Team:Uppsala University/Humanpractice

Team Uppsala University decided to invite the four other Scandinavian iGEM teams for a weekend where we could come together, learn to know each other and prepare us for the Amsterdam meeting. The iGEM teams of Chalmers University (Gothenburg), Copenhagen University, Southern Denmark University and the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (Trondheim) were invited. With the first three of those teams attending, 35 happy iGEM:mers met in Uppsala the 1-3 of September.

The schedule for the weekend combined social and scientific activites. The teams got to present and discuss their projects, discuss iGEM issues in workgroups and listen to presentations by Uppsala syntetic biology researchers. During the monday, we had invited Herbert Boyer, the first researcher to express perform a genetic cloning in 1973 and express a synthesized gene in 1977. He also held an open seminar, with about 100 attendees from the university faculty, about the history and development of genetic engineering.

Schedule
Saturday 1 September
14.00 Tour of Uppsala
15.00 Group photo
16.00 Kubb tournament
18.00 Dinner at Kalmar nation

Sunday 2 september
10.00 Project presentations
11.30 Daniel Camsund: Development of artificial transcriptional systems for Cyanobacteria
12.20 Lunch
13.20 Workshops:
14.20 Anthony Forster: Synthetic biology for drug discovery
15.00 Fika
15.15 Erik Gullberg: Selection of antibiotic resistance at low antibiotic concentrations
15.45 Visit in the Team Uppsala lab
18.00 Dinner

Monday 3 september
10.00 Herbert Boyer: Discussion of our projects
Advice to aspiring scientist
13.00 End

Team SDU presenting their project.

Introduction to syntetic promoters in cyanobacteria by Daniel Camsund.

Hanging out in the Team Uppsala lab with prof Herbert Boyer.

The event proved popular, and we know that one other Scandinavian team plans to arrange a similar weekend next year, making this into an annual event!

To reach out to the public we started a blog on a local newspaper in Uppsala for the target group of the everyday person. We have written about our project and the biosynthetic community in a way which can be understand by a person which has never heard of synthetic biology before. The main goal with this blog was to inform and raise awareness of the increasing problem of antibiotic resistance and how we need find new ways of fighting it.

We have had a field trip for the freshmens of molecular biotechnology engineering program, which included two lectures by our instructor Erik Gullberg who spoke about syntetic biology and then Sabri Jamal and Hampus Elofsson spoke about iGEM and what we have done past years and doing now. This also include a short tour of the lab and more practical information about the lab work. The main reason for this was to inspire the students to join iGEM upcoming years.

The molecular biotechnology engineering section of Uppsala University is having an inspiration week with different guest lunch lectures and we have been invited to speak on Monday 1/10 about iGEM and how it’s relevant to our education and what experience it can provide the competitors with.