Team:BYU Provo/Collaboration

Attributions

Collaborations

UNIK-Copenhagen iGEM Team

Our main collaboration project was working with the Copenhagen iGEM team in their effort to create an instructional video database called Bricks of Knowledge. Each Brick in the database contains a short instructional video giving instructions, advice, tips, and tricks on a specific topic helpful to other iGEM teams. The hope and goal of the database is to provide a means of sharing experience and expertise in the specific areas that teams excel in. Such a database not only helps share knowledge between current teams, but will provide an invaluable resource for new teams as they enter into the iGEM community.

We decided to create a Brick of Knowledge on how to work with bacteriophage in a research capacity, and specifically in the context of iGEM. The video covers what a plaque is, picking a plaque, spot tests, making plates, and top agar.

NRP-UEA iGEM Team

We worked with the Norwich Research Park of the University of East Anglia iGEM team on their project to create a library of antimycin producing bacteria isolated from soil or sediment. While their main focus was on the filamentous Actinobacteria, they hoped to find several new and interesting antimycins.

On July 18, we received an initial request from the NRP-UEA team for soil and sediment samples from our local area. We quickly responded to let them know that we would be happy to help and requested more specific information on the type of sample that they needed. On July 22, we collected soil and sediment samples from the bank of the Provo River. These samples were kept refrigerated until they were shipped out the next day.

We contacted the NRP-UEA team to let them know the requested samples were on their way, and see if there was anything else that we could assist them with. Unfortunately, they had run into some issues with the licensing for importing soil samples into the United Kingdom and their project was stalled.

University of Texas at Austin iGEM Team

We participated with the Greensboro/UT-Austin iGEM team in their Open Sequence Initiative petition to update the assembly and submission standards required for the submission of BioBricks to the Registry of Standard Biological Parts which require the removal of non-approved restriction enzyme sites that are used as the suffix and prefix of parts when assembled using the recommended methods, such as 3A assembly. We participated in a collaborative discussion with them and other teams where input was gathered on our current preparation, assembly, and submission processes to submit parts to the iGEM registry and a petition was proposed to update these submission requirements.

Purdue iGEM Team

We worked with the Purdue iGEM team in their aim to create a standardized protocol for the characterization of parts submitted to the iGEM parts registry, including a list of protocols and assays that need to be performed on each part. We hope to both standardize and improve the information available for parts in the iGEM database. As a team, we participated in a series of collaborative discussions with teams from around the world on what we found to be the most important information for parts in the registry, problems or issues with the current characterization processes, and specific ideas of improvement for the characterization and documentation for biobrick parts. We also volunteered to help review and give feedback of the protocols developed by the Purdue iGEM team, and to use the new protocols in the characterization of our parts.