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Team:SJTU-BioX-Shanghai/The team
From 2009.igem.org
Project introduction. Inspired by the natural regulator of circadian bioclock exhibited in most eukaryotic organisms, our team has designed an E.coli-based genetic network with the toxin-antitoxin system so that the bacterium oscillates between two states of dormancy and activity (more...)
Team introduction
This is our first time to attend iGEM competition~ We're SJTUers and we love it!
Team story
It is for the first time that Shanghai Jiaotong University(SJTU) participated in the iGEM competition held by MIT. At first, only a few students heard about such a competition. However, the news was spread so quickly among students that a team representing our university was formed in no time.
In the early period, we have nothing but the passion of the team members, no instructions, laboratory or experimental funding. It was a tough time for us. We browsed the website of iGEM in order to learn more about the competition while writing letters to professors and executives for support. One day, in our excitement, we found a letter from the Academician He from the BioX-Center. He showed great interest in the competition and asked for more detailed information of it. He was so busy at that time that we had a talk with him in his car, since he rushed to an important meeting after that. We described the international competition to him in great detail. So interested was he that he agreed to extend support to us and contact the principal and secretary of our school to gain funding support from school. Thus, the SJTU Bio-X iGEM team was successfully established.
After the team establishment, we have absorbed students from all kinds of department throughout the school, bioscience, math, electrical engineering and so on. We began to brainstorm our project while learning more knowledge about the biosynthesizing field. We came up with a lot of interesting ideas, such as yeast that can produce strawberry bread, a bacterial gameboy, a biological monitor that can realize the transformation of pictures by fluorescent protein. Though some of ideas appear to be intriguing but are actually hard to realize. We were fond of thinking freely without any constraint. We guess it may also be the essence of the competition.
Since it is the first time, we came across a lot of difficulties in the process because of lack of experience, such as having no idea about parts and standardized assembly. All the work before the Workshop has been put in vain.
In the summer, we encountered the biggest obstacle that we have ever met. Since we failed to plan all things well, students have already participated in a lot of lab internship programs and there were few students left in the lab. The initial plan of competing with two projects has put a lot of pressure on us. Fortunately, we invited the team from Peking University to have a discussion and share the experience with us at the end of July. After that, we finally found the crux of the problem. We recruited our members at the beginning of August and disciplined the team. At the same time, we made up our mind to focus on a single project by choosing from the two. The meeting has become a turning point of the team.
Everything is going well after that. We combined our effort in doing our lab task, discussing wiki, designing our post and preparing out presentation. In the end, we are proud to stand on the podium of the MIT for 2009 iGEM competition and show our fruitful result to the whole world.
When looking back into the team formation process, we found that we were lucky. Though we have felt our way out and went through numerous tough moments, we finally make it. We hold our firm belief in no pain, no gain. The result may not be the medal, but rather the experience itself.
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