Notebook: Week 13
Preparations | Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | Week 5 | Week 6 | Week 7 | Week 8 | Week 9 | Week 10 | Week 11 | Week 12 | Week 13 | Week 14 | Week 15 | Week 16
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Aims of the Week
James and Leonard is commencing characterisation for the laccase BioBrick and they will also be conducting preliminary curli characterisation. James and the rest of the presentation team will be improving the presentation to present to our supervisors, Darren and Eli on Friday. Erin, Aurelija and Joanne are attempting to predict the required density/mass of bacteria in terms of containment and degradation modules - this will require further experimental data for our containment module and elaboration of the Simbiology degradation model. Erin and Bethan have arranged to speak to Alan Evans, from UNCLOS about ocean regulations. Aurelija has planned to skype LMU Munich with regards metabolic flux modelling, and later she will also talking to Bielefeld about our laccase modelling collaboration. The modelling team are also drafting the metabolic flux modelling for irrE. In the lab, Aurelija is characterisation of the nuclease biobrick. Bouran, Martina and Aurelija will also prepare more competent cells, as we are doing tons of transformations, and the ligations are on fire!
Monday 3rd September
Hackspace Day 1 - Martina, Leonard and Yeping worked with William, Tonderai and Simon. Philipp took lots of pictures! We attempted genomic DNA extraction from our marine bacteria Oceanibulbus Indolifex using Qiagen QIAamp DNA Mini Kit. In the afternoon, we attempted to PCR genes antifreeze and mercury reductase.
LMU Munich Collaboration - Aurelija skyped with Simon and Julia from iGEM Munich (LMU).
Hackspace Exhibition - Philipp and Howard met today to find a location for our exhibit.
Tuesday 4th September
Hackspace Day 2 - The hackers, Yeping and Martina ran a second gel today as well as doing PCR.
The modellers venture into the lab - Shockingly, this is Erin and Joanne’s first time in the lab! They made up some plates for a nuclease experiment which would inform their predictive models. Their overriding impression of lab work is that agar smells really bad.
Wednesday 5th September
Hackspace Day 3 - Today was the last day of our UCL based workshops with the London Biohackers.
Interview with UNCLOS researcher - Bethan and Erin had a Skype conversation with Alan Evans from the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton. Alan kindly answered some of our questions on the legal aspects of Plastic Republic. This completes our examination of the ethical, legal, and social implications of our project.
Thursday 6th September
Meeting Of Young Minds debate preparations - Erin and Leonard wrote a script and storyboard for the 'crisis trailer', a short film which will introduce the debate audience to our crisis scenario.
DIYbio exhibition - Philipp and Bethan have confirmed the Grant Museum of Zoology as a location for our exhibition!
Radio: SynBio in art with C-Lab - Bethan interviewed Laura Cinti from C-lab for the radio show.
Friday 7th September
Meeting of Young Minds debate preparations - Erin spent the day getting in touch with various political and environmental youth organisations as well as other iGEM teams in order to find an interesting range of participants for the Meeting Of Young Minds debate. We're pleased to announce that representing iGEM will be Lukas Harnisch from UEA-Norwich (UK) and Claire Myers from Paris Bettencourt (France). Their project's ties to biosafety and agricultural issues will be particularly relevant to our 'crisis scenario' debate theme.
Regional Jamboree: Abstract Submission - Bethan finished our abstract for the Regional Jamboree while Aurelija edited our safety page.
Saturday 8th September
Social: Leicester Stroll - To wind down, some of the team went out for a walk and a drink around Soho. Philipp was in style as always in a beautiful pink and green check shirt.
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