Team:SCUT/HP/Magazine/iGEM Communication 1

The Delegates of SCUT Team Went to Wuhan for iGEMers’Meetup

On 23th Aug. 2014, the first central china iGEMers’meetup held by the union of Central China iGEM Teams was solemnly opened. This meeting attracts 16 iGEM teams from 17 universities，and SCUT team also sent two delegates to Wuhan to communicate. One was our team leader, Zhang Junjie, and the other was the head of HP part, Wang Zhizheng.

The meeting lasting 2 days was organized by HZAU, WHU and HUST iGEM teams. The contents consisted of three main parts: senior iGEMers’ reports, project presentation by each team, and the discussion of debugs in experiments. On the morning of 23th August, Dr. Tang Jun, the professor of HZAU participated in the opening ceremony and gave a welcoming speech. Then we watched the video made by the chairman iGEM Head Quarters specially for the meeting. It was really helpful and wonderful. After the opening ceremony, the seniors Zhang Haoqian and Liu Yang coming from Peking University and Ocean University of China gave us two important speeches, sharing their abundant experience about iGEM. It really paid to learn.

(pic 1 Haoqian was sharing his iGEM life.)

At first, Zhang Haoqian made a report and talked with us on five aspects. The contents were as follows: his experiences of joining in iGEM, the development of iGEM, the judging standards and some helpful tips, meanwhile he also told us the problems we faced about synthetic biology and introduced his research about synthetic biology. After that, Liu Yang raised a heated discussion with us. He asked us whether we should be guided by the application or research while we are designing our projects. Different people held different opinions. The atmosphere of discussion was pretty good. And we were so grateful for their detailed and impressive speeches.

(Pic 2 Liu Yang was explaining a research)

During the break of the meting, there were a variety of drinks and snacks in the lounge. We talked with friends as we drank coffee and ate cakes, which was so relaxing. Meanwhile there was also a poster area where we can see the posters of different teams to learn their ideas and thoughts. The posters all have their own features of their team, for example, the poster of Ocean University of China was painted on a blue background just like the beautiful ocean.

In the afternoon, HUST team and other 6 teams presented their projects in English. At first, two girls of HUST team introduced their project and they designed an engineering bacterium called Cao Mengde that can monitor Cu2+ of effluent, and meanwhile adsorb cyanogen compounds. And BNU team designed a project about an enzyme called ModA. The enzyme can adsorb and fix nitrogen and release molybdenum, which is of great help for plants to grow. And CAU team also bring us an amazing project. They tried to use a certain mechanism to make the engineering bacteria express RFP cyclically so that make a snowflake-shaped picture.WHU-Pharm team focused on designing a drug monitor without cellular system,while Jinlin team chose a project of environment track just like Peking team in order to control water pollution.

(Pic 3 Our delicious dinner)

At dinner, HZAU team brought us a sumptuous feast. We tasted various delicious local foods in Zhuyuan Dining Hall. After dinner, we had a lively and amazing discussion, which we called free talk. We have deep-going discussion and communication with BIT team, NDTU team, LZU team, WHU team and AHUT team. The atmosphere of free talk cannot be more enthusiastic, and all members have a very positive attitude to talk with their new friends and other team members. We cannot help being moved by our enthusiasm.

All team members made great efforts for one topic, one dream and one goal. We encouraged each other, and we were grateful for HZAU held the wonderful meet-up, which we cannot forget any more. What’s more, one of our team delegates also found a fellow-townsman in this competition, which made him feel very warm and happy.

All in all, the most important meaning of joining in iGEM is not about the grade , and should be the knowledge, confidence, friendship and the beautiful memory!

(Pic 4 The group photo with WHU iGEMers)