We were successful inside and outside of the lab over the course of this project and achieved many requirements for the bronze, silver, and gold medal. We were very proud of our results especially given we are a small team and had to undertake iGEM during our university semester. As with any research project, there are many more strategies that could be undertaken and much more work that could be done. We are excited to see how future iGEM teams can use our project to build on their own.

Below we have outlined our achievements in line with the bronze, silver, and gold medal requirements:

Bronze medal

Register for iGEM, have a great summer (although it's Winter in Australia) and attend the Giant Jamboree

• See everyone there!

Complete the judging form

• One form completed.

Create a description of the team’s project

• Finito description.

Plan to present a poster and talk at the iGEM Jamboree

• Poster printed and presentation created

Create a wiki with a clear attribution of each aspect of your project

• The wiki has been created (wiki-ception) along with an attribution page to thank our fantastic sponsors.

Document at least one new standard BioBrick Part or Device

• Yes.

Silver medal

Experimentally validate that at least one new BioBrick Part or Device of your own design and construction works as expected. 

• See here for the characterisation and evidence our part works as expected

Submit this new part to the iGEM Parts Registry. 

• Si! They are on the registry

Demonstrate how your team has identified, investigated and addressed a human practices issue in the context of your project

• Our Human Practices focused on education, environmental sustainability, and industry. We also undertook numerous public engagement activities.

Gold medal

Expand on your silver medal Human Practices activity by demonstrating how you have integrated the investigated issues into the design and/or execution of your project. 

• See how we used our industry research to change the nature of our project through the integration of LacI into our design here.

Help any registered iGEM team from a high-school, different track, another university, or institution in a significant way by, for example, mentoring a new team, characterizing a part, debugging a construct, modeling/simulating their system or helping validate a software/hardware solution to a synbio problem

• See our collaboration activities here, and see our contribution to the Eindhoven cloning guide here.

Improve the function OR characterization of a previously existing BioBrick Part or Device

• Our new [http://parts.igem.org/Part:BBa_K1736000:Design pSB1C3-BsFP (BBa_K1736000) Part] has the potential to enhance reporter gene assays, improve biomarker tracking in cell tissues, create fluorescent fusion proteins, and many other applications. It is also appropriate to note that the gene encoding the protein is substantially different to the previously submitted parts BBa_K376004, BBa_K1094000 and BBa_K660000; while these cannot be directly compared in terms of fluorescence intensity, we note that our part is the most rigorously characterised of these. In particular, the ability to easily detect its fluorescence on agar plates is especially convenient. This part was inspired and is building on the function of the BBa_K1094400 part from the 2013 Copenhagen team, the BBa_K376004 part from the 2010 Penn State team, and the BBa_K660004 part from the 2011 Glasgow team.

After attending the Giant Jamboree in Boston we were awarded a gold medal and were nominated in the undergraduate section for Best Model, Best Human Practices, and Best Outreach.