MARCH

• 2nd: GET TOGETHER!! Cristina brought brownies!
• 9th: We started looking at some of the previous successful projects.
• 16th: More on the old projects eating a fantastic Tiramisu from Giacomo.
• 23rd: Crash course on Synthetic Biology from Sheref and Cristina

APRIL

• 13rd: Brainstorming. No more cakes?
• 16th: Brainstorming. Where is the cake?
• 19th: It seems like everybody likes the idea proposed by Daniele. Remove the black crust from statues. We decided to look more specifically into these topics: A) how to dissolve the black crust, B) how to keep the “patina nobile” (calcium oxalate protective film) and C) how to kill biofilms, all to protect statues and marble monuments. Giacomo will look into secretion systems and Francesco suggested a photoinducible system. We have homework to do.
• 24th: Discussion on possible ways to achieve our goals. We looked into the mechanism of SRB for sulfate reduction.
• 27th: More ideas on the Black crust project based on a work of J.Keasling that Jason found in the literature. We are also thinking of having a side project for the characterization of deposited parts (RBS, promoters, terminators?). Each of us will further investigate the fesibility of the topics discussed on April 19th and will present a plan of work for next time.

MAY

• 14th: Presentations and discussion on the investigated topics. Other PIs from CIBIO participated to the discussion too.
• 28th: The project is finalized: We will save the world one statue at time! We decided to drop the project on the formation of calcium oxalate and biofilm disruption. Perhaps next year team can look into it.

JUNE

• 4th: We are starting to define the specificity of the constructs that we will use. We probably will synthetize one of the genes needed. We are still not sure about having another side project. Perhaps something about Terminators.
• 11th: A quick update from everybody in the lab. Giacomo and Daniele presented our list of parts! Terminators 5 will be our second project. Jason and Guzz have found some statues to test!
• 18th: Quick update in the lab. We discussed how to plan The Research Night in September.
• 25th: No meeting today.

JULY

• 2nd: Quick meeting in the lab, we assigned lab duties. We need to clean the lab! Cristina has found a new sponsor for sequencing: Genechron is going to sequences 250 samples for us. Thank you.
• 9th: Jason talked about his progress on cloning CysE related parts. He is almost done, he is missing only one device in pSB3C5. Andrea showed her data on CysDes. Many devices ready to be tested!
• 16th: Daniele and Francesco showed their data on our new part araC-pBad and lacI-lacIq-Ptac-lacoperator. Daniele completed his characterization!
• 23rd: Anna and Giacomo presented their progress with Terminators cloning. We have a new sponsor: Orostube, the pizzeria next to campus is going to sponsor us for T-shirts!
• 30th: Quick round table with first chracterization data. Jason and Andrea have already tested many of their parts anf have lot of good data. The system seems to work in vitro. We also discussed many organizational aspects: Logo, T-shirts, Website, Outreach activities, Traveling and Lodging. We created an internal deadline file for each Task.

AUGUST

• 6th: We had our weekly meeting at the coffee shop in Povo. Nice terrace with a wonderful view on our mountains… a good start for a busy week. Giacomo and Anna gave an update on the terminators project. Cloning is finished and they started the characterization at the fluorimeter. They screene coditions for the experiment and they have found the right conditions to get good reliable measurements. We are still not sure that we can do FACS.
  We decided to take a few days off at the end of next week, so we made a planning for the rest of the week to make sure to accomplish all our goals.
• 13th: No meeting today. We are cleaning the lab before the break.
• 21st: We are back in the lab, rested and full of energies for the last sprint! We came up with our Project title, logo idea and website design.
• 27th: Our black crust hunt started. Anna went to the art studio of a sculpturist to get some samples and interviewed him. Andrea has contacted a restoration chemist in the engineer department who is willing to help us to come up with a method to clean statues with our bacteria. Cristina knows a private who has a palace in Venice on the Gran canal, they are willing to give has small marble samples to test. The shipment will arrive this week. Giacomo went to a marble factory and found small pieces to make our own black crust. Daniele and Francesco have built with the help of Damiano, our super-tech friend in the physic department, the box apparatus to reconstruct the black crust and already have started the process. Jason contacted a company in Vicenza that sells supplies for restoration. They sell a gel that can be used to apply our bacteria. He will hopefully get a sample when he goes home next week. Finally, Andrea had an interesting meeting at the Cemetery… she met with a guy that makes gravestones. He is going to provide some sample of broken gravestones and will tell us more about the cleaning method for old gravestones. Things are proceeding!

SEPTEMBER

• 3th: We put together all our data and showed them as a complete story to our supervisors. We are starting this week to clean our stones samples. Tomorrow we will have the visit of a chemical engineer who works in restoration. We prepared a little interview for him.
• 10th: Update: we have some clean marbles! Our bacteria are working. This week we set more internal deadlines. Many events are quickly approaching.
  Here is our calendar:
  • 13th Visit to the Sculptor studio
  • 14th Andrea goes to the engineer department to analyse our cleaned samples
  • 17th Print our t-shirts. Parts Pages on the Registry are completed
  • 19th Posters for the Museum of Science and and the Researcher's Night are sent for printing
  • 20th Wiki content is completed
  • 25th Attending at the Day at the Museum
  • 26th Jason and Giacomo graduation, wiki freeze
  • 28th The poster for Amsterdam is sent for printing
  • 28th Researcher's Night
  • 2nd Practice talk in front of CIBIO's staff and classmates
  • 4th It's time to go to Amsterdam