Freiburg iGEM Team Takes Gold
More Responsibility, Teamwork, and Stiff British Competition: Successful Presentation by Young BIOSS Researchers in Amsterdam
The student iGEM team that entered the competition under the name FreiGEM in 2011 was given more freedom to plan and carry out its project than any previous team from Freiburg. And this new strategy met with success: The Freiburg students fulfilled all of the jury’s criteria and received a gold medal for their project at the Europe Regional Jamboree in Amsterdam. Their project involved modifying a harmless strain of the intestinal bacteria E. coli to control the production of proteins commonly used in biotechnology by means of light (see: The iGEM Team of the University of Freiburg: this year´s project).
Team Motivated by Increased Responsibility
This year’s Freiburg iGEM team was given more responsibility over the project than were previous groups. The students were encouraged to include more of their own ideas and visions, an opportunity they were grateful for according to team coordinator Tobias Knust: “It was a great motivation for the students to be able to assume responsibility for their own project from the outset. It was particularly interesting to work out the details with them and discuss various possibilities. The discussions during the planning phase were immensely exciting and were very useful for everyone’s scientific development, including my own.”
Knust hopes that future teams will be granted the same scope in planning their projects: “It would be ideal if the students were allowed to come up with their own ideas, think for themselves about what their project might look like and what they have to do to realize it, and then select a project with the help of experienced scientists and perfect it for the competition.”
Successful Presentation in Amsterdam
Teams from Northern and Western Europe, Poland, and Turkey met in October for the Regional Jamboree in Amsterdam. Also present was the Freiburg team, which enjoyed the laid-back atmosphere and informal contact among the participants. The members of FreiGEM 2011 succeeded in putting on a successful presentation of their project, and in the end they proudly accepted their gold medal. Their toughest contenders were from England, and Knust believes that the British teams will also have good chances to win international prizes in the coming years.
Tips for Future Teams
The members of this year’s teams have returned to their regular studies. They now have time to reflect on what worked well and what future iGEM teams could improve on: “It’s absolutely essential to have a large team of supervisors in order to unite various skills and views in a project,” says Knust. “In addition to the scientific part of the project, it’s also important to consider whether the effort a team puts into achieving a certain goal might be preventing it from realizing another, possibly more important goal. Many of the teams hardly spent any time at all on the human practices part, while others developed games, organized exhibitions, and gave talks and courses at schools. This part is evidently an important key to success, but it requires a big team and can be very time consuming.”
Sophie Cramer and Julia Müller from FreiGEM Team 2011 learned important things for their studies in the project: “I developed a routine for certain scientific methods and learned why things need to be done in a specific way,” says Cramer. “Planning and setting up our own lab was also a valuable experience.” Müller agrees, adding that the secret to their success boils down to two essential qualities: solidarity and dedication.
