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On the 26th and 27th of March 2015 there were two training days for all the iGEM teams of the Netherlands. The teams invited were Groningen, TU Eindhoven, and TU Delft. Both days were filled with different lectures, on the 26^th at the University of Groningen, and on the 27^th at TU Delft.

We left the Delft station early in the morning, prepared for a long train ride. Without any delays we arrived in Groningen by 11am and were warmly welcomed with tea,coffee, and biscuits. Aljoscha Wahl started with a general introduction to iGEM, and we were introduced to the members of the other teams. It was really nice to meet them all and learn about all the different backgrounds. The first speaker was Renske van Raaphorst who gave a lecture about how to be successful in iGEM. She had participated in the iGEM competition in 2012 with the team of Groningen, and won the grand prize that year. She summarized what they had done and how their project had proceeded from beginning to end. It was very surprising how many obstacles they encountered and how they solved them. She gave us a few good tips how to approach problems and avoid stress moments. Clement Gallay continued with a general introduction about bio bricking. I thought that a lot of what she told was already known, since nearly everyone had a biology background. Yet it was a nice abstract about what we would be doing in the lab this summer.

Time flew by and at the beginning of the afternoon we got lunch in the canteen. It was a great moment to talk to the other team members and ask about their projects and experiences so far. After the lunch every team gave a short presentation about their project and their progression so far. That was a moment we could give comments and ask questions. Because we didn't have our final idea yet, it was a nice opportunity to hear different opinions about subjects we had in mind. Although the other teams were already a lot further than us, we are sure we can still catch up with them.

The day continued with a presentation by Anna Lauxen from the Groningen team 2014. She also gave us a lot of tips that were very practical. Maarten van den Nieuwenhof followed with an informative lecture about Human Practices in iGEM. Lastly Bayu Jayawardhana informed us about modeling in iGEM. He described the importance of modeling in Biology in general and the importance for iGEM. After the last presentation of the first day, we stayed a while to have dinner with the team of Groningen. They ordered large pizza’s with beer and we had a nice time with the other teams about the long, but educating day. We went home satisfied. On the way back we had a little bit of troubles, but thanks to the beautiful singing voice of Hector we were able to come home without extra costs.

On the second day, the iGEM courses were hosted at the TU Delft campus. Unfortunately due to disruptions with the trains, the Groningen team were unable to join the gathering. Luckily, the team of TU Eindhoven was able to come to with the other half of their group, so there were a lot of new faces for us, and many introductions. At 10.30 we started with a lecture by Anne Meyer about tuning and troubleshooting engineered genetic circuits. It also included many tips and tricks to avoid problems. Aljoscha Wahls followed up with a presentation about Network Motives, a kinetic perspective. Timon Idema started his presentation about physics and modeling behind the iGEM project, and how you had to ask the right questions to use modelling as a tool. He also gave information about how the judges evaluate the modeling tract. After taking up so much new knowledge, it was time for a lunch provided by the TU Delft.

After lunch Anne Meyer continued with a lecture about all the things the jury like and dislike in the iGEM competition. Since she had participated as a judge in the iGEM competition, she was able to gives a lot of useful information that we definitely would use. The last item on the agenda was a practical course in modelling, where we were given some exercises with matlab to see how modelling worked in practice. This gave a lot of insight for students who had never worked with matlab or modelling before. To close the two day lectures, everyone was invited for drinks afterwards in one of the popular bars.

All in all the two days were very informative, we got a lot of useful tips and tricks. Besides that we have a lot of fun. It was also very nice to meet the other teams and hear their project. We would like to thank all the participating teams, old iGEM members and lecturers for their time and energy in organizing and joining the educating and informative subjects.

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Chang Gung University

On the 12th of June we had contact for the first time with a team outside the Netherlands. We arranged a Skype meeting with them for an hour. We explained our project, and they explained their project. We had just started in the lab, and it was very interesting to hear how far they were in the process and what their experience was so far. CGU team was further in the development of the plasmids. In their iGEM project they try to develop an organism that can detect Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC). They use the idea of the TU Delft team of 2012, the snifferomyces project.

Unfortunately our projects are now too different, so there was no reason to exchange plasmids. They had some questions for us about the modeling, because our model was already quite developed at that time. It was a good experience, and nice to meet another team!

NCTU_Formosa Taiwan

On the 4th of August we had a Skype conversation with the iGEM team of NCTU. After 15 minutes of getting the technology to work, we finally can talk. We started with sharing our project topics. Jenny Gee, one of the team members held a comprehensive presentation of their project. What we noticed and surprised us is that it seems that most of the teams have a lot of members. However, our team consist only of nine(9) members, we seem to be quite on track. We are all now working at least 40 hour a week on iGEM, and it was nice to hear that NCTU team also does. They are arranging a big event among the Asian iGEM teams. For us that’s maybe also an idea, to arrange one more time an event among the Dutch teams. It was a nice conversation, we had fun meeting them and seeing how far other teams are in their project.

A Day of Wonder

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