WashU iGEM has decided to conduct an outreach project in collaboration with The Youth Learning Center(YLC) here in St. Louis. The aim of this project is to introduce 6th to 8th graders to synthetic biology. In doing so, we hope to educate the students about the power of this new technology and the real challenges and concerns associated with it. We will measure how well we achieve this goal by giving a brief survey before and after our two days with the students. The results of the project will contribute to a series of short, educational videos covering similar material that will be free to the public. This week we have begun the project by transforming ''E. coli'' with the following biobricks: 1. eYFP: Part:BBa_E0430 2. GFP: Part:BBa_I13504 3. mRFP: Part:BBa_I13507 4. eCFP: Part:BBa_E0420 5.Promoter: Part:BBa_J23100 Each gene had at least one successful transformation. The colony counts were as follows:
This week, the team has focused on finalizing the design of the gene before submitting it to DNA 2.0 for synthesis. We inserted restriction sites between the three open reading frames of our genes. This will allow for rearrangement of the genes to maximize the production of our target products. The details of our final gene as well as the annotated version of our plasmid can be viewed at our projects page.
Work has begun on the web page, with the creation of a new background template, a side navbar, multiple new pages, a temporary banner, and this first notebook entry. More tweaks and improvements will follow in the next few weeks.
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