Introduction

Due to the shortage of manpower, we had to complete the iGEM tasks under high pressure. Under this condition, we have accumulated a lot of experience in tasks accomplishment, which may be a good inspiration for other teams in terms of future team administration, selection of technical pathways, enrollment and tasks arrangements. At least the problems we have faced can encourage future high school teams to face the problems more calmly. After all, if three people can achieve, what can't a larger and effective team accomplish?

New basic part

co_E.coli laccase ORF

This year we merely contributed one basic part. The laccase coding gene was cloned from Lactobacillus plantarum (L. plantarum), which is the most effective amine-degrading bacterium. Then, heterologous expression was carried out in Escherichia coli Rosetta (DE3) to form recombinant laccase. The enzymatic properties of the recombinant laccase and its tolerance to ethanol were studied. We will use this laccase to degrade phenolic compounds.

Team administration

Maybe everyone will be curious about it. Why is team building and management so important in a genetic engineering-related competition? Actually, there is a misunderstanding. iGEM is actually a comprehensive competition, and contains such as humanities, engineering, biology, and entrepreneurship need to be implemented by the team: iGEM is much more like a business start-up than some business competitions that simulate start-ups. Simulated start-up competitions have no actual output, but iGEM has actual and effective output, which is why so many enterprises have been incubated from iGEM. The management, task allocation, task feedback, unity, etc. are all very important for an enterprise, and these important things can be applied to iGEM as well. The creative ideas of iGEM are certainly very important, but without people to complete them, no creativity can be realized. More importantly, iGEM is not a competition that can be completed by one person. If each member is motivated, tasks are discussed reasonably, unproductive discussions are reduced, the project focus is avoided from being ignored by members, and less distracted vioce from internal are avoided to prevent the project from stalling. These team constitution, should be designed before the start of iGEM project, and then continuously modified during the game.

During the entire process, although we did not encounter this problem because there were three people, we also felt that if one of us accidentally could not contribute, our project would be directly delayed or even suspended. For future iGEM teams, our suggestion is to build a small core team of 3 to 5 people at the beginning, divide whole competition into specific modules, let each person manage their respective modules, discuss the team management constitution, and then enroll other members to complete the tasks of their modules through the module leaders. Such an organized team can be more efficient in execution and can ensure that each team member clearly understands what they need to do and what contribution they will make to the team.

Early Verification

Verification of design should be done as early as possible, even though the design is rough. We do not have to accomplish experiments for verification: we can also consult with the expertise about the feasibility of our idea. In this way, we can obtain experience of our biological design figure out the problems of our designs as early as possible. If there are very serious deficiency in our design, we can also change the topic of research as early as possible to avoid the conflict of the later experimental arrangement.