Team:USTC/Collaborations
Great work is done by joint hands. This year USTC had extensive collaborations with iGEM teams worldwide. We cooperated with BIT, USTC-Software, HFUT-China, SCU and UCAS, and took part in meet-up held by NCTU-Formosa and Peking University, and send newsletters to Amoy. During these cooperation, we learned novel idea from other teams as well as helped them with their works.
USTC and BIT both focus on measurement and hardware this year. Thus we face the same challenges. We are really glad that we can have collaborations in experiment, hardware and modeling.
Process
We got in touch with BIT in 2015 iGEM Asian Conference in NCTU (Hsinchu, Taiwan) at the end of July and both of us are interested in each other’s projects. In Beijing during CCiC conference, we deeply exchanged our projects and opinions on each other's project. In this meeting, we determined that we can cooperate in the aspects of experiment, hardware and modeling. After that, we assist each other though Internet and made great progress.
Result
Ultimately, USTC helped BIT building a better model while BIT assisted USTC with bacteria freeze-drying. As both of us built hardware, we shared our opinions and advice which worked in our benefits.
Modeling
For years, USTC is famous for advantage in math. When BIT met difficulty in build a mathematic model for a competitive biochemical reaction, we proved them with a solution and helped them found proper variables.
Bacteria freeze-drying
Bacteria is hard to transport, but with freeze-drying technique, plasmids can travel far away. So we hope we can freeze-dry bacteria. Important as this experiment is, we really appreciate that BIT helped us with this.
Here is the novel protocol from BIT:
For 500mL
| Ingredients | Mass |
|---|---|
| Yeast Extract | 2.5g |
| Trtptone | 2.5g |
| NaCl | 15g |
| KH2PO4 | 0.5g |
| Na2HPO4·12H2O | 6.5g |
| glycerol | 1.5g |
| NaCl | 15g |
- Prepare the culture medium as above.
- Prepare the drying agent:
Skim milk 12%(mass fraction)
NaCl 2%(mass fraction) - Culture the bacterial with the culture medium to log phase.
- Centrifuge the bacterial solution at 5,000r/min.
- Resuspend bacterial with drying agent in the same volume.
- Divide the resuspension into EP tube.
- Freeze the bacterial at -80 degree centigrade for 8 hours.
- Drying the bacterial with lyophilizer.
- Store the bacterial powder at -20 ℃.
Following their protocol, we successfully made bacteria powder. And after recovery from the dry, the bacteria grow really fine.
Others
BIT also suggested us to employ microfluidic technique, so that we can test varies kinds of antibiotics at the same time. And that's one of our future works. At the same time, we advise them to take a look at last-year's project by Aachen. Both benefit a lot from this kind of cooperation.
USTC-Softeware and USTC are like sisters and brothers for we both are USTCers, for we recruited and brainstorm together and for we went through all the processes beside the other. We frequently meet and exchange our advice on each other's project.
This year USTC-Software build a software to find the center of a circular interference pattern (available online, https://fringe.herokuapp.com/#userconsent# ). And they tested their softeware using Spring. After testing, their arithmetic turned out pretty quick, but they also found some disadvantages. By finding the closest two points on two interference lines and lining up them, the center is on the line. But if there only part of the interference line, the result comes out wrong. So the accuracy strongly depend on the lines you chose.
Besides that, we also helped them with biology, as almost all of them major in computer science and math. They build software for biologists so they must know our needs. All in all, our suggestions are extremely useful for them.
This year, we continue collaborate with Amoy, previously as XMU-China on their iGEM newsletter. Newsletter edited by Amoy provides a platform for iGEM teams from different countries to communicate with each other in many fields, such as projects, teams, perspective on synthetic biology and so forth. We USTC participated in several issues of newsletter, including introduction of University of Science and Technology of China (USTC), the establishment of iGEM in USTC and project progress.
Through this project, we simultaneously learnt a lot from other iGEM team in different aspects. We sincerely acknowledge Amoy for their generous assistance for iGEM teams' collaboration.
Collaboration with HFUT-China
The meet-up between HFUT-China, USTC-Software and USTC was held up by HFUT-China in August. We respectively introduced our development and breakthrough of our project. Because this meet-up was mainly built for software improvement, we provide some advice for software team to enhance an user friendly software. We also discussed arithmetic.
Collaboration with SCU_China
The communication with SCU-China was held on May this year. The contents containing both projects and some experience about experiments and modeling. Their concern in antibiotic contamination in China courage us to do things in this aspect. And it's during this communication that we got familar with parts assemble standard.
The 3rd International Genetically Engineered Machine Competition Asia Conference in Taiwan
The 3rd International genetically engineering machine competition Asia conference was again held in Hsinchu, Taiwan by National Chiao Tong University (NCTU) and NCTU_Formosa in July, 2015. More than 20 teams from Taiwan, China mainland and other Asian countries joined the conference for understanding each other and meeting many friends. The conference included official presentations along with Q&A and a poster session. This is the first time this year we got to know what other teams were doing. During the meeting, we introduced our project to all, received much valuable advice and gave much advice about other teams' work, especially the team BIT. And the host guided us to visit the National Palace Museum where many treasures and collections sit. We sincerely acknowledge NCTU for their warm serve and we gained a lot through the conference.
2nd CCiC Summit in Peking
CCiC, China Community of iGEM competition, held a huge summit in Peking University in August. During the summit, more than 20 teams in China exchanged comments and opinions on project. The summit also included official presentations along with Q&A and poster session. During this summit, we discussed details about cooperation with BIT and got lost parts from University of Chinese Academy of Sciences. Also, we found solutions to challenges in experiments. Thanks Peking University for held this summit and all the teams helped us.
