Team:Bielefeld-CeBiTec/Collaborations

Collaborations

Because research is more fun together.

Collaboration with iGEM team from Freiburg

Our team from Bielefeld sent a plasmid based on BBa_I746909 that has a translation enhancing sequence (5’-UTR), and team Freiburg sent a plasmid containing turboYFP, a His and a Halo Tag. We would like to compare if these parts work in different cell free proteins synthesis environments.

Collaboration with team Dundee 2015

Some part of our project was similar to team Dundee´s. They build a chromium biosensor based on the same system we used, the chromate inducible operon of Ochrobactrum tritici 5bvl1. Therefore we decided to cooperate and exchanged plans and plasmid maps, as well as sequences. Thereby we realized they were comparing the original sequence to one with the first 15 codons optimized, while our system bases on a complete codon optimized repressor. After actually generating our sensors we exchanged samples to test in each other’s systems. And look for differences. We were able to measure a combination of our promoter and their repressor in CFPS.

Collaboration with team Santa Clara 2015

As a part of our project, we provide a report about the dual use issue. As an aspect of this report is the analysis of the legal situation in different countries, we aim to provide knowledge about the applying laws in Germany, the European Union, and the United States of America. As an expert in the field of law, a member of team Santa Clara, Joseph Ayar, J.D. candidate from University of Santa Clara, School of Law, provided valuable insights in the applying laws and advisory boards in the USA. His analysis is marked as quote in our report. Additionaly, we thank him for language advice on our report as native speaker.

Collaboration with team Exeter 2015

Similar to our project, team Exeter is working with a cell extract to translate proteins. They designed a synthetic toehold switch to detect specific RNA sequences. They aim to use that switch in a cell extract for further use in diagnostics. In terms of collaboration, we communicated via Skype and email. To help them to determine further applications of their project, we calculated the price for a single reaction of our crude cell extract in the size of their reaction and provided a table of contents.