Team:UCL/Achievements

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Achievements




Best Supporting Entrepreneurship Winner

Best Composite Part Nomination

bronze

  1. we registered our team
  2. we completed the judging form
  3. we have created 6 new BioBrick parts and submitted them to the iGEM registry
  4. we have created team wiki to share the story of our project with the world
  5. we have attributed our team members, acknowledged our advisors and sponsors
  6. we are heading to the Giant Jamboree to present a poster and give a presentation

silver

  1. we have experimentally validated BBa_K1598002 and documented its characterization in the iGEM registry
  2. we submitted this part to the iGEM Parts registry
  3. we identified, investigated and address the ethics, safety and social impact of our project in our Human Practices

gold

  1. We expanded on our silver medal Human Practices activity by investigating the problems associated with traditional antidepressants and anxiolytics, and learning more about their side effects. We then integrated the investigated issues into the design and execution of our project by creating and characterizing the Pregnenolone biobrick, which has been shown to reduce the side effects of numerous drugs.
  2. We carried out various innovative Human Practices activities to reduce mental health stigma using art. We worked with a bioartist, photographer, comic book designer, and mental health charities. We hosted an art exhibition with art from mentally ill people.
  3. We hosted a Synthetic Biology bootcamp at the start of summer and helped the members of a new iGEM team, Birkbeck, get acquainted with all the basic techniques needed to compete in iGEM. It covered software, modelling, assembly, registering parts, etc.We’ve also been a part of a plethora of other Collaborations, as described in our Collaborations page.
  4. We improved three biobricks in terms of characterisation:
    • pYeaR improved by improved characterisation of sensitivity of promoter
    • ompR improved by discovering new applcation, NaCl sensitivity
    • flhDC was not characterised before, we characterised this promoter and confirmed its function
  5. To demonstrate a functional prototype of our project and show this system working under real-world conditions simulated in the lab, we created a microfluidics device, Human Gut-on-a-Chip. We grow our bacteria with mammalian cells in it to study how our probiotic prototype grows and colonizes the gut. We also studied the interactions between the 2 cells, and established that they symbiotically co-exist after over 16hours in real-world conditions.