Collaboration

Overview

In our second year participating in the iGEM competition, we actively engaged in various forms of collaboration with multiple teams. The exchange of ideas and information with these teams greatly promoted the progress of our project. Through continuous communication and interaction, we were able to fully understand the unique insights of more teams and more people, thereby better improving our project. At the same time, these extensive collaborations enabled us to jointly carry out large-scale educational outreach activities, deeply spreading knowledge of biology, especially synthetic biology, to a wider audience. These collaborations not only helped us broaden our knowledge but also allowed us to meet iGEM members from different regions, establishing very valuable interpersonal relationships and networks. These relationships are of great significance to our future cooperation and development. This year, we deeply felt the power of collaboration and understood the importance of teamwork and information sharing.

SDU-China

At the beginning, we maintained close contact with SDU-China, not only because of our geographical proximity but also due to the deep historical relationship between the two teams. We happily decided to meet offline, becoming each other's first collaborating team on the 2024 iGEM journey. Core members from both teams attended this exchange meeting, aiming to strengthen professional communication among team members through discussions on synthetic biology techniques and project progress while fostering friendship. Both sides introduced their members and projects, sharing design ideas and technical solutions in detail. Numerous valuable suggestions and cooperation plans were proposed during the discussion. Shandong University also demonstrated their team badge design and Wiki construction techniques, and both sides exchanged technical details and practical experiences. Ultimately, the two teams reached a consensus, planning to continue technical communication and cooperation in the future. This exchange laid the foundation for the promotion of projects and future collaborations.

Figure1. Offline collaborration with SDU-China

HZAU-China

Like us, HZAU-China focuses on the agricultural field, and from the beginning, we planned to work together to address the various challenges faced by modern agriculture. As the global population grows and climate change impacts, agriculture must shift to a more sustainable and safer development model while ensuring an adequate food supply. Over the years, HZAU-China, relying on the strong resources of their school, has conducted in-depth explorations on the risk of antibiotic resistance caused by pesticides, while OUC-Haide has been exploring the possibility of using β-glucan to replace antibiotics to reduce the risk of antibiotic resistance by relying on our school's expertise in aquaculture. Given the shared goals of the two teams, we conducted in-depth exchanges and discussions on the technical details, innovations, ethics, experimental safety, and future development directions of each project and planned to maintain technical exchanges and cooperation in subsequent work to jointly enhance the integrity and advancement of our projects. In this process, we believe that through cooperation, we can jointly promote the transformation and upgrading of the entire industry, contributing to the construction of a better and more harmonious agricultural ecosystem. We plan to organize the "Harmonizing the Future Central China Exchange Conference" to facilitate deeper communication as our projects further develop.

WHU-China

WHU-China continued their previous policy of effective promotion by selling IGEM and WHU-China themed peripheral products online. This approach helped them introduce and promote their project to the public very effectively, achieving remarkable results. Their approach also inspired us greatly, so we decided to adopt a similar method, selling or distributing our peripheral products online to increase our visibility and influence. This would not only better promote our project but also help more people understand and pay attention to the entire IGEM competition and its significance. We believe this method can effectively promote the recognition and dissemination of the project, helping us achieve greater success.

Figure2. Offline collaborration with WHU-China

CCiC

The China iGEMer Community Conference (CCiC) is a national mobile event independently initiated by iGEM China teams and is the largest exchange platform for iGEMers in China. This conference aims to provide a resource-sharing platform to promote mutual learning and exchange between iGEM teams and young synthetic biology enthusiasts in China. We were fortunate to participate offline in the 11th CCiC conference hosted by Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University. During the event, we demonstrated our project and created a poster to introduce our team's project. In the project display, we provided an overview of the project and discussed ethical improvements with many other teams. During this conference, we gained valuable insights and understood that ethical considerations might be generally lacking among iGEM teams in China, which inspired our future work direction, and we reached cooperation with multiple teams.

Figure3. Team photo in CCiC1

Figure4. Presentation in CCiC2

Figure5. Poster of CCiC3

Ethics of Synthetic Biology

OUC-Haide participated in the compilation of ethical white papers independently hosted by JLU-NBBMS and CJUH-JLU-China. The ethical white paper by JLU-NBBMS focused on a specific project using synthetic biology methods to produce β-glucan as an antibiotic substitute, detailing the project's goals, methods, and potential benefits, such as cost reduction, environmental impact reduction, and safety improvement. The white paper by CJUH-JLU-China explored ethical issues in the entire antibiotic substitute industry, including safety, environmental impact, data privacy, optimization, fairness, and informed consent principles. Additionally, both white papers discussed the enormous potential of synthetic biology in future medical and agricultural applications. We believe that scientific research requires not only technical innovation but also a close combination of ethics and social responsibility. By participating in the compilation of these white papers, OUC-Haide understood other teams' views on ethical issues, hoping to promote public understanding and guide scientific development toward a healthier and more sustainable direction, providing strong support for future policy formulation. This also laid a good foundation for OUC-Haide to create a new ethical framework.

Ethics of Synthetic Biology (Organised by cjuh-jlu-china)

The Light of Biology, Building Future Together podcast

OUC-Haide participated in a podcast hosted by NNU-CHINA titled "The Light of Biology, Building Future Together." In this podcast, we introduced in detail the unique characteristics and important ecological functions of the mangrove, the original discovery area of the chassis organism they studied. Additionally, they discussed the history of antibiotic use in livestock and its impacts, from the initial use of antibiotics to the current role and function of antibiotics in livestock. Through these podcasts, audiences not only gained a deeper understanding of the unique ecological system of mangroves but also recognized the historical background of antibiotic use and its importance in livestock.

Figure6. Podcast with NNU-CHINA

Modeling Discussion Meeting

While modeling, we collaborated and communicated with CAU-China, NJTECH-China, and SDU-China. During the discussion, we shared our respective modeling methods and ideas, explored the advantages and disadvantages of different models and their applicable scenarios. Through this collaboration, we not only improved the accuracy and effectiveness of each other's models but also discovered more potential areas for cooperation through information sharing. Everyone agreed that modeling is not merely a technical exchange but also an important part of team brainstorming. In the future, we plan to continue holding such discussion meetings to continuously promote our innovation and practice in modeling, jointly facing future challenges and laying a solid foundation for the in-depth development of projects.

Figure7. Modeling Discussion Meeting online

Synthetic Future Central China Exchange Meeting

We participated in the "Synthetic Future Central China Exchange Meeting." Compared to the CCiC, the project designs of all participating teams were more mature. The judges mentioned that we should not overlook the potential advantages of discarded yeast. We realized that although other microorganisms were chosen in the early stages of the project, yeast still has potential in many aspects, especially with its rich experimental and application experience for reference. The judges' opinions prompted us to reassess the additional value yeast might bring to the project. We hope to make the project more comprehensive, with more diversified technical reserves, to ensure more flexible responses in complex practical applications. Meanwhile, we will continue to maintain close contact with all participating teams, sharing research progress and experimental results, and promoting project optimization through mutual learning.

Conclusion

In this year's iGEM competition, through active cooperation and in-depth exchanges with multiple teams, we deeply felt the importance and power of teamwork and information sharing. Multi-party cooperation not only promoted the progress of our project at a technical level but also provided us with valuable learning opportunities and unique insights.
The cooperation with teams such as SDU-China, HZAU-China, and WHU-China allowed us to examine and optimize our project from multiple perspectives, gaining valuable feedback and suggestions. This exchange not only made our project more complete but also helped us establish an important interpersonal relationship network, which will greatly benefit our future cooperation and development.
During the modeling discussion, the participation of teams CAU-China, NJTECH-China, and SDU-China greatly enriched our work. We shared our respective modeling methods, discussed the advantages and disadvantages of different models, and explored potential areas for future collaboration. This exchange not only improved our modeling level but also laid a solid foundation for future technical cooperation.
Participating in the CCiC conference and the "Harmonizing the Future Central China Exchange Conference" gave us the opportunity to publicly showcase our project and receive valuable feedback from various parties, especially in terms of ethical considerations. This feedback prompted us to reassess and improve our experimental methods, such as reconsidering the potential application value of yeast, making the project more comprehensive and diverse.
Through participating in the compilation of ethical white papers by JLU-NBBMS and CJUH-JLU-China, as well as the podcast activities with NNU-China, we not only broadened our knowledge but also deepened our understanding of ethical issues and social responsibility in scientific research. These collaborations fostered our academic reflection and sense of responsibility.
Overall, this year's collaborative experiences led to significant progress in technology, knowledge, and team building and established an important interpersonal relationship network. These experiences and relationships will have a profound impact on our future development. Looking ahead, we will continue to uphold an open and collaborative attitude, working together with other teams to promote the development of synthetic biology and contribute to addressing global challenges.