Summary: Involving the Community

Although there are several scientific institutions located in Berlin which are conducting research in synthetic biology, there has never been an iGEM team from Berlin before. This is even more surprising as Berlin with its vibrant bio-arts and diy-biology community seems to be the perfect location for successful iGEM projects. As an interconnected workforce, our team incorporates members from various scientific, cultural and creative backgrounds, which makes our team able to address complex issues from various persepctives. So far, iGEM Berlin consists of students from biotechnology, history, design, medicine, theoretical physics, informatics, and more. Our diverse team has been able to make valuable connections into the bio-arts scene of Berlin, working together with think tanks such as the Hybrid Plattform, as well as EU advisor Markus Schmidt and his Biofaction AG.
Supported by the Hybrid Plattform, we organized a science and design workshop event on the 8/9.08.2014. During this event we conducted a series of short presentations about synthetic biology, as well as about prototyping and speculative design. Participants from different backgrounds designed and constructed interactions, which deal with the idea of a biological modularity. The resulting interactions addressed currently debating issues about the future of syntheic biology applications. Surpisingly the participants focused on topics like performance enhancement, transhumanism, alternative materials and housing as well as standardiziation. By explaining the basic principles of synthetic biology and approaching synthetic biology with a limited complexity synthetic biological speculation became easily accessible and reached wide variety of people.
In the beginning of September, we collaborated with the artists and scientists from the c-lab collectiv (UK) as well as the Artlaboratory - a berlin bio-arts space. In the Synthetic Biology Workshop artists and other people were introduced to synthetic biology and performed their own cloning experiment. The whole event came to an end in Berlins first Science Café event for synthetic biology organized and hosted by the iGEM Berlin Team. During this event, we had speakers from different backgrounds and we discussed chosen aspects of synthetic biology with participants openly over drinks and food. The artist Ping Lui from Cologne presented his speculative design of an oracle based on magnetotactic bacteria. Rüdiger Trojok, a infamous German biohacker presented his current project, Howard Boland shared his bioart projects and former iGEM involvement with us and Johann from our team gave a short presentation about iGEM and our project. These events were designed to have a high impact on the German understanding of synthetic biology and were a major success in Berlin.
One of the current major issues in synthetic biology is the laws and regulations concerning patents. iGEM generally refuses patents and promotes the idea of open source biology. However, as the success and applicability of synthetic biology depend on industry investments, there has to be a compromise in policy regulations. To discuss this topic in detail we teamed up with patent lawyers from the Adares Patentanwältekanzlei as well as Biocommons (Creative Commons license model for Synbio) activist Rüdiger Trojok to discuss patenting and fundamental principles of intellectual property. In summary, we used art events and practical workshops to confront the German public with issues of synthetic biology. Furthermore, our project of creating a remote control for E. coli bears various practical applications as well as expands the possibilities of future functional biological systems.

Collaborators of iGEM Berlin 2014

• iGEM Virtus Parva Mexico
  We showed their project video and distributed their questionares during our synthetic biology workshop in the Artlaboratory Berlin. We helped to increase their outreach and get more people informed about their impressiv MEMS project
• iGEM Paris-Bettencourt
  Shuyi Sylvia Yang from iGEM Paris Bettencourt visited us and presented their project
  iGEM UCHK
  Tina Ho from iGEM Hongkong Team visited us and introduced us to their project and we started a collaboration
• iGEM Calgary provided us our first Biobrick (Ferritin)
• Faivre Group at Max Planck Institute Potsdam
  
Provided us a Mikrofluidic channel and magnetotactic bacteria
• Prof. Ellerbrock from Robert Koch Institute
  
Provided us RKI gene synthesis of Pseudomonas Putida Metallothionein (PPMT)
• Franz-Josef Schmitt from the Bioenergetics workgroup at TU Berlin
  
Provided us acces to a fluorescence microscope and software OpenProjektLabor
• Research Institute & Academy for Brewery in Berlin (VLB) e.V.
  
Provided us genomic DNA of Pseudomonas Putida

Art & Design

• Florian Renner created a 3D-Animation for the project part of our Homepage (www.florian-renner.com)
• Graffiti for our iGEM Logo (Leo, local Graffiti artist)
• Fotoshooting with Swen Rudolph as basis for our Homepage (www.swenrudolph.de)

Presentations of iGEM Berlin 2014 at different events or conferences

• 4. April 2014: 3rd BioProScale Symposium at IfGB: Institute for Fermentation Industry and Biotechnology of Berlin
• 6. -8. May 2014: XB1: First Conference on Xenobiology in Genoa
• 24. -26. May 2014: Presentation of iGEM Berlin at Ludwig-Maximilian University in Munich
• 18. August 2014: “Long Night of Science” in our home laboratory in Berlin
• 20. September 2014: Open day at Institute for Chemistry at TU Berlin

Articles and representation in press

• iGEM represents itself at www.hybrid-plattform.org as research project
• Article “From an insider’s perspective: About Freedom in Science and Scientific Curiosity”
  written by Johann Bauerfeind at www.hybrid-plattform.org
• Article about iGEM and the German iGEM Meetup in Munich at www.laborjournal.de
• Article at TU Berlin intern “Joystick for Bacteria”

Workshops

• Workshop 16. - 17. August2014 “Down into the Test Tube”. Aim of this workshop was to bring scientists and people from disciplines like design and art together to form an innovative perspective on new solutions for future problems
• Workshop 5. - 7. September 2014 “Synthetic Biology” in co-operation with C-LAB Art Laboratory Berlin. The workshop was for artists, designers, DIY biologists, and especially lay people who wish to gain practical experience with the processes and methods in the creation of new life forms, bio-materials and new forms of expression

Ethics & Morale

• Fiction text about magnetic bacteria written by Ping Lu (Art College Cologne)
• Translation of our homepage content in different languages by Andrés Salazar

Excursion

• iGEM Conference in Munich 24.-26.May 2014
  
Get-together with teams from Germany and debating at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich about their projects

Financial Support, Providers of Chemicals and Laboratory Equipment

• BioCat AK Biokatalyse (Prof. Budisa)
• Adares Patent- und Rechtsanwälte
• IBB Investitionsbank Berlin
• Carl Roth
• TU Berlin Gesellschaft von Freunden der Technischen Universität Berlin
• New England BioLabs Inc.
• Promega
• Agrarbörse Deutschland Ost e.V.
• GenExpress
• ERA SynBio
• Unikat
• TU Berlin