. Collaborations .
Introduction
It's impossible for one person to whistle a symphony; it takes a whole orchestra. Over the past six months, XMU-China has taken part in various collaborative events. The exchange of words and ideas has resulted in a brilliant mix, and hopefully, these events have been beneficial for all involved.
Collaboration with CSU-China
Our online meeting with CSU-China was a great opportunity to learn from and offer help to each other. This served as a unique platform for both teams to delve into their respective projects, sharing achievements, challenges, and the innovative solutions they've employed.
We shared our progress and then had a deep discussion about human practices. We shared our experience on how to tackle difficulties in HP activities and emphasized the importance of interacting with stakeholders to better understand the core problem. We also elaborated on how we made design decisions to "close the loop" and align the project with the needs of stakeholders. The diversified publicity and communication strategies adopted by CSU-China were also very enlightening.
The thought-provoking questions and invaluable suggestions from our dialogue gave both teams a refined vision for enhancing their project designs. Additionally, this collaboration fostered a deeper bond between our teams.
Collaboration with Thailand-RIS
As our project gained momentum, we were thrilled to receive an invitation from Team Thailand-RIS for an online discussion to exchange insights about our respective projects. We are excited to have the opportunity to discuss our project with another team that shares a similar goal, which is to develop tolerance to environmental stress in plants.
This was the first time we shared our whole project with the iGEM community, and the interaction was very successful. And the invaluable perspective they offered us greatly refined our approach and expanded our goals. In terms of addressing the challenges in the project, the Thailand-RIS team shared their initiatives in understanding public perceptions of genetically modified plants. They also tried to improve the public's understanding and recognition of genetically modified products and promoted the application of stress-resistant products. With aspirations to conduct in-person surveys and engage with farmers, they were taking steps to ensure that their research could be translated to tangible benefits on the ground. Based on our field research experience, we shared experiences about how to seek insights from governmental bodies and stakeholders.
This session solidified the friendship between our teams, fostering a rich exchange of ideas that amplified the quality of both our project designs.
Collaboration with Fudan
We helped Fudan construct plasmids by contributing the sequence for INPNC to them.
CCiC
The Conference of China iGEMer Community (CCiC) stands as an annual event for iGEM teams across China. CCiC provides a platform for Chinese iGEMers to showcase their projects and engage in interdisciplinary dialogues, fostering inspiration and expanding perspectives.
We participated in this year's event remotely and actively engaged in project-sharing sessions. Throughout the conference, we were continually inspired by insightful lectures covering a multitude of topics and stimulating interactions with luminaries from academia and industry. It became clear that we still have a long way to go, as every conversation and presentation added a new dimension to our understanding. We felt the urge to further refine our project.
iG20 Collaborative Video Project
As the "ambassadors" of Synthetic Biology, we often question if our efforts can make a difference in attracting more people to the field. Therefore, we gladly accepted the invitation to the national publicity campaign iG20 Collaborative Video Project and collaborated with other iGEM teams.
The large-scale educational event was organized for the general public with no prior professional knowledge of synthetic biology. The primary objective of the event was to impart fundamental concepts of synthetic biology to the audience through collaborative videos that included project introduction videos and educational content on synthetic biology. The project introduction video would serve as a vivid display of the team's achievements, helping to convey our expertise in the field of synthetic biology to a wider audience.
The experience provided us with an opportunity to showcase and disseminate the team's efforts. Working closely with multiple teams from universities in China was an invaluable experience. Through cross-school collaboration, we combined intelligence and innovation from various fields with the duty to communicate the applications and significance of synthetic biology in a manner that reduces the general public's suspicion and ignorance.
