"
Team:Paris Bettencourt/The Smell Game
From 2014.igem.org
Introduction
This year, five students from the MSc of BioInformatics & Genomics of the University of Rennes 1 tried to inaugurate the first iGEM team from their university. However, being the first is always fraught with challenges and ultimately, they were not able have their own team this year. The Rennes University students wanted to participate in iGEM to learn about synthetic biology. The team viewed synthetic biology as a scientific discipline with a lot of potential, but still in the nascent stage of development. So they were still determined still participate! These five students asked us (iGEM Paris-Bettencourt team) for advice and found that the Rennes students had computational skills that we lacked. Thus began a mutually beneficial collaboration, which lead to the development of the online program “SmellGame”. The team from Rennes who worked on the game: includes three computational biologists (Florian, Lucas and Nathan), and two computer developers (Arnaud and Jean), who worked with the Paris-Bettencourt team on the game.
|
We are the 2014 iGEM Paris Bettencourt team, a part of the Centre Recherches Interdisciplinaires (CRI) in Paris. Our smelly team is composed of people from all around the globe with a variety of backgrounds from Biology to Design to Engineering and Informatics. Our common interest in the human microbiome and odors has led us to our project that we proudly present to you: 'The Smell of Us'. 
|
|
ARNAUD FERRETeam-leader
I am an old student with two degrees: one in software & project engineering and one in bioinformatics for genomics. I want to work in biotechnology, because of their high interdisciplinary aspect and their potential to improve our (very near) future society. The first time that I heard about synthetic biology, I was immediately motivated by learn skills about this, and iGEM is for me the best way to achieve it. It is also a huge opportunity to meet people who have the same passion for science as me, and who want to act. My main focus in the platform is to organize the programming part and to contribute to the realization of the SmellGame platform.
|
FLORIAN THONIERBioinformatician
Recently I graduated from the Rennes 1 University (France) was a degree in Bioinformatics and genomics. I’m passionate about informatics and its potential to facilitate new research, particularly in biology. I’m part of this project to learn new methodologies and learn about synthetic biology. I learned that synthetic biology is a domain for new research to respond to the goals of tomorrow in everyday life. I also learned a lot by working with researchers from many different backgrounds.
|
JEAN COQUETBioinformatician
I’m a first year Ph.D student from university of Rennes (FRANCE). I studied the “Semantic-based reasoning for biological pathways analysis” (my thesis subject) at Irisa/Inria in Rennes. I obtained a bachelor degree in Computer Science then I decided to go to the BioInformatics way. I’m really happy to participate of synthetic biology project because this domain possibilities are exciting. Specifically, I participated in developing SmellGame platform.
|
LUCAS LE LANNBioinformatician
I have a degree in Bioinformatics and i wanted to take part in this synthetic biology project because I enjoy interdisciplinarity. Furthermore, I think synthetic biology can be useful to everyday life as well as bigger projects.
|
NATHAN FOULQUIERBioinformatician
I am a 23 years old engineer in bioinformatics and I started iGEM 2014 when I was still a student at Universitée Rennes 1. While I was finishing my studies I felt the need to involve myself into a concrete project at the interface of informatics and biology. I was really interested by the spirit of innovation carried by iGEM in the field of Synthetic biology and thought that I may contribute to the projects of Paris Bettencourt iGEM team with my own skills. I believe the next revolutions in Science will take place in organisations like iGEM.
|
Motivation
The Rennes team was motivated to create a web platform to generate, store, and analyze data for the following reasons:
- The project idea is at the intersection of citizen science and big data: it is a perfect case study in the context of the current concerns in Bioinformatics.
- Enhanced the teams ability to develop web platforms.
- Opportunity to learn new web development tools and professional competancies (Python & Django, Git/GitHub, …).
- The ability to create web tools to analyze data that are fully embedded in the project.
Aims
This platform has three concrete aims:
- Develop a game for people to characterize smell samples (sweat or artificial odor) with respect to intensity and pleasantness.
- To create a database that stores the results from game and connects those smell results to the pertinent information from people who give a sample of their own sweat.
- To generate graphical results from all precedent data, updated dynamically from the database.
Results
The web platform continues to evolve, in part thank to people who give and play with it. The SmellGame project relies on a web platform available here. <<< Link to our part in HUMAN PRACTICE ? >>>
+33 1 44 41 25 22/25
paris-bettencourt-igem@googlegroups.com 
