. Collaborations .

Overview

We are delighted to find that this community is still full of surprise and energy. Every exchange feels like a sparkle that allows us to illuminate each other.

HUBU-China

Through the communication platform of the iGEM Chinese community, we received the exchange invitation of HUBU-China, which opened a happy exchange. This year, HUBU-China's project is to use plasmid delivery of RNAi to control agricultural pests efficiently. The excellent targeting performance of RNAi can avoid the non-specific killing of other organisms, and its instability also reduces the risk of environmental exposure. This made us realize that our project also needs to consider biosafety issues and environmental exposure risks more comprehensively. In addition, we shared our views on how to gain special prizes, coming away with a renewable understanding of how we can improve our project.　

Fig.1 Group photo after the exchange

This exchange not only enhanced our understanding of each other's projects but also established precious friendships between the teams. Our subsequent story can be seen on CCiC.

11^th CCiC

From July 11 to 14, 2024, we were invited to Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University to attend the 11th iGEMer Exchange Conference in China. Excellent iGEM teams from all over the country gathered at the conference. We interacted with Hainan-China, WHU-China, HUBU-China, Jiangnan-China and other teams to learn more about their creative design concepts, such as the selection of lytic protein. During communication, we received valuable suggestions from other teams and professors in various fields, such as on the properties of hydrogels under high heavy metal ion concentrations, prompting us to reflect on the rationality of using hydrogels in industry and actively explore new improvement schemes.

Fig.2 Group photo of all participants

Fig.3 members interact with other teams

In summary, the heated discussions with other teams at this exchange provided us with important inspiration and brought us closer to our overall goal of optimizing the industrial processes for paper deinking.

Hainan-China & NJTech-China

After CCiC, we exchanged contact information with interested teams. We launched an online exchange on human practice with Hainan-China and NJTech-China. By sharing our experiences and plans from human practice, we gained a deeper insight into the relationship between the world and our project.

The representatives of Hainan University highlighted their experiences of regular communication and cooperation with professors and enterprises, which enabled them to orient their project direction more accurately. The Nanjing University of Technology team members presented a publicity campaign designed for visually and hearing-impaired people, perfectly demonstrating the team's humanistic care and social responsibility. We shared some examples of how human practice helped us make design decisions logically and explained how human practice ran through the whole life cycle of our project.

Fig.4 Communication between among the three teams

After that, we also had some in-depth exchanges on specific issues such as questionnaire surveys, activity planning and contacting potential interviewees. In the end, we shared our visions for the future of human practice, which made us feel more intensely the close connection between ourselves and the world.

Summary

Through these enjoyable exchanges, we gained an in-depth understanding of other teams, inspired by their valuable experiences and suggestions. It is obvious that if you want to go far, go together, which is the only way to keep the iGEM community alive and creative.