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From 2014.igem.org

Collaboration with Colorado State University

Members from our team reached out to another local iGEM team, CSU, to meet and talk about our projects at the beginning of the summer. We were able to discuss our projects and our experimental design over some appetizers and drinks at Oskar Blues Brewery. It was here we decided to work together August.

Representatives of our lab traveled to CSU for a two-day experiment to validate our packaging signal part (BBa_1445000). We explained the theory behind our project and shared our protocol for phage amplification. The CSU team then produced phage using our packaging signal part and compared its delivery to a similar plasmid containing an insert with no known phagemid packaging ability. In order to accommodate the time constraints, we shortened the protocol by removing the lengthy incubation. This, along with other errors along the way likely led to the unexpected results.

During our stay, we related to their current problems with Gibson Assembly and offered solutions that had worked for us. Additionally, we cultivated ideas for a combined outreach program. These plans were not realized this year but set the groundwork for future and more extensive collaboration between the schools next summer.

We also participated in the following surveys for other iGEM teams:

• Complexity – Zurich
• Policy and Practices – Warwick
• On the concept of living and Bioart – Paris-Saclay
• Bioethics and Biotechnology in XXI century – Brasil-SP
• Modeling and Survey – AMU-Poznan