Team:Paris Bettencourt/Newsletter

Rather than saying we started the newsletter, I would like to think that the newsletter idea came to us. In May 2014, before I officially started working on the project, I got an email from the Xiamen University iGEM team, looking for cooperation. The original idea was to translate our website. However, I wanted to have something more interactive and updated. At that time, my Model United Nation team back in school just started a newsletter and I loved it. Therefore, “why not doing a newsletter for iGEM” came naturally into mind. After talking to Xiamen University team, we decided newsletter is not only a good option to follow up with each other’s project, but also can develop into a system of peer review. To reach the goal of constant communication, networking among young synthetic biologists and establishing a real-time peer review system, we decide to publish one issue of newsletter every two weeks. The focus of one issue would either be team member introduction or project update. Each team can ask questions about their project that they want feedbacks on. Some of the questions are scientific, while a large portion of them is about ethical and philosophical discussions. We, as the organizer of the newsletter, collected the answers and distributed them to teams accordingly. Later, thanks to the contribution from other teams and continue brainstorming of cooperation, we did a student review session of the questions that iGEM judges use to grade teams.

In total, we had four regular issues, one special issue that includes interview of past judge and iGEMers, and one student review session of judging process. There are more than 30 teams involved through the process, from more than 8 countries and regions. Students have used the newsletter as a platform of pursuing further cooperation in specific projects, of promoting special events and even of building friendship with people sharing similar interests.

I would call the newsletter a successful project and meaningful cooperation if iGEMers have found supports, feedbacks and networks through it. Personally, it brought me to talk to iGEMers from China, Germany and Switzerland, which I found interesting and encouraging. One of the most valuable resources in synthetic biology is the mind of people involved. Through the newsletter, we tried to maximize the contribution of such intelligent mind to benefit not only iGEM projects, but also, to provide useful feedback to the judges and to further discussion in synthetic biology in general.

Issue 1
06/14 - 06/30

ETH Zürich
Goettingen
Gothenburg
Paris Bettencourt 2014
TJU-China
UI-Indonesia
USTC_China Valencia Biocampus

Issue 2
07/01 - 07/15

Colombia
ETH Zürich
Goettingen
LIKA CESAR Brasil
Paris Bettencourt
Purdue
Stanford Brown Spelman
Sheffield
SJTU BioX Shanghai
Technion Israel
Tongji
UCSF & UCB
USTC_China
Valencia Biocampus
XMU-China

Issue 3
07/15 - 07/30

Brawijaya University
CAU-China
Goettingen
LIKA CESAR Brasil
Nagahama
NJU-QIBEBT
NEAU-Harbin
Paris Bettencourt
Paris Saclay
Sheffield
Stanford Brown Spelman
SYSU-China
Technion Israel
Tianjin University
Tongji
Tsinghua-A
UCSF & UCB
USTC-China
Valencia Biocampus
Warsaw
Whu-China
XMU-China
Zju-China

Issue 4
08/01 - 08/15

Colombia
ETH Zurich
Goettingen
LIKA CESAR Brasil
NJU QIBEBT
NEAU Harbin
Paris Bettencourt
SYSU China Technion Israel The Fatberglars
Tianjin University
Tongji University
Tsinghua A
UCSF & UCB
USTC China
Valencia Biocampus
XMU China

Special Issue 1
October 2014

Newsletter 5
October 2014