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Team:Peking/HumanPractice/Outreach/Collaboration
From 2012.igem.org
Summary
This summer, Peking 2012 iGEM team benefitted a lot from the collaboration with Prof. YANG Yi and other iGEM teams. By paying reciprocal visits with Prof. Yang, we introduced our design of Luminesensor to him and so got the DNA material of VVD protein. By help some other teams with their contests, we built lifelong friendship with team members across the world.
Reciprocal visit with Prof. YANG Yi
& Request for VVD
Greatly inspired by the elaborate design of an ultrasensitive, light-controlled transactivator Gal4-VVD developed by Prof. Yang's lab (X. WANG et al., 2012, Nature Methods), Peking 2012 iGEM team intended to design a light sensor working in prokaryotes, and so invited Prof. YANG Yi from East China University of Science and Technology to visit Peking University and to communicate with team members. Later, Peking 2012 team members also made another visit to Prof. YANG Yi.
The publication of an ultra photosensitive, genetically encoded activator, Gal4-VVD, which is rationally designed to enjoy a high spatiotemporal specificity and efficiency, greatly enlightened Peking 2012 iGEM team on its primitive aim for programming cells to function and communicate through light.
By sharing a mutual concern of optogenetics for synthetic biological application, Prof. YANG Yi from East China University of Science and Technology and our team paid reciprocal visits to each other. During Prof. Yang’s visit to Peking University on 21st April, we shared a common view on the basic design of a LexA-VVD genetic regulator and reached a consensus for further cooperation.
Two months later, deputy team leader ZHOU Wenyuan and another team member YAN Jiawei visited Yang's lab in Shanghai and Prof. Yang decided to instruct Peking iGEM as the team instructor . This very cooperation is not only beneficial to both sides, but also provides an opportunity for future collaborations.
Helping other teams
accomplish their projects
Another important part of iGEM is helping other teams through communication and collaboration. Team SJTU-BioX-Shanghai found that Team Peking_R 2011 programmed ribozymes to control the expression of VioABDE gene, and so requested biobricks of BBa_K598019 and BBa_K598020 to incorporate in their "Membrane Workshop" project. We shared the DNA materials with them.
