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Team:Freiburg/Exolab
From 2013.igem.org
Exolab-Events
Lab work is interesting, exciting and thrilling. But sometimes everything goes wrong, the stocks haven’t been refilled and cells die without a reason. In these situations we left the lab where it was and did something else, something fun, something … EXOLAB-EVENT!
The iGEM family
At the end of February 2013 we started our team. In the beginning we had to decide, like every team, which subject will be the one we are dealing with for the next nine month. After heated discussions and long evening meetings we were pretty sure that we want to optimize gene regulation by a standardized CRISPR/Cas system. The system should be easy to handle so that it improves the work of the iGEM community.
Then work and the project started. Some of us had regular university courses and could not show lab presence every day, but helped organizing the lab or started big sponsoring campaigns. It was quite interesting and sometimes stressful to combine 18 different ways of planning experiments in one project. We learned to deal with the other group members, get to know each other better and even started becoming friends.
The longer the lab days, the more we cooked together. After a few months we could not stand eating pasta with pesto anymore, so the culinary skills of some team members had to save the rest from malnutrition. We ate spaghetti carbonara, potato fritter, seafood or Thai curry. Another day we organized a whole barbecue in front of our building.
In the last three month nearly everyone was present in the lab. But even then the constant singing of Stephan or the everyday good mood of Thomas relieved the lab routine, which was sometimes really stressful.
Minigolf
The first and biggest sports competition we did was the mini-golf competition. Two groups, one goal. We divided the team into two groups and each group was mustered to win. In the beginning, both teams were alike. But Michi and Lisa ruled the game as they invented it. To the detriment of the others, the major players joined one group, so that their team won the match.
Despite the excellent playing skills of Michi and Lisa, Philipp was able to face his fear against the course with the jump and mastered this course in only two shots. This day we also discovered Max' great affection towards sunglasses and the fact that every member of our team spots the CRISPR/Cas system everywhere (there even was one course resembling the tracrRNA structure!).
The iGEM Prom
A mild summer night in august. Slowly the sun goes down. And the Freiburg iGEM-Team?
Dressed up and titivated, the team was standing around a buffet, champagne glass in hand and waiting for IT to begin. We were nervous, exited and jivey; like a combination of “High school Musical” and “Dirty Dancing”. The main questions of this evening were: “Am I able to dance?”, “Who is going to dance with me?”, “How many times will I step on other feet?”
This evening Michi, Natalie und Nadine coached the team how to dance. We learned cha-cha-cha, slow waltz and disco fox. The dances were explained step by step, so that everybody was able to remember what he has to do. Girls and Boys were taught separately, because of special turnings and moves, performed by the girls.
The longer the evening, the smoother and more graceful our dance moves became.
The TU München iGEM Team in Freiburg
During summer time iGEM team München visited Freiburg several times to work in the lab of Prof. Dr. Reski at their Physcofilter-Project. Using the opportunity, we swapped ideas on our iGEM projects, sponsoring and human practices and organized a big barbecue.
The Art Project
The idea behind the body paint was to combine art and synthetic biology. At first sight these two categories seems to be pretty different, but on second sight we realized that they have more in comment then we thought.
Synthetic biology is based on artificial systems. Systems those are able to equip chassis with new features. These Features have been defined to resolve problems our society is dealing with. Weather environmental, medical or nutritional issues are concerned; the first step will be to recognize such a problem. You really have to deal with that issue before you can start finding a solution.
On the other hand stands art. A form of expression that allows to criticize in a nonverbal way and that can encourage thinking processes. Art is a medium for social reflexion and offers the possibility to address the general public. vbr>
The work in both fields requires creativity, technical skills and a lot of commitment!
