10 Personal Tips for Having Amazing iGEM Life

zzz

   Hi, this is the 12th day of the iGEM Japan Advent Calendar 2022!
   I participated in iGEM 2022 Jamboree as a member of team from Waseda University.
   Today, I’m going to write what I felt important or what I learned in participating in iGEM competition, including 10 tips for future iGEMers. This is based on my own experience of the past two years in iGEM, and it’s kind of a personal reflection on this year’s competition…!

1. Analize Past Projects

   Analyzing previous iGEM projects is critical in starting your own project. Particularly, it is really important to check wiki/presentations of the past finalists and analyze the reasons for their victories. In my team, we had group meeting sessions where we presented the finalists’ projects in turn and discussed why the team received high evaluation, in the fall/winter just after the Jamboree.

2. Check the Judging Criteria in Advance

   Since it’s a competition rather than personal scientific research, it is also necessary to check the judging criteria and evaluation points as early as possible! All the information for the competition is basically on the homepage or judging handbook. The rule may be slightly different each year, but I felt really important that each team member understood the general evaluation policies in advance, so that they could know what they should be doing in every phase of the project. It might be a good idea to score past iGEM projects using official rubrics/judging criteria in a group!
   In addition, this is a really basic thing, but it’s better to keep in mind the track you are going to applying for in the phase of brainstorming. Actually, this year, our team was working on different separate projects in parallel without paying attention to tracks that much, and we struggled a lot in fitting our project into the concept of the track in the last stage of the iGEM year.

3. Set the Deadlines and Work on ASAP

   This one may be the hardest thing to do in a team…. Although you might feel like you have one year to work on your project, it’s only 10 months or less, and if you have classes or other activities, the time is super limited! After deciding the theme, I first recommend setting the deadlines of every activity (wet experiment, dry modeling, wiki, human practice etc.) roughly. For example, “We’ll practice experiments during the spring vacation, and finish the real experiments with enough results by August.”, or “We work on making wiki pages during summer vacation.” or something like that. Once the rough schedule is set on your calendar, you should set a more detailed and specific deadlines on a weekly basis. It’s okay to change the dates according to the progress, but all members must finish their tasks before the deadlines without any excuse! If team leaders/sub leaders can follow the original rough schedule, and mange to set deadlines for tasks flexibly, all members can comprehend where they are heading on and stay be motivated. In my team, although we set weekly goals for wet experiments, we didn’t start working on wiki (both the frontend and the contents) until the last phase. You can easily imagine what we were like. I felt writing wiki every time you have completed an activity (like entrepreneurship program or interviews) is eventually the best way. Write wiki as if you are writing a small school assignment just after the activity, when you have a clear memory and all the necessary materials.
   As a mere reference of a rough timeline of an iGEM year, I’ll put the general schedule that I suggest a team should aim when proceeding a project.

○ November

  • Learn the basic knowledge about iGEM through a variety of webpages or other materials. Learn the rules. Learn how to win.

  • Review and analyze the best projects/wiki in the previous Jamboree and determine the goals of your team.

  • Team building! This is important too. Get used to the life with iGEM. Get close to your team members! Teams will be welcoming new members, so it’s good to go to dinner or hang out with your teammates :) Good discussion is generated from close relationship!

  • An effort for obtaining enough budget.


○ December

  • Brainstorm, discuss, and determine your project theme (+track) while keeping analyzing the concept of the competition & studying basic scientific knowledge.

  • List up all the works needed in detail (e.g. what kind of experiment, modeling, human practices, and other activities should be done), and decide which member will be responsible for which.

  • (During the short winter vacation) It’s super great if you can begin entering the lab and do some basic experiment.

  • A continued effort for obtaining enough budget.


○ January

  • (During the short winter vacation) Same with above for wet experiment.

  • Keep deepening your project with full of discussion. Do research on relevant papers, previous iGEM projects, or even visit professionals to ask your questions.

  • In most cases, students will be occupied with their final exams in the late of the month, so concentrate on you studies for a while!


○ February

  • Spring vacation! This two-month period is really important, especially for wet lab activity. First, it’s good to have a series of technical lessons for beginners and get used to/improve skills of experiments. Then, START your project’s real EXPERIMENT and GET RESULTS as much as possible!

  • Do other activities you find difficult to do during school period such as human practices, education, partnership, hardware, entrepreneurship, and so on.

  • Don’t forget to write down your activities on your wiki once the activities are done!

  • Get ready for the payment of Team Registration Fee you’ll need to pay next month. Make sure you are in a close contact with your PIs and school administration.


○ March

  • Experiment continued (every wet lab member should at least be able to conduct necessary experiments on their own at this stage, and hopefully get some positive data).

  • Payment of the Team Registration Fee (in the case of 2022).


○ April

  • Back to school. For some teams, it’s time for welcome new members.

  • Experiments and other activities continued.


○ May

  • Experiments and other activities continued. You might feel exhausted or unmotivated around this period, but the Jamboree is only 5 months away! Cheer up!


○ June

  • Experiments and other activities continued. Rainy season.


○ July

  • When summer vacation comes, it’s the start of the most joyful season in iGEM! Experiment! Experiment! Experiment! Data! (Preferably, summer vacation should be regarded as the season to do the repetition of the experiments done during the spring vacation, in order to secure results with enough N numbers.)

  • Wiki (both for frontend and writers).

  • Get ready for the payment of Team Jamboree Fee.

  • Book flights and hotels (in the case of 2022). It’s better to decide these things early on as they get expensive and crowded towards the Jamboree.


○ August

  • Experiment! Experiment! Experiment! Data! Data!

  • The plot of your presentation and the content of the slide should be complete in this end. It’s ideal to finish making the Japanese version of the slide. Practice the presentation and Q&A session in English even if the content is not ready!

  • Continued effort for wiki (both for frontend and writers).

  • Payment of the Team Jamboree Fee (in the case of 2022).

  • It’s good to deepen your connections and share your feelings with iGEMers in different teams while going out sometimes :) An official global slack will open to promote mutual interactions among iGEMers worldwide!

  • Pay attention to the new information on the competition. Check the official website, e-mail newsletter, Twitter, and other sources.

  • Make sure every member has credit card/other payment methods for affording individual Jamboree tickets.


○ September

  • Experiment! Experiment! Experiment! Data! Data! Data!

  • In the early of the month, wrap-up your lab activity, and summarize your results in a formatted style.

  • Wrap-up for wiki as well. Everyone will be like Wiki! Wiki! Wiki! in this period.

  • Continued effort for judging session. Nice to have an English version of slide. I recommend practicing your speech many times in front of many people with different background (professors, interviewers, students from abroad, other iGEMers, family…) from early stages, and keep editing the slide based on their feedback!

  • Payment of Jamboree Ticket Fee for each individual (in the case of 2022). In addition, each member should be prepared for their passports, credit cards, insurance, and other materials needed for their travel.


○ October

  • Wiki Freeze! Take some rest and charge your energy…!

  • Practice, practice, and practice your presentation and Q&A. Practice not only in the team but also outside the team, in front of different people.

  • Have a safe flight to the Jamboree. Do your best of best!

  • When you returned, don’t forget to show your sincere gratitude toward your PIs, supporters, and all people you have met during the year.

4. Decide Each Member’s Role and Have Responsibility

   It’s important who is working on what aspect of the project. Our team was a huge group with nearly 30 people, and we split the members into subgroups like wet team, dry team, education team, video team, illustrator team and so on (It was okay to be in multiple subgroups depending on the member’s interest), and we decided a chief who mainly leads the group. We expected all the members to be responsible for their job, not relying on one member. I felt it would be ideal if we could create a system in which in-depth project meetings are held inside the subgroups and then the team leaders share the information gathered from every subgroup chief.

5. Share Information & Communicate Well Among Members

   This is also a crucial but difficult thing in working in a group. Of course, every-day communication both in-person and online chatting (via Slack or Discord) is essential for conveying important messages and information. In addition, I personally felt it was super important to gather results or materials in one place because information can be lost or scattered if it stored individually. In our team, we decided rules to upload the results and other important materials like slides and group photos on a free web storage (Box). Messages on chat can easily be scrolled out in a few days and there also might be a size limit of files you are sending, so it’s better to upload important and confidential information on other specific place regularly.

6. Learn Basic Knowledge of Synbio from Early Stages

   I felt that it was also better to study basic knowledge of synthetic biology and your research as early as possible. I think many iGEMers begin their iGEM life without enough scientific knowledge (I knew next to nothing about synthetic biology when I joined…). This is totally normal and fine, but at the same time, you will not grow even if you are in iGEM team unless you try studying on your own. There is a plenty of education online materials iGEM HQ are publishing, which are available free, and I found those very useful. You can also find good resources from webpages of biotech companies, and of course, research papers. I recommend asking older members the tips for accessing these online materials including papers, and advice for useful books or resources. Also, it’s a good idea to have weekly sessions to read a textbook in turn in a group! We actually did the activity with several chapters of “Essential Cell Biology”.
   For the record, I’ll paste some of the useful links below.

7. Practice English

   I recommend practicing English (listening, speaking, writing, reading) regularly, on a daily basis. It’s ideal to practice English in your team, but it can be sometimes hard to do that depending on the time priority (In my team, we also tried to hold an English session during our weekly meetings, but we failed…). I think the language skill is something that can be trained individually, so the personal practice/studies are really important. You can try your best method, but there are many opportunities to learn English in iGEM, too! For example, you can listen to videos/other iGEMers’ talks, participate in online global iGEM events/meetups, write wiki directly in English, write e-mail in English, read papers without translation, collaborate with foreign teams and hold zoom meeting, and a lot more. Among these, I want to highlight the importance of reading papers in English. I personally think that this enables you to gain a set of vocabulary often used in the scientific studies of the field, which eventually be very useful for judging sessions, team booths, and wiki writing. I sometimes read them aloud to learn English more effectively by making my brain hear the words at the same time. And I often checked the meaning of unfamiliar words and tried to remember the correct pronunciation.
   In the early stages of iGEM, you will not have the chance to speak English that much, but towards the end of the year, particularly during the Jamboree itself, you’ll be expected to explain your projects in front of foreign students/judges and communicate with them in English. It’s actually really fun to be engaged in such an international community, so it’s a good idea to acquire English skills as early as possible!

8. Act on Your Own!

   Although iGEM is a group competition, I personally think it’s more of a competition to yourself. What I mean is, YOU are the main character of this experience, and that nothing will happen if you don’t do anything! This applies for every activity in iGEM －studying, reading papers, doing research, conducting experiment, simulating your design on your computer, visiting stakeholders or professionals, holding outreach events…. In other words, you can experience/learn/grow in proportion to your motivation, vitality, and effort! (Talking about myself, I wasn’t really a person of action, but I was always motivated whenever I saw my teammates act by themselves so quickly and effectually. lol) In iGEM, no one tells you to do anything (except for group tasks…), so it’s totally up to you whether you study and do research activities.
   As I already mentioned, there are many opportunities iGEM communities offer for the purpose of learning, communication, and project development. There are a series of webinars, booklets, videos, meetups, and more. I recommend checking and utilizing these resources to the full extent. You can even hold your own events if you want!

9. Take Enough Rests! Stay Healthy Both Physically & Mentally!

   There is no important thing than your health. This is real. You will be able to do your best performance when you are physically & mentally fit! I promise. Get enough sleep and do something else sometimes. One of the tips I received is that you should have one day per week where you don’t think or touch anything on iGEM. If you feel something is wrong, please don’t hesitate to ask for help! Your teammates, PIs, parents, friends, everyone is always there to help you. My personal regret is that I devoted myself too much until my health was broken, and that I couldn’t do my best performance during the very last few months until the Jamboree (I wasn’t even capable of realizing that I was “officially” sick, and I kept blaming and shaming myself for not being able to do anything…). Anyway, eat well, move well, and sleep well, even if you are super busy.

10. Enjoy your iGEM life!!

   There are thousands of iGEMers around the globe. You can feel the passion and the strength of very high-level students when you enter the stadium. When you are the only one left in the lab late at night, you might feel anxious and lonely, but it’s not only you! I myself couldn’t imagine that other fellow iGEMers even existed around the world, but they really did. Take the advantage of this precious opportunity and do whatever you want! I think one of the great points of iGEM is that you can act, learn, grow, and extend your possibility as much as you wish, with warm, talented, and very stimulating people. iGEM is such a nice place.

   Thanks for reading this article through the end! I hope this helps people in iGEM community in some way :) If you have any questions or comments, please contact me through igemwaseda2020@gmail.com or official Twitter or official Instagram!

iGEM Waseda_Tokyo team on 28th October, 2022 @Paris Expo

この記事が気に入ったらサポートをしてみませんか？