{% extends "layout.html" %} {% block title %}Partnership{% endblock %} {% block lead %}Long-term collaboration with our friends from Paris and Rochester.{% endblock %} {% block page_content %}
After a successful partnership with iGEM GO Paris-Saclay in 2021, we thought it would be fitting to continue the partnership between our teams with an educational project.
A large problem with international competitions such as the iGEM competition is the successful communication of different concepts and ideas to the scientific community and a wider audience. We also had an experience with a team member who was not pursuing their studies in biology and was struggling to keep up with what the rest of the group was discussing during our meetings and brainstorming. We wanted iGEM to be more inclusive to people that are interested in joining the community but do not have this biological background. To address these problems and aid in this communication, our teams created a dictionary for common terms used in synthetic biology written in a simple manner, which would help team members not experienced in biology to understand scientific terms and concepts. Creating this book through our partnership also helped in improving our own abilities in presenting our project in a more simplified manner, an essential skill within iGEM and science.
Our teams worked together, communicating via zoom and messaging apps, discussing how to delegate the work and how to format the book. This helped our team create more concise presentations and focus on communicating the most crucial parts of our project, by improving the language we used, as well as the visual elements of our presentations.
Additional teams such as iGEM Chalmers-Gothenburg, iGEM Uppsala, iGEM Stockholm and iGEM Aalto-Helsinki also contributed. The InDesign file can be used for the creation of new editions by future teams. Check out the Communication page to learn more and to download the PDF and InDesign file.
In the early stages of our project, at the end of April, a member of our group not pursuing a degree in a biology-related field struggled to understand what we were discussing during our brainstorming sessions. The idea of creating a dictionary for synthetic biology terms came up in those team meetings.
Our teams could exchange valuable feedback, improve our science communication skills, and inspire each other in our work. The partnership yielded the First Edition of the ‘Synthetic Biology Handbook For Baby Labrats’, thus fulfilling the education and partnership criterion for the competition for our teams.