Consort Alberta

Starting a New Team

Early on this season, we got to bring our iGEM love and experience to Consort Alberta. Through workshops both in Calgary and Consort, as well as frequent Skype meetings, we (in collaboration with the Calgary Entrepreneurial iGEM team) helped Consort launch their first ever high school iGEM team. In addition to teaching lab techniques and how to use the registry, we helped the team to brainstorm and troubleshoot their project. The team had a great year, even bringing home the award for 'Best Human Practices Advance' at the High School Jamboree.

We had a lot of fun working with the Consort team, especially helping them brainstorm ways to overcome many of the hurdles that they faced. As a brand new iGEM team in a rural high school, they had no access to any of the equipment or materials necessary for even basic molecular biology experiments. They were keen and motivated though, and we were able to help them come up with some creative DIY solutions for their labwork. We also spent some time helping them brainstorm how to incorporate human practices into their project. All in all it was a very rewarding experience and we definitely learned a lot form it.