Difference between revisions of "Team:Vanderbilt/Practices/Collaborations"

 
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<h2>Collaborations</h2>
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Our team had many productive collaborations with universities across the world. We were especially excited by the number of teams who approached us out of interest in the numerous mutation-reducing tools that our team has developed. We were happy to give these teams free access to our optimization techniques, which not only helped our collaborators to improve the stability of their genetic elements, but also helped us expand our techniques to new applications and even new organisms.</p>
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<h4>University of Paris-Bettencourt:</h4>
 
+
     <p> The team at Paris-Bettencourt approached us out of concern for the stability of their genetically engineered fermenting microbes. Given the importance of strict quality control and long-term stability in the applications that their team was envisioning for their project, they had a keen interest in making their genes more stable. We offered to optimized their fermentation genes using our computational algorithm. As their team did not have sufficient time to synthesize the genes we sent them, we also provided them with statistics on how many mutation-prone sites their original genes had and how much they can be improved for stability. </p>
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Ethics of Synthetic Biology: An Expert Perspective
+
As our team was developing our project ideas at the beginning of the year, we had the tremendous fortune to meet with Dr. James Collins from Arizona State University, who was giving a special seminar at our university. Dr. Collins is the former Director of the Population Biology and Physiological Ecology program at the National Science Foundation and the current Ullman Professor of Natural History and the Environment at Arizona State University, where he studies evolution and extinction in natural ecosystems. Recently, Dr. Collins has become involved in questions of synthetic biology and how it relates to responsible ethological and ethical practice. He was a lead author on the recent report Creating a Research Agenda for the Ecological Implications of Synthetic Biology, where he has raised some important yet under-emphasized questions in the potential effects that genetic technologies could have on the stability of natural ecosystems. Dr. Collins has been trying to start a dialogue in the synthetic biology community about new advances like "gene drives", which may have the potential to drive entire species into extinction. While these technologies may have enormous potential in preventing malaria, as Dr. Collins noted in his seminar, there are some significant ethical questions that need to be carefully considered.
+
Our iGEM team co-sponsored a question-and-answer session following Dr. Collins' seminar, where we invited students to ask Dr. Collins about his thoughts on some of the broader questions of conducting responsible research. There were many questions from the audience, and Dr. Collins did an excellent job at conveying some of the ethical difficulties of navigating these genetic technologies. To start a genuine conversation, Dr. Collins also asked many of his questions to the audience, made up off a diverse group of students from multiple academic backgrounds. Some of the topics included were:
+
-the ethics of modifying the genomes of human embryos with CRISPR/Cas9
+
-Ecological risk of genetically modified crops
+
-Safety of "gene drives" and the possibility of unintended consequences
+
-Risk that mutations pose to safely implementing genetic engineering
+
As Dr. Collins noted at the end of our event, "these questions are not easy to answer. Many of them may not even have simple answers. That is why I am trying to start us thinking about these issues, and where these new [genetic] technologies may be leading us".
+
After our event with Dr. Collins, our team joined Dr. Collins for dinner, where we continued the conversation on bioethics and asked for his thoughts on our project to reduce mutation. Dr. Collins was enthusiastic about the potential of the benefits that our breakthrough could bring the field. One application Dr. Collins immediately honed in on was use in conjunction with engineered genes released into environment. There, Collins noted, there is very high danger that existing containment strategies like killswitches could fail if even a single organism has its killswitch mutated.  
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    <h3><font color="#7e1d2e">Team</font></h3>
+
    <a href="https://2015.igem.org/Team:Vanderbilt/Team/About"><font color="#9e515e">About</font></a>
+
     <br>
+
    <a href="https://2015.igem.org/Team:Vanderbilt/Team/Members"><font color="#9e515e">Members</font></a>
+
    <br>
+
    <a href="https://2015.igem.org/Team:Vanderbilt/Team/Attributes"><font color="#9e515e">Attributes</font></a>
+
    <br>
+
    <a href="https://2015.igem.org/Team:Vanderbilt/Team/Sponsors"><font color="#9e515e">Sponsors</font></a>
+
 
     <br>
 
     <br>
 
   </div>
 
   </div>
   <div class="col-lg-2" style="height:100%">
+
   <div class="col-md-4">
    <h3><font color="#7e1d2e">Project</font></h3>
+
  <h4>Washington University at St. Louis:</h4>
    <a href="https://2015.igem.org/Team:Vanderbilt/Project/Background"><font color="#9e515e">Background</font></a>
+
     <p>Early on in our project, we contacted WashU's iGEM team to ask for their assistance in characterizing one of our optimized RFP constructs. Their team graciously offered to measure the fluorescence of two of our RFP constructs. In addition to their standard measurement protocol, their team also had the foresight to ask for our measurement protocol, which they replicated in detail in their lab. From the data they generated, we were able to resolve two issues- first, the cross-compairison between WashU's protocol and our own demonstrated that our initial mesaurement protocol was not fully optimized. With their protocol, which they gave our team in detail, fluoresecnce measurements were much more consistant. In addition to this valuable finding, which has caused our lab to change our measurement protocol, they also validated our finding that the K314100 promoter was not reliable with expression. On the contrary, with the R0010 promoter, our engineered RFP had good fluorescence signal- thus giving us independent confirmation from a second lab that our optimized RFPs were still expressed well. </p>
     <br>
+
  <br>
    <a href="https://2015.igem.org/Team:Vanderbilt/Project/Sequence"><font color="#9e515e">Sequence</font></a>
+
    <br>
+
    <a href="https://2015.igem.org/Team:Vanderbilt/Project/Circuit"><font color="#9e515e">Circuit</font></a>
+
    <br>
+
    <a href="https://2015.igem.org/Team:Vanderbilt/Project/Organism"><font color="#9e515e">Organism</font></a>
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    <br>
+
    <a href="https://2015.igem.org/Team:Vanderbilt/Project/Nanopore"><font color="#9e515e">Nanopore</font></a>
+
    <br>
+
    <a href="https://2015.igem.org/Team:Vanderbilt/Project/Achievements"><font color="#9e515e">Achievements</font></a>
+
    <br>
+
 
   </div>
 
   </div>
   <div class="col-lg-2" style="height:100%">
+
   <div class="col-md-4">
    <h3><font color="#7e1d2e">Parts</font></h3>
+
  <h4>University of Virigina:</h4>
 
+
     <p> As killswitches were a maor emphasis for our mutation-optimization strategy, we proposed to improve the SacB killswitch that Virigina's iGEM team was using for the engineered probiotics. Using their original part sequence, we generated an optimized version which we then sent their time for synthesizing and testing in their system. We also gave their team the names of Vanderbilt faculty that had legal expertise in the area of probiotic medicine that their team was working on.</p><br>
    <a href="https://2015.igem.org/Team:Vanderbilt/Parts/Part_Collection"><font color="#9e515e">Part Collection</font></a>
+
     <br>
+
    <a href="https://2015.igem.org/Team:Vanderbilt/Parts/Optimized_RFPs"><font color="#9e515e">Optimized RFPs</font></a>
+
    <br>
+
    <a href="https://2015.igem.org/Team:Vanderbilt/Parts/Visualizing_Evolution"><font color="#9e515e">Visualizing Evolution</font></a>
+
    <br>
+
    <a href="https://2015.igem.org/Team:Vanderbilt/Parts/Repair Enzymes"><font color="#9e515e">Repair Enzymes</font></a>
+
    <br>
+
 
   </div>
 
   </div>
  <div class="col-lg-2" style="height:100%">
+
</div>
    <h3><font color="#7e1d2e">Notebook</font></h3>
+
<div class="row">
    <a href="https://2015.igem.org/Team:Vanderbilt/Notebook/May"><font color="#9e515e">May</font></a>
+
  <div class="col-md-4">
     <br>
+
     <h4>University of California at San Franscisco:</h4>
    <a href="https://2015.igem.org/Team:Vanderbilt/Notebook/June"><font color="#9e515e">June</font></a>
+
     <p>After hearing about their project through our mutation survey, we offered the analyze the genetic circuits that the UCSF team engineered. We have arranged to analyze their full circuit sequences through our circuit-optimization software, in order to determine the risk mutation would pose in their paritcular situation. </p><br>
     <br>
+
    <a href="https://2015.igem.org/Team:Vanderbilt/Notebook/July"><font color="#9e515e">July</font></a>
+
    <br>
+
    <a href="https://2015.igem.org/Team:Vanderbilt/Notebook/August"><font color="#9e515e">August</font></a>
+
    <br>
+
    <a href="https://2015.igem.org/Team:Vanderbilt/Notebook/September"><font color="#9e515e">September</font></a>
+
    <br>
+
 
   </div>
 
   </div>
   <div class="col-lg-2" style="height:100%">
+
   <div class="col-md-4">
    <h3><font color="#7e1d2e">Practices</font></h3>
+
<h4>University of Georgia:</h4>
    <a href="https://2015.igem.org/Team:Vanderbilt/Practices/Safety"><font color="#9e515e">Safety</font></a>
+
     <p> We participated in the Archae interlab study hosted by the University of Georgia's team, during which we measured red fluorescent proteins for them</p><br>
     <br>
+
    <a href="https://2015.igem.org/Team:Vanderbilt/Practices/Collaborations"><font color="#9e515e">Collaborations</font></a>
+
    <br>
+
    <a href="https://2015.igem.org/Team:Vanderbilt/Practices/Real_World_Applications"><font color="#9e515e">Applications</font></a>
+
    <br>
+
    <a href="https://2015.igem.org/Team:Vanderbilt/Practices/Interlab"><font color="#9e515e">Interlab</font></a>
+
    <br>
+
 
   </div>
 
   </div>
   <div class="col-lg-2" style="height:100%">
+
   <div class="col-md-4">
    <h3><font color="#7e1d2e">Software</font></h3>
+
<h4>Vilnius-Lithuania:</h4>
    <a href="https://2015.igem.org/Team:Vanderbilt/Software/Development"><font color="#9e515e">Development</font></a>
+
     <p>After hearing about their project through our mutation survey, we gave the Vilnius-Lithuania iGEM team statistics on how mutation-prone their two most important gene sequences were. We divided these mutation spots into categories so that their team could consider the potential contributions of different sources of mutagens. </p>
     <br>
+
    <a href="https://2015.igem.org/Team:Vanderbilt/Software/User_Guide"><font color="#9e515e">User Guide</font></a>
+
    <br>
+
    <a href="https://2015.igem.org/Team:Vanderbilt/Software/Stats"><font color="#9e515e">Statistics</font></a>
+
    <br>
+
 
   </div>
 
   </div>
 
</div>
 
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  <br>
+
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Latest revision as of 05:50, 21 November 2015

Vanderbilt iGEM 2015

Collaborations

Our team had many productive collaborations with universities across the world. We were especially excited by the number of teams who approached us out of interest in the numerous mutation-reducing tools that our team has developed. We were happy to give these teams free access to our optimization techniques, which not only helped our collaborators to improve the stability of their genetic elements, but also helped us expand our techniques to new applications and even new organisms.


University of Paris-Bettencourt:

The team at Paris-Bettencourt approached us out of concern for the stability of their genetically engineered fermenting microbes. Given the importance of strict quality control and long-term stability in the applications that their team was envisioning for their project, they had a keen interest in making their genes more stable. We offered to optimized their fermentation genes using our computational algorithm. As their team did not have sufficient time to synthesize the genes we sent them, we also provided them with statistics on how many mutation-prone sites their original genes had and how much they can be improved for stability.


Washington University at St. Louis:

Early on in our project, we contacted WashU's iGEM team to ask for their assistance in characterizing one of our optimized RFP constructs. Their team graciously offered to measure the fluorescence of two of our RFP constructs. In addition to their standard measurement protocol, their team also had the foresight to ask for our measurement protocol, which they replicated in detail in their lab. From the data they generated, we were able to resolve two issues- first, the cross-compairison between WashU's protocol and our own demonstrated that our initial mesaurement protocol was not fully optimized. With their protocol, which they gave our team in detail, fluoresecnce measurements were much more consistant. In addition to this valuable finding, which has caused our lab to change our measurement protocol, they also validated our finding that the K314100 promoter was not reliable with expression. On the contrary, with the R0010 promoter, our engineered RFP had good fluorescence signal- thus giving us independent confirmation from a second lab that our optimized RFPs were still expressed well.


University of Virigina:

As killswitches were a maor emphasis for our mutation-optimization strategy, we proposed to improve the SacB killswitch that Virigina's iGEM team was using for the engineered probiotics. Using their original part sequence, we generated an optimized version which we then sent their time for synthesizing and testing in their system. We also gave their team the names of Vanderbilt faculty that had legal expertise in the area of probiotic medicine that their team was working on.


University of California at San Franscisco:

After hearing about their project through our mutation survey, we offered the analyze the genetic circuits that the UCSF team engineered. We have arranged to analyze their full circuit sequences through our circuit-optimization software, in order to determine the risk mutation would pose in their paritcular situation.


University of Georgia:

We participated in the Archae interlab study hosted by the University of Georgia's team, during which we measured red fluorescent proteins for them


Vilnius-Lithuania:

After hearing about their project through our mutation survey, we gave the Vilnius-Lithuania iGEM team statistics on how mutation-prone their two most important gene sequences were. We divided these mutation spots into categories so that their team could consider the potential contributions of different sources of mutagens.