Team:Linkoping Sweden/Practices

Overview of Policy and Practice

The Public and Peanut Allergy

Alongside our main project, to build a portable peanut detector, LiU iGEM has conducted several projects to make the everyday life more secure for those in fear of getting dangerous allergic reactions from their food.

We were fortunate to have insightful discussions with participants in our side projects. One of them suffered from multiple food allergies, with peanuts causing the most problems, and stated the following about the public awareness of food allergies.


“Lack of knowledge is the biggest problem and the ignorance stems from this lack of knowledge. How will you know of you don’t understand the consequences? How will you be able to respect it?”

Becka Lexén, 22, student.



It goes without saying that LiU iGEM wants to reach out to the public and raise awareness of food allergies, especially peanut allergy. We have thoroughly researched and emotionally explored the world of food allergies. Our goal is to communicate what we have learnt, and to do so in several different ways to cover as much ground as possible.

Get the word out - Synthetic biology

Apart from spreading information about peanut allergy, we also want to inform the public in how we by using synthetic biology can deal with real life problems. We have made a particular effort in getting in touch with the youth in our area to convey the possibilities of synthetic biology. By holding lectures for students in secondary school, high school and university we are hoping to spark their interest.

Policy and Practice projects

“Keep calm and go nuts, without peanuts”

A market survey for people with peanut allergy.

“Do you know nothing or nuthings?”

A study over the common knowledge of peanut allergy among students and employees at universities.

“Food Allergies - A Mini Documentary”

A video where aspects of food allergy is discussed by a physician, scientists and persons dealing with food allergies.

"Can I eat this?"

A fun and informative children’s book about the elephant Tiny.

"Science 2 Go"

A concept were members of the LiU iGEM team has provided easy accessible summaries of previous research connected to our project, food allergies, biotechnology or synthetic biology.

Looking for more fun?

Listen to our song recorded in studio quality!

“Pretty fly for a nerd girl”, an iGEM inspired cover. The song was originally performed by the famous band The Offspring as “Pretty fly for a white guy”. It was produced and mixed by Johan Blomqvist at AfterNine studios, for whom we are grateful. It was formerly part of our undeveloped project, a collaborative music video among iGEM teams worldwide.

The aim of the video was to demonstrate the great community of iGEM where sharing of knowledge and information is central. We with a couple of iGEM-teams. The teams were; Macquaire Australia and Groningen, the Netherlands, who have recorded some of the clips to be used in the video.

However, we never got time to complete the work, but we aim to do so after the jamboree. Thereafter, our aim will be to use it as a promotion for iGEM, to recruit new members to the teams as well as to increase the interest of iGEM and the competition.

Collaboration with Team BIOSINT México 2015

BIOSINT México has written a splendid guide for the iGEM Community regarding ethics for synthetic biology. We helped them by making a translated version, now available in Swedish. You can access the document in Swedish here. To reach their original work, please visit Team BIOSINT México 2015. https://2015.igem.org/Team:BIOSINT_Mexico/Policies

Media and News

We have also seen it as our duty to engage with the media. We even reached those legendary five seconds of national news fame!

Studenter tar fram jordnötstest - SVT Nyheter Öst
http://www.svt.se/nyheter/regionalt/ost/studenter-tar-fram-jordnotstest
Så kan nötallergiker bli hjälpta - Östgöta Correspondenten, Corren.se
http://www.corren.se/nyheter/linkoping/sa-kan-notallergiker-bli-hjalpta-8351578.aspx

Follow us!

LiU iGEM does not underestimate the power of social media. We have made sure we stay active on Facebook and Instagram to give regular updates of both serious and fun matters. Log in, follow and share if you like. #LiUiGEM #gonutswithoutpeanuts