Team:University College London/Notebook

From 2012.igem.org

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In the upcoming week we will be learning the skills to implement the many ideas we have generated over the last few months. This includes a tight schedule of exciting talks by advisors from various fields, to inform us about various topics relating to our project, and lab-training in the UCL’s Advanced Centre for Biochemical Engineering (ACBE). We hope that by the end of the week we will gain the skills to begin our lab-work, and will have some guidance from our advisors as to how best to proceed.  In particular, we look forward to meeting Paola Gomez-Pereira – a specialist in marine microbiology from the National Oceanographic Centre at Southampton University.
In the upcoming week we will be learning the skills to implement the many ideas we have generated over the last few months. This includes a tight schedule of exciting talks by advisors from various fields, to inform us about various topics relating to our project, and lab-training in the UCL’s Advanced Centre for Biochemical Engineering (ACBE). We hope that by the end of the week we will gain the skills to begin our lab-work, and will have some guidance from our advisors as to how best to proceed.  In particular, we look forward to meeting Paola Gomez-Pereira – a specialist in marine microbiology from the National Oceanographic Centre at Southampton University.
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===Monday===
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==Monday==
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The International Genetically Engineered Machine competition (iGEM) is the premiere undergraduate Synthetic Biology competition. Student teams are given a kit of biological parts at the beginning of the summer from the Registry of Standard Biological Parts. Working at their own schools over the summer, they use these parts and new parts of their own design to build biological systems and operate them in living cells. This project design and competition format is an exceptionally motivating and effective teaching method (from the iGEM website)
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'''General Meeting – What is left to design?''' The team met early to discuss issues remaining in our project. Our particular focus was to find a means to prevent plasmids from our bacteria entering the marine ecosystem (Containment Module). Bacterial conjugation – the key means of exchanging DNA – is our primary target, but minor forms must also be included.
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The team met later for a talk from Elena Pallari  - a participant in the UCL iGEM team of 2010. She advised us about managing an iGEM team efficiently, and offered to hold weekly meetings to support us as we progress. Following this, we underwent a reminder of the safety protocols for the ACBE labs, and a brief talk on the basics of synthetic biology.
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'''General Meeting – Reviewing Biobrick Construction.''' The team met with our supervisor Darren Nesbeth for further discussion of biobrick construction and, importantly, to narrow down the selection of names for our project. A vote identified three popular names – Plastic Republic, Syntopia and Biotopia. A poll was set up on our facebook to see which was most popular with our facebook followers.
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Revision as of 19:31, 14 June 2012

Notebook

Aims For This Week

In the upcoming week we will be learning the skills to implement the many ideas we have generated over the last few months. This includes a tight schedule of exciting talks by advisors from various fields, to inform us about various topics relating to our project, and lab-training in the UCL’s Advanced Centre for Biochemical Engineering (ACBE). We hope that by the end of the week we will gain the skills to begin our lab-work, and will have some guidance from our advisors as to how best to proceed. In particular, we look forward to meeting Paola Gomez-Pereira – a specialist in marine microbiology from the National Oceanographic Centre at Southampton University.

Monday

General Meeting – What is left to design? The team met early to discuss issues remaining in our project. Our particular focus was to find a means to prevent plasmids from our bacteria entering the marine ecosystem (Containment Module). Bacterial conjugation – the key means of exchanging DNA – is our primary target, but minor forms must also be included.

The team met later for a talk from Elena Pallari - a participant in the UCL iGEM team of 2010. She advised us about managing an iGEM team efficiently, and offered to hold weekly meetings to support us as we progress. Following this, we underwent a reminder of the safety protocols for the ACBE labs, and a brief talk on the basics of synthetic biology.

General Meeting – Reviewing Biobrick Construction. The team met with our supervisor Darren Nesbeth for further discussion of biobrick construction and, importantly, to narrow down the selection of names for our project. A vote identified three popular names – Plastic Republic, Syntopia and Biotopia. A poll was set up on our facebook to see which was most popular with our facebook followers.