Team:Paris Bettencourt/Newsletter

From 2014.igem.org



Rather than saying we started the newsletter, we would like to think that the newsletter idea came to us. In May 2014, before we officially started working on the project, we got an email from the Xiamen University iGEM team, looking for cooperation. The original idea was to translate our website. However, we wanted to have something more interactive and updated. “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.

We would call the newsletter a successful project and meaningful cooperation if iGEMers have found supports, feedbacks and networks through it. It brought us to talk to iGEMers from China, Germany and Switzerland, which we 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.

Special Issue 1
October 2014


Newsletter 5
October 2014

An interview with Christina Agapakis
Interview outline of SYSU


Centre for Research and Interdisciplinarity (CRI)
Faculty of Medicine Cochin Port-Royal, South wing, 2nd floor
Paris Descartes University
24, rue du Faubourg Saint Jacques
75014 Paris, France
+33 1 44 41 25 22/25
paris-bettencourt-igem@googlegroups.com
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