<pstyle="color: #333;"> Our team has also participated in the postcard exchange the 2024 KCIS Xuigang Taipei iGEM team has organised. The goal of the event was to make education about iGEM teams more accessible and inclusive by designing postcards with English text and translating them to all local languages that we could.
<pstyle="color: #333;"> Our team has also participated in the postcard exchange the <ahref="https://2024.igem.wiki/kcis-xiugang-taipei/index.html"style="text-decoration: none;"onmouseover="this.style.textDecoration='underline'"onmouseout="this.style.textDecoration='none'">2024 KCIS Xuigang Taipei iGEM </a>team has organised. The goal of the event was to make education about iGEM teams more accessible and inclusive by designing postcards with English text and translating them to all local languages that we could.
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<pstyle="color: #333;"> The postcards had two sides, a front side with a cool design and a short text, and a back side that included a summary of the main goals for each project. After all designs were submitted, the teams that participated got in contact to translate each other’s postcards into their local languages.
<pstyle="color: #333;">Our team had the opportunity to attend a virtual funding event organised by the TU Eindhoven iGEM team, where we gained valuable insights into the crucial role that funding plays in iGEM and research in general. The event provided us with practical tips on how to effectively communicate and build connections with potential sponsors and partners, helping us strengthen our approach to securing financial support.
<pstyle="color: #333;">Our team had the opportunity to attend a virtual funding event organised by the <ahref="https://2024.igem.wiki/tu-eindhoven/home"style="text-decoration: none;"onmouseover="this.style.textDecoration='underline'"onmouseout="this.style.textDecoration='none'">TU Eindhoven iGEM team</a>, where we gained valuable insights into the crucial role that funding plays in iGEM and research in general. The event provided us with practical tips on how to effectively communicate and build connections with potential sponsors and partners, helping us strengthen our approach to securing financial support.
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<pstyle="color: #333;">In addition to the valuable knowledge shared, we also had a chance to present our own project to the attendees. This presentation allowed us to receive constructive feedback, which was useful in further refining our project and improving our fundraising strategy.
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<h3style="color: #396d7e;"> Natronaut at the Eindhoven Virtual Funding Event</h3>
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<pstyle="color: #333;">Natronaut could contribute positively to the Soil Strategy, but also alleviate the financial burden farmers might experience by tempering the substantial change that this would entail for them if the responsibility of replenishing the soil fell only upon them. In addition, Natronaut aims to repurpose those fertilizer nitrates that are lost via runoff by producing SCPs which could further benefit the farming community. This would be by reducing the need to grow fodder and contributing indirectly to the production of organic fertilizer: SCPs are fed to livestock and livestock produces manure that could be employed as fertilizer.
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<pstyle="color: #333;">In addition, we intend to carefully consider the ethical implications of your project, ensuring that our technology doesn’t perpetuate existing political or economic systems that contribute to environmental harm. Firstly, sustainable practices and circularity are at the core of the project. Moreover, the design of the system itself and the consideration of a kill switch reiterates the extent to which we value addressing the potential environmental implications our system could have. Additionally, Natronaut would improve the general water quality and strive for the elimination of health risks and biodiversity loss issues.
<pstyle="color: #333;">In addition, we intend to carefully consider the ethical implications of your project, ensuring that our technology doesn’t perpetuate existing political or economic systems that contribute to environmental harm. Firstly, sustainable practices and circularity are at the core of the project. Moreover, the design of the system itself and the consideration of a
reiterates the extent to which we value addressing the potential environmental implications our system could have. Additionally, Natronaut would improve the general water quality and strive for the elimination of health risks and biodiversity loss issues.
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<pstyle="color: #333;">We have also pondered on whether aiming to solve the root cause is applicable to our purpose. Due to the nitrogen cycle, nitrate runoff occurs, regardless of whether fertilizer is deliberately used or not. Therewith, we also aim, through SCP production, to reduce the nitrate runoff issue indirectly since manure can be employed as organic fertilizer which can be absorbed more readily by plants and hence, cause less runoff (See Interview with Unimer: A Discussion on Organic Fertilizer, below). Taking farmers into consideration, these can still reap the benefits that fertilizer provides.
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<pstyle="color: #333;">Our team then got to collaborate with both David and Ahmed even after the event. Although our implementation of Ascencia was not successful due to safety regulations in the lab, our meetings with Ahmed helped us organise our experiments and results in a shared lab notebook. Moreover, during our meeting with David, he introduced us to Cultivarium, an online platform where scientists can share their experiences with certain microorganisms and how to efficiently work with them. This helped the team while we were still learning how to handle <i>V. natriegens</i>, and the community there was fast to reply to any questions we have had.
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<pstyle="color: #333;">During the SynBio event, some of our members also got to network with Neha Awasthi and discuss the feasibility of biosensor integration for nitrates into our project. Since she is focusing on making biosensors, her input on the topic was quite insightful and helpful for our team.
<pstyle="color: #333;">During the SynBio event, some of our members also got to network with <b>Neha Awasthi</b> and discuss the feasibility of biosensor integration for nitrates into our project. Since she is focusing on making biosensors, her input on the topic was quite insightful and helpful for our team.
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<pstyle="color: #333;">This event was our first synthetic biology conference as a team and it was pretty successful since we got to make some important connections that helped us later in our research.
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<pstyle="color: #333;">On the 12th of July, some team representatives traveled to Utrecht to join the Dutch iGEM Meet, 2024, held at the University of Utrecht.
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<pstyle="color: #333;">In this meetup, the team had the opportunity to listen to talks held by two keynote speakers: Britte Bouchard from the Delft University of Technology, who gave an inspiring talk regarding Human Practices at iGEM, and Britta Helwif, from the Netherlands Patent Office, which offered a peak at the long and rigorous process of patent application that all scientific researchers should know.
<pstyle="color: #333;">In this meetup, the team had the opportunity to listen to talks held by two keynote speakers: <b>Britte Bouchard</b> from the Delft University of Technology, who gave an inspiring talk regarding Human Practices at iGEM, and <b>Britta Helwif</b>, from the Netherlands Patent Office, which offered a peak at the long and rigorous process of patent application that all scientific researchers should know.
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<pstyle="color: #333;">Most importantly, all teams were given the possibility to pitch their project and to receive feedback from it. During the networking events, all teams interacted with each other.
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<h3style="color: #396d7e;">Madrid, ESP: European iGEM 2024 MeetUp</h3>
<pstyle="color: #333;">From July 9th to July 11th the European iGEM meet-up was held in Madrid, hosted by the Universidad Complutense de Madrid iGEM team RePET. A team representative participated in the event on the last day when a mini-mock jamboree was held.
<pstyle="color: #333;">From July 9th to July 11th the European iGEM meet-up was held in Madrid, hosted by the <ahref="https://2024.igem.wiki/madrid-ucm/"style="text-decoration: none;"onmouseover="this.style.textDecoration='underline'"onmouseout="this.style.textDecoration='none'">Universidad Complutense de Madrid iGEM team RePET</a>. A team representative participated in the event on the last day when a mini-mock jamboree was held.
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<pstyle="color: #333;">A jury from the university itself was recruited together with iGEM ambassadors <b>Alon Segura Valverde</b> and <b>Yassin Somoue Chafick</b>, as well as teams from all over Europe. Specifically, the conference brought to the city of Madrid the following teams: BioGlimmer from Stockholm, SKIN BAIT from Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona, CAPsi’RNA from Paris, AflaxOFF from Universidad de Málaga, and NeoMineX from Leuven.
<pstyle="color: #333;">A jury from the university itself was recruited together with iGEM ambassadors <b>Alon Segura Valverde</b> and <b>Yassin Somoue Chafick</b>, as well as teams from all over Europe. Specifically, the conference brought to the city of Madrid the following teams: <ahref="https://2024.igem.wiki/stockholm/"style="text-decoration: none;"onmouseover="this.style.textDecoration='underline'"onmouseout="this.style.textDecoration='none'">BioGlimmer </a>from Stockholm, <ahref="https://2024.igem.wiki/upf-barcelona/"style="text-decoration: none;"onmouseover="this.style.textDecoration='underline'"onmouseout="this.style.textDecoration='none'">SKIN BAIT </a>from Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona, <ahref="https://2024.igem.wiki/ionis-paris/index.html"style="text-decoration: none;"onmouseover="this.style.textDecoration='underline'"onmouseout="this.style.textDecoration='none'">CAPsi’RNA</a> from Paris, <ahref="https://www.igem.uma.es/?page_id=1061"style="text-decoration: none;"onmouseover="this.style.textDecoration='underline'"onmouseout="this.style.textDecoration='none'">AflaxOFF</a> from Universidad de Málaga, and <ahref="https://2024.igem.wiki/kuleuven/description"style="text-decoration: none;"onmouseover="this.style.textDecoration='underline'"onmouseout="this.style.textDecoration='none'">NeoMineX</a> from Leuven.
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<pstyle="color: #333;">Each team had the chance to give a short pitch and afterward a presentation about their project. Later during the day, the jury announced winners and gave special prizes, as well as constructive feedback.
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<h2>References</h2>
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<p>Guyomard, H., Soler, L.-G., Détang-Dessendre, C., & Réquillart, V. (2023). The European Green Deal improves the sustainability of food systems but has uneven economic impacts on consumers and farmers. Communications Earth & Environment, 4(1), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-023-01019-6
