iGEM’s core idea is standardization: genetic elements are modified to easily combine them. Similar to electrical engineers biologists shall be enabled to construct large and more complex systems with fewer difficulties. A central element of this idea is the Parts Registry. Scientists have access to a huge variety of standardized genetic element, the BioBricks. This collection is constantly growing. Thereby it contributes to the successful diffusion and the acceptance of synthetic biology and it is the basis for and of great benefit to all researchers, supporters and participants of the iGEM competition.

Yet over time our team has come to the conclusion that iGEM’s core idea, standardization, is not fully implemented in the Parts Registry. Accessing the Registry frequently to plan a project using BioBricks, one very quickly realizes that the part descriptions are often unstructured. There are excellent examples of well-structured and organized descriptions. Unfortunately a defined standard is missing.

That fact can hamper the entire planning and research process. It is sometimes tiresome to gather all necessary information – if they exist at all. A well-defined description that contains all relevant information and that all participants have to stick to would improve the usability of the Parts Registry greatly. Users of the Registry could focus more intensely on the research itself. Therefore, the standard facilitates the working process and might boost the acceptability and usage of the Registry.

Since this standard can only be successful if all users of the Parts Registry consider it helpful, our team conducted an online survey and invited all of this year’s iGEM teams to participate. To the very end more than 55 teams – more than 25% of all teams – took part in our survey. Our initial assumptions were supported and our team decided to formulate a Request For Comment (RFC).

Please read on to find more detailed information on our survey, the unique Bavarian collaboration medal, the participants, the results and the RFC.

The presented survey aims to verify whether there exists a need for better BioBrick part descriptions (question 4 ), whether it is believed that standardization of part descriptions could help to improve the situation (questions 5) and if the iGEM community is interested in testing a template for standardized part descriptions as presented by our team (question 6). The last two questions (question 7 and 8) were intended to collect useful ideas how to improve our first blueprint of a standardized BioBrick part description template.

The survey can be found under: [http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/B8LZNXQ iGEM TU Munich's survey on standardization of BioBrick part descriptions]

Outline data of the survey:

• Start of the survey: 14th September 2012
• End of the survey: 20th September 2012
• Number of participants: 147 people participated in the survey; thereof 78,9% (116 participants) completed the survey
• Number of involved teams: 55
• Distribution channels: The survey was sent to all contact addresses of iGEM Teams from this year, posted on iGEM 2012's Community Page and posted on our as well on the iGEM Headquarters twitter account.

Question 1 and 2:

Answers

World map indicating the geographical origin of the participating teams:

Participants of TU München iGEM 2012 survey show on a larger map.

Question 3:

Answers

Question 4:

Answers

Question 5:

Answers

Question 6:

Answers

Question 7:

• Cross-linking to other databases
• Features typically annotated in Genbank and UniProt
• GO terms should be integrated
• Safety issues
• Relevant journal articles
• Fection for how the part can be improved in the future.
• Intellectual Property information should be included
• Use of tags

Question8:

• A possibility is needed to improve existing BioBrick part descriptions.
• Better search functions (multiply recommended)

Rewarding the participation in our survey

As a small present and to highlight their help in improving our attempt for standardization of BioBrick part descriptions we sent these badge to everyone in the iGEM community that participated in our survey and entered a contact email in Question 2. The sentence [http://www.oktoberfest.de/en/article/About+the+Oktoberfest/About+the+Oktoberfest/O%27zapft+is+-+The+Oktoberfest+has+started!/1453/ "O'zapft is!" yearly follows the traditional ritual of tapping the first barrel of Oktoberfest-beer] and is the official start of the Oktoberfest that takes place in Munich.
Additionally to this badge we ruffled a typical bavarian present among all participants of our survey.