Team:SDU-Denmark/Tour54

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iGEM meet-up in London hosted by YSB (1^st of September - 2^nd of September)

iGEM meet-up in London. Our team was very lucky and extremely pleased to be able to participate in the UK iGEM Meet-up organized by YSB (Young Synthetic Biologists) in collaboration with the UCL-team. The event was an excellent preparation for the Giant Jamboree because we could rehearse our presentation and make a first try to design a poster. In addition, we got the opportunity to hear about other teams' projects. We also participated in 6 different workshops: Intellectual Property, Human Practices, Characterization, Public Engagement, Citizen Science and BioArt. The other iGEM teams were very helpful in giving us constructive criticism and many good ideas for future work. Additionally, there were a lot of friendly participants who helped by filling out our questionnaire. Our team gained very much by attending the event - It was both fun and educational. We would like to thank YSB (Young Synthetic Biologists) and the UCL-team for two fantastic days in London.

Study Trade Fair (11^th of September)

Study Trade Fair. We participated in the annual Study Trade Fair at our university to raise awareness about the iGEM competition, our project, promote our outreach events in October, to get more answers to our questionnaire and to promote the recruiting for next year’s iGEM-team. The day was a great success. We met many interested students who wanted to hear more about iGEM in general and about our project. In addition, we were able to practice our presentation skills.

Old-iGEM Meet-up (18^th of September)

Old-GEM meet-up. We invited all SDU-iGEM former participants to a meet up… and it was a success! They heard about our project and responded to our presentation with valuable feedback. Our supervisors had arranged and prepared dinner after our presentation, which gave us a chance to discuss the responses. Thank you to all of them for coming and making this a cozy evening.

Bioscientific dissemination (30^th of September)

Bioscientific dissemination is an event for students by students. It is an event where students get the chance to present their individual, bachelor and master projects to get a great response and practice presentation skills.
The iGEM SDU-Denmark 2014 project was presented by one of our team members, and he got constructive criticism as well as a great experience.

Sundhedsmekka: An exhibition for medical students (1^st of October)

Sundhedsmekka. Sundhedsmekka is a yearly event, where associations and event groups with interests that concerns medical students can promote themselves. Originally, it was a medical student who started the first iGEM team from SDU. Since then the iGEM teams representing SDU have at least had one medical student on their team. In spite of this, most medical students at SDU have not heard of iGEM, and even synthetic biology is an unfamiliar field to most medical students. By participating in Sundhedsmekka our iGEM team got a chance to explain the concept of the iGEM contest and our own project. It was a great success to talk to all the many interested students and in connection with the conversations; we invited people to attend our “Quiz and Presentation night”, which had premiere in the following week.

Quiz and Presentation night at the Student House (6^th of October)

Quiz and Presentation night at the Student House. The Student House is a gathering place for students and locals, which is located in the center of Odense. The purpose of the Student House is to have a forum where university students can come to study or to take part in social events or both. Volunteers are responsible for the café area, where different events take place frequently. Our team arranged a Microorganism Quiz and Presentation Night at the Student House where around fifty people participated. Our presentation was about the main concepts of iGEM and synthetic biology and additionally an overview of our own project. The presentation was followed by our quiz about microorganisms. Every question had a preamble concerning microorganisms but the question usually was a digression from the subject. Our idea with the event was that the questions should apply to anyone and it ended up being a great success for this reason.

Article in SUND&HED

SUND&HED is a university newspaper directed to health science and medical students. We wrote an article about iGEM and our project, which will be published in late October.