessary for the assembly of our plasmid. The distribution plate proved to be mislabeled for two of the three genes.
Rational design: Research for fitting bioinformatics tools to gain information about the binding sites was continued.
On May 6th, we met iGEM Düsseldorf and iGEM Aachen for a brief meet-up in Dusseldorf, discussing our project ideas and exchanging potential collaborations as all of us will work with unicellular fungi.
General matters: The REACH confirmed to do two workshops to improve pitch and start-up focus of the iGEM teams participating on our meet-up.
Fundraising: Shipments from Eppendorf and Brand arrived, and we talked with the foundation "Westfälische Landwirtschaft" about supporting our project.
Wiki: A preliminary distribution of tasks concerning the design was made.
On May 10th, our team visited the LABvolution, the biggest laboratory equipment fair in Germany, where we got in personal contact with some of our supporters and supporters-to-be.
General matters: The ASTA Münster (general student committee) confirmed to grant 700 € for our meet-up. Indico was set up for coordinating the registrations.
Fundraising: Conversations with AGRAVIS as a potential main sponsor began.
Education: The third episode of our podcast aired, and a meeting with a local beekeeper’s association was planned.
Expression of Vitellogenin: As our previous plasmids continued to show wrong bands on our gel electrophoreses, we started to search and ask for new ones we could use in several institutes of our university.
Rational design: Efficient rational design proved to be ineffective because of the unknown binding sites and the huge size of the protein. Therefore, the rational design lab group was fused with the directed evolution group to form rational mutagenesis.
Fundraising: Several small shipments arrived, and a meeting with a representative from Eppendorf was held to discuss the possibility of obtaining a license for the eLabnext for our team.
Expression of Vitellogenin: As the search for adequate plasmids continued, plans for a potential side project in the form of an auxotrophic K. phaffii strain were made.
General matters: Another research day was done to get more into detail with our project ideas, lab work, and most importantly how we could imagine the implementation of our research.
Organization: The whitelist was checked for the parts we will want to use in our project, and the preliminary safety form was started.
General matters: This week we voted on what village we wanted to join with our project. We decided to register for Conservation as our first choice and Bioremediation and Agriculture as backup plans. A new subgroup was invented to tackle the issues of the upcoming months: Storytelling. A second speaker for the Junior Jam was recruited: Prof. Dr. Andreas Möglich.
Fundraising: The sponsoring conversations with AGRAVIS failed, therefore we were still in dire need of monetary sponsoring partners.
Education: The visit of the beekeeper’s association took place, from which we gained valuable insights into the work of a beekeeper in Germany. Additionally, the idea of a child book first came up and detailed plans for the visits of the retirement home and youth group were finalized.
Storytelling: The first meeting laid a foundation for future fields of work of this subgroup which includes the Promotion video, presentations for the meet-up and Grand Jamboree.
Binding assay: Planning of the PAMP extraction started and an ordering list was prepared.
Rational mutagenesis: Some homologous protein sequences from solitary bees were selected to be tested for PAMP binding affinity analysis. A vector for the yeast surface display was ordered.
General matters: PhD Sonja Billerbeck confirmed to work as a third speaker on our Junior Jam, and the registration opened for all teams.
Fundraising: A meeting with the foundation „Westfälische Landschaft“ resulted in a sponsoring contract of 5000 €.
Organization: The preliminary safety form and check-in forms for K. phaffii, vitellogenin, and Saccharomyces cerevisiae were submitted.
Education: The first batch of interview invitations for important researchers and stake holders for our project were sent out.
General matters: This weekend, we went on a camping trip to increase our team efforts by getting to know each other even better and also non-work-related.
Fundraising: Another 5000 € were obtained through funding projects of our university.
Education: A question list for expert/stake holder interviews was created.
Storytelling: The preliminary project description was redacted and posted on the team wiki webpage.
Expression of Vitellogenin: Several attempts to build the vector using different backbones failed. The research for the CRISPR side project for making an auxotrophic K. phaffii strain.
Rational mutagenesis: The rest of the materials were ordered. Highly conservated areas were detected by aligning multiple homologous sequences.
General matters: Several meetings with the bureaucratic representative of our uni, Lars Fischer, were held to discuss matters such as fire protection and room booking. In addition, we booked a food truck and informed ourselves about electricity availability in our locations.
Education: The fourth episode of our podcast aired.
Wiki: Picked up work by familiarizing ourselves with the Gitlab and coding.
Storytelling: Work on the promotion video started, a preliminary screenplay was written.
Binding assay: We held three meetings with experts from our uni that work with protein purification and biopolymers.
Fundraising: We won the iGEM Impact Grant and received money from the university for organizing student course modules. (10.000 € total)
Organization: We set up our new lab book, eLabnext, with our current inventory list, order lists, protocols, and lab book entries.
Expression of Vitellogenin: Two of our plasmids that tested positive in the colony PCR were sent to be sequenced.
General matters: This week we stayed at the marine biological station in Carolinensiel, where we started working on the wiki texts, revised some of our lab plans, and did some teambuilding activities. The registration for the Junior Jam concluded; in total, 103 iGEMers of 19 teams coming from six different European countries will visit us.
Wiki: In Carolinensiel, we started to learn some basic HTML/CSS coding.
Expression of Vitellogenin: Research for a second side project, CTL14, began in Carolinensiel.
Wiki: A color palette was invented, and ideas for the team page were collected.
Rational mutagenesis: Building of the vector for the yeast surface display was started.
Fundraising: The financial plan of our project was revised.
Rational mutagenesis: The building of the vector was completed, and the yeast strain for the yeast surface display was ordered.
From 4th to 6th of August, we invited iGEM Teams from all over Europe to participate in our “Junior Jam: The European Meet-Up”. Next to connecting and socializing with other teams, learning about the projects and approaches of them was the main goal of our meet-up.
Organization: Attribution form was prepared.
Social Media: LinkedIn account was created.
Education: Fifth episode of the podcast aired.
Wiki: Work on the wiki started by adjusting the header, footer, and side bar.
Inclusivity: We planned our pipette for people with visual impairments.
Expression of Vitellogenin: We switched from Escherichia coli turbo to E. coli Top10 due to E. coli turbo's trait to multimerize plasmids.
Rational mutagenesis: We built four expression vectors for the yeast surface display.
General matters: Unfortunately, we lost one student member, Sven Spehr, due to inactivity. We actively started to write wiki texts. From this week on, 5-6 texts were finished every week.
Storytelling: Work on the Promotion Video started.
Education: Seventh episode of our podcast aired.
Storytelling: Last shots for the Promotion video were filmed and animations were designed.
Rational mutagenesis: We ordered a new yeast strain because the previously ordered ones wouldn't grow. Docking simulations were conducted.
General matters: We chose responsible persons for every wiki page to accelerate wiki development.
Education: Interview with Dr. Maus took place.
Wiki: Footer was designed.
Expression of Vitellogenin: We ordered fragments to assemble into an expression vector via Gibson Assembly.
Rational mutagenesis: Modeling of chimaera proteins to determine stability and feasibility.
Education: The youth group and retirement home visit took place, and another interview was done.
Storytelling: Promotion video is done producing.
Expression of Vitellogenin: The assembly was successful, we have our ready-to-use plasmid.
General matters: We had our first pitch training session offered by the REACH and changed our approach on the presentation accordingly.
Organization: Final safety form was filled in.
Storytelling: Description and subtitles for Promotion video are done.
Inclusivity: The interviews with the school for the blind and the association for the blind were held.
Rational mutagenesis: First and second FACS run was done and showed results.
General matters: A first draft for our village presentation was prepared.
Organization: We planned a wiki weekend for correction, writing, and coding our website.
Education: We visited the high school and museum, and our eighth podcast episode aired.
Storytelling: A first concept for the landing page was elaborated.
Inclusivity: A lab run with simulated visual impairments was done.
Rational mutagenesis: Preparation of the library and blue-white selection to determine the mutation rate were done.
General matters: The wiki weekend proved to be rather effective; the majority of our texts are ready for external corrections.
Rational mutagenesis: We did our last FACS run which yielded no usable results.
General matters: We invested all our energy in writing and correcting wiki texts and building our website.