Outreach

iGEM does not only include the synthetic biology project itself, the promotion of synthetic biology is an important part of the competition as well. Since we think that synthetic biology is an unknown field of science to the general public, we made the Synthetic Facts fact-check webpage. Furthermore we did several other things for outreach, which are listed below.

TU/e and Department of Biomedical Engineering

We also wrote a press release to spread the information about our project and to promote our Synthetic Facts over the university. Since we think iGEM and synthetic biology is an interdisciplinary, we want to promote it under the TU/e students, so that students of more departments will participate in next year's iGEM team. The press release piece of text was published at the general TU/e webpage from the Department of Biomedical Engineering. The piece can be found here: [http://www.tue.nl/universiteit/faculteiten/faculteit-biomedische-technologie/nieuws/03-10-2013-bmt-studenten-naar-igem/ BMT studenten naar Lyon].

Kennislink

Kennislink wanted to start publishing more about synthetic biology, so we were contacted by a journalist who wrote an article about iGEM and our project. It resulted in an article wherein all the dutch iGEM teams explain their project. For the article, see [http://www.kennislink.nl/publicaties/knutselen-voor-de-wetenschap Knutselen voor de wetenschap]. In this interview, we also mentioned our Synthetic Facts webpage, what it includes and what the intention was of setting up such a webpage. This resulted in the possibility to write a piece of text which they could place on their website as a guest column. Since there are a few guest columns posted recently, it was not possible to place our guest column on the website before the wikifreeze, but the guest column will be linked to the article where the link is placed above.

GetSynBio

GetSynBio asked us whether we would like to send information about our project, and so we did. This was another possibility to promote our Synthetic Facts webpage and to explain what we are doing in our project, so we took this chance. On the webpage there are two articles of our project. One includes the project description, check it out here: [http://getsynbio.com/tu-eindhoven-producing-cest-imaging/ Project TU-Eindhoven: Producing CEST Imaging]. The other one includes a description of our SyntheticFacts fact checking project, you can find it at [http://getsynbio.com/synbio-myth-busting-websites/ Synbio Myth Busting Website]!

Cursor

Since our research is quite innovative, we contacted the magazine that brings the news of everything that is related to Eindhoven University of Technology. This was a first step to get publicity for our iGEM project and our Synthetic Facts project. We had therefore an interview with them in which we talked about what iGEM includes, our project were we try to target tumors with bacteria so that they can be visualized by MRI,and the potential of our new application, and last but not least our Synthetic Facts (fact-check) webpage. Check out the [http://www.cursor.tue.nl/nieuwsartikel/artikel/bacterie-zoekt-tumor/ publication]!

iGEM Netherlands

The iGEM teams within the Netherlands have put their heads together to benefit from each other’s work under the banner of “iGEM Netherlands”. The goals of the organization include creating an environment in which supervisors and previous iGEMers share their knowledge and experiences with the new Dutch iGEM teams, as well as establishing a channel for discussion of ideas and exchange of knowledge and bricks. This initiative aims to improve the research quality and collaboration between Dutch universities participating on the iGEM competition, teaching the iGEM ideals to the new iGEMers and providing feedback on the human practices and safety measures. In this manner, the teams will be better prepared to tackle the obstacles they might encounter during the iGEM competition.

In order to implement the objectives of this initiative, a series of start-up courses were organized by iGEM Netherlands in a sequential order, presenting topics that ranged from a general introduction to iGEM and its role in promoting synthetic biology, advanced cloning techniques and modeling. Furthermore, a project presentation afternoon was organized in order for teams to present their projects to the other teams and get feedback from them. This event was finalized with a delicious BBQ.

iGEM Netherlands is the first of its kind, where a collaborative effort has been established on a national scale within the context of iGEM. This has been very beneficial in boosting our projects towards success with the knowledge that we have gained during the start-up courses and activities that have been organized. This type of collaboration would be beneficial to other iGEM teams as well, should they choose to do so.