The Erasmus team, which includes students and teachers from Denmark, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greek, Lithuania, Poland and Slovakia, met from the 17.09.2022-26.09.2022 for their first meeting in their new project with the title “European challenges in gene editing by Crispr/Cas9” wich will last two years.
(Group picture of all participants)
In the first meeting in Thisted student mentors from Denmark, France and Germany introduced the audience the basics of Crispr/Cas9 and gene editing in general. Besides the theoretical lessons about Crispr, the group listened also to some interesting lectures from organizer Dr. Jürgen Braun, Murray Brockman former President of GSSM in South Carolina USA and Issa Ismael Issa PhD student from Aalborg university.
(Dr. Murray Brockman give a lecture about Crispr/Cas9 as an immune deficiency system in bacteria)
To introduce the new participants how the Erasmus team works in the laboratory and how they have to use the lab tools, the team conductet to make an genetic fingerprint to find the perpetrator out of five suspects. In the experiment we exercised using micropipettes and gel-electrophoresis which we will use for later experiments with Crispr/Cas9. In the genetic fingerprint we cut Plasmid DNA in the old-fashioned way with restriction enzymes.
(Band pattern of the cutted Plasmid DNA in the gel-electrophoresis after restriction digestion)
Every participant lived in host families and got introduced into the typical danish culture and enjoyed danish family live.
(After the successful lab work the whole group visited the harbour of Thisted)
After successful lab work there was also sightseeing on the schedule, for example we visited the Bunker Museum in Hanstholm wich was a part of the Atlantic wall during the second world war. Another typical regional cultural event was a surfing lesson in Klitmöller also known as “Cold Hawaii”. In a final questioner we discussed in the whole group the social benefits of Erasmus and the science skills we summarized.
(Dinner at the restaurant)
The meeting ended with a final celebration at school which includes a dinner and a diashow about the highlights of the week. We hope to see each other again in the next meeting in Evreux france.