May 11

May 11 Welcome to iGEM! Celebrating Opening Day With Our Community

Thank you to the hundreds of iGEMers, community members, and volunteers who joined last weekend's Opening Day Kickoff event! During the webinar, we covered an overview of this year's Competition requirements, and introduced many core concepts including engineering, safety and responsibility, and human practices.

We are glad to welcome you to our incredibly diverse and motivated community, and we can't wait to see what you build this year!

Keep reading for a summary of what was discussed, including links and presentation slides from the meeting.

Missed the Opening Day Kickoff or want to watch it again?

Play back the full recording at the link below:

REPLAY THE MEETING

Introduction to the Competition

Director of the Competition, Traci Haddock-Angelli, provided an introduction to key aspects of participating in the competition, including rules and policies, key deliverables, medal and award criteria, and an overview of what to expect at your jamboree judging session. Here are some of the key webpages highlighted during these sessions.

Key Competition Webpages:

Remember, no one team member should be responsible for everything! All team members should understand the rules of the competition, and share the responsibility of deliverables, medal criteria, and deadlines.

Questions about the Competition?
Contact: hq@igem.org

2022 Impact Grant Announcement

Director of Community Engagement, Dorothy Zhang, announced that the Team Impact Grant is back for the 2022 iGEM Season! Last year, we launched this first-of-its-kind initiative that provided grants to help 2021 iGEM teams take their projects further than ever before. Based on last year’s success, we are excited to continue this program for the 2022 season. (Download slides - 2.5MB)

This year we will again select up to 90 iGEM teams, and each team will be granted $2,500 USD.

Applications for the Impact Grant are open until June 20.

Questions about the Impact Grant? Contact: impact@igem.org

Safety & Security

At the Safety Session “Let’s Work Together to Make Sure No One Gets Hurt!”, Safety & Security Program Officer Tessa Alexanian invited all iGEMers to get in contact at any time with your safety queries! (Download slides - 3.6MB)

“We’re going to ask you as synthetic biologists, and as iGEMers to take on some responsibilities and to really reflect upon how you’re going to make sure that no one gets hurt … this is actually a really big responsibility and it’s one you might not have been asked to take on before, so I want to be clear that we don’t expect you to do this alone. You can ask your advisors and instructors for guidance, and we have this whole safety committee that wants to help you work through these issues”

Key safety webpages:

Questions about Safety & Security?
Contact: safety@igem.org

Engineering in iGEM

Design Build Test Learn - the iGEM Engineering Cycle

During the Technology/Engineering sessions, Director of the Registry Vinoo Selvarajah and members of the iGEM Engineering Committee gave an introduction to the core engineering biology concepts of the Design, Build, Test, and Learn (DBTL) Cycle (Download slides - 2.5MB). They also discussed plans for the iGEM Distribution 2.0 and the 6th International InterLab Measurement Study. iGEM Competition Participants have the opportunity to contribute to both of these Technology projects this year (Download slides - 2.8MB).

Parts for the 6th InterLab Measurement Study will arrive in the iGEM Distribution Kit that will be mailed to teams in the coming months. Teams who are interested in participating should fill this survey.

Key Technology Webpages

Questions about engineering and technology?
Contact: engineering-help@igem.org

With thanks to Jacob Beal, Maarten Lubbers, Nikolaos Delkis, Yixian Yang, Alejandro Vignoni and Sonja Billerbeck.

Welcome to the iGEM Community

60,000 participants have gone through the iGEM Competition throughout its history and there is now a growing network of past participants who are contributing to the creation of new initiatives, resources, and opportunities for the community to take part in.

During the iGEM Community sessions, 2022 Ambassadors Sabrina Yeo and Arsh Shaikh, and Head of Mentors Network Nannan Jiang and Ran Wang introduced some resources for teams that were created by the members of the iGEM Community Program.

Key Community Webpages:

The iGEM Ambassadors are here to support iGEM Competition teams in navigating through the iGEM Competition (Download slides - 1.7MB). Click here to Invite an ambassador to your team meetup or institute, or book a meeting.
Is your iGEM Team organizing a meetup? Submit your meetups at this webpage and we’ll highlight them for other iGEM teams and community members to view and participate.
The iGEM Competition Mentorship Program (Download slides - 2MB) is looking for experienced iGEMers to mentor new iGEM Teams. If you want to share your experience and skill with iGEMers and help them have an amazing iGEM experience, then apply today. Deadline for Mentors Application: May 15, 2022

Cotton field in Chihuahua, Mexico. Team Tec-Chihuahua 2019 interviewed stakeholders to fight a fungal disease harming local crops as part of their human practices.

Human Practices

In this session “How to Make Your Project Responsible and Good for the World”, iGEM Human Practices Program Officer Yuhan Bao, and Human Practices Committee members JC Gray and Matsuri Rojano introduced this strange term: “Human Practices”. In iGEM, human practices is the study of how your work affects the world, and how the world affects your work, and the process of reflective, responsible, and responsive project design. Human practices matters at every stage of your project, from start to finish! (Download slides - 2.8MB)

Key Human Practices Webpages:

Introduction to Human Practices
Why do Human Practices?
How to do Human Practices
Read more about human practices in these blog posts
Please take the Human Practices team poll: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/9NXZDJH

Questions about human practices?
Contact: humanpractices@igem.org

How to build a Diverse and Inclusive iGEM Team and Project

In this session with iGEM’s Diversity & Inclusion Committee, Divya, Alan, Hina and Asal identified the importance of mindfully including team members of diverse backgrounds, and shared some tips and guidelines on how to do so. They also shared advice on how to consider diversity and inclusion in the design of your project, and shared examples of past winners of the Inclusivity Award from previous iGEM Competitions (Download slides - 3MB).

With thanks to Divya Ail, Alan Pacheco, Hina Bandukwala, and Asal Golshaie.

An EPIC Year: From iGEM Project to Startup

Every year, more than 300 biotech projects are birthed by iGEM Competition teams. What if 10% of those projects were turned into feasible solutions and viable businesses? This is the basis of the iGEM Entrepreneurship Program, also called iGEM EPIC.

Vasiliki Kavvatha, Head of EMEA region at EPIC gave an overview of the year-long program that is the iGEM Entrepreneurship Program, which begins with the BioHackathon, and ends with the Startup Showcase at the Grand Jamboree (Download slides - 3.2MB).

You won’t be able to join the full EPIC program this year, but you are invited to register for the EPIC Summer Bootcamp on July 1-3, 2022. This bootcamp will contain classes and workshops to give you the tools to compete for the Best Supporting Entrepreneurship Prize.

Questions about entrepreneurship?
Contact: epic@igem.org

Sponsorships: Special Offers for Teams

Participating in the iGEM Competition unlocks some special offers from our partners. They are here for you and want to help you succeed! At the event, we were excited to announce the first of our special offers for teams:

IDT - Up to 20kb* free IDT Gene Fragments
Teams must register with IDT before October 1
https://competition.igem.org/sponsorships/idt
Beckman Coulter - Up to 1 free reagent kit per team
Applications until November 1
https://competition.igem.org/sponsorships/beckman-coulter
GenScript - Sponsorships of $2000 USD + $1000 gift card
5 total sponsorships, one per month from May - September
https://competition.igem.org/sponsorships/genscript