Team:Goettingen/outreach human practices

iGEM meets in Munich

At the end of May, Julia Menzel and I (Lara Schmitz) went to Munich as representatives of our iGEM team to meet members of 11 iGEM teams from all over Germany. The weekend started with an official welcome by the iGEM team Munich and we heard a really interesting talk from Prof. Dr. Friedrich Simmel from the TU Munich. After that, we had a get-together with a barbeque to get to know the members of the other iGEM teams. Because of the good weather and the nice people we had a great evening with a lot of fun.

The next day, all teams had the opportunity to present their projects. Most of the projects were really interesting; some teams had curious and intriguing ideas. In the short discussion that followed, questions were asked and the teams made their suggestions and comments to the other projects. The day was wound up with a nice dinner at a typical Bavarian beer garden.

On Monday, the last day of our trip, we had some free-time to explore Munich, visit the English Garden and relax a bit. Along with people from the iGEM teams Darmstadt, Freiburg and Saarland, we visited the Marienplatz in Munich and had lunch with them. After that, we joined the meeting at the Center for Advanced Studies (CAS) with a focus on Synthetic Biology with international speakers. We were one of six teams which had introduced our project to the audience in another brief talk. After that, we were really tired and took the last train back to Göttingen. But because the ICE had a delay, we missed our connecting train leaving us stuck in Fulda and hence, had to spend a night in a hotel in Fulda. This was the curious end of an eventful weekend and iGEM meeting in Munich.

All in all, it was an exhausting weekend, but we also had a lot of fun with the other teams and we have got to know a lot of people. The presentations were very interesting and we received a lot of constructive feedback and new ideas for our project.

For more information, please visit the homepage of this event. Click HERE.

To see more photos, click HERE.

SynBio Day

During the meet-up in München all the german iGEM Teams had the possibility to participate at Workshops. The participants at the Workshop agreed to a german wide SynBio Week, which was scheduled to the second week of August. Our team chose the 15th of August as our SynBio Day. On the SynBio Day we planned to present our project to the broad public of our city, Göttingen. The idea behind a SynBio Day was to inform and try to work against prejudges regarding Synthetic Biology. These aims could be achieved by talking head to head with all kinds of people on public places or making informative posters addressing aspects of Synthetic Biology in order to reach people via social media. Furthermore we did a survey in order to get an idea about the german public opinion on Synthetic Biology.

On this SynBio Day from 10 AM to 5 PM, our team members talked to the citizens of Göttingen at an information booth, which was located at the iconic Gänseliesel in the city center. By showing lively and comic posters, we caught the attention of many. People of different ages stopped by the booth, looked through all the posters and asked questions. Most of them were very curious about the field of Synthetic Biology and our topic especially. Our team members took pleasure in answering all their questions and as a bonus, cakes and muffins were offered to thank for their attention and curiosity.

To see more photos, click HERE.

GZMB Symposium 2014

The GZMB symposium is a significant event held once a year in the Göttingen Center for molecular Biosciences (GZMB). Each year, scientists present their findings. This time around, our team managed to give a talk to let more professors and students learn about our project and receive feedback on the same;which, would go a long way to improve our performance in Boston.

HERE is the poster for this event.

On this day, we were able to arouse curiosity in many from the audience. For that, we thank our speakers - Julia, Shantal and Joanan! Along with applause, we also received some constructive criticism regarding what and where we could do better. For example, Prof. Dr. Stülke, one of the supervisors of the iGEM team last year, gave us good suggestions regarding how to proceed with the dry lab section. With the improvements made and the positive feedback from the veterans we've been interacting with, we feel more and more confident and ready for Boston! yay!

To see more photos, click HERE.