Training Workshop iGEM _CIDEB

iGEM-UANL team conducted a training workshop to enlist the team CIDEB-UANL Mexico to the iGEM competition for its participation in iGEM HSD 2012. They did great! They came 2nd runner up in the competition and were awarded with best model and honorable mention for best presentation.

The topics that were included in the workshop were about molecular biology related with the nucleic acids function and the proteins involved in the “Central dogma”. About the laboratory, different techniques of molecular biology in the laboratory that are used in the genetic engineering and the synthetic biology, were taught to the students and a Practices Handbook was given to them elaborated by the instructors of the workshop.

Description

Objectives

• To prepare the high school students from the CIDEB that are interested in participate in iGEM in the High School Division (HSD) of mentioned workshop in its version 2012 with introductory topics to molecular biology, engineering, nucleic acids manipulation, biology with data processing and synthetic biology.

• To present to the interested students in an easy, clear and precise panorama about the principal laboratory techniques that are used in synthetic biology in order to make them develop the ability to work in the laboratory.

• To aid the students with the doubts that can be presented during the workshop in order to increase their interest in molecular and synthetic biology.

Activities

During the Training workshop week, some activities took place:

1. During the 5 days of the workshop some theory classes were given to the students with an approximate duration of 3 hours and a half.

2. Before starting work with the laboratory practice, an explanation was given.

3. The participants were divided in groups and there was designed a instructor for each group to help them with some doubts they can have so they were able to perform the practice by themselves.

The TOPICS in the Training Workshop were the following:

Day 1 – 9 January

- Genomics

- What are genes?

- Genomics organization

- BioBricks™ in the Parts Registry

- DNA clonation: How can we obtain multiple copies of a gene?

• Practice 1: Manipulation of DNA plates lyophilized of BioBrick™

• Practice 2: Preparation and transformation of calcium competent bacteria

Day 2 – 10 January

- How is the DNA organized inside of a bacterium?

- DNA preparation ¿how is this performed?

• Practice 3: Inoculation and cultivation

• Practice 4: Miniprep

• Practice 5: Quantification by spectrophotometry

Day 3 – 11 January

- Nucleic acids structure

- DNA structure

- Structural composition of a gene

• Practice 6: Characterization through restriction enzymes

Day 4 – 12 January

- A detailed view to the BioBricks™

- Assembly using Building Standards

• Practice 7: BioBricks™ Assembly

• Practice 8: Ligation

Day 5 – 13 January

- Checking of the Transformation results

- Checking of the iGEM projects

- Project requirements:

• Development of ideas

• Parts construction

• Human Practices

• Poster

• Wiki

• Presentation

- Tips and advices to start working:

• Brainstorm

• Theoretical framework

• Planning

• Development

Practices Handbook

As part of the activities of the training workshop that was performed by the iGEM-UANL team to prepare the CIDEB high school students interested in participate in the iGEM HSD a practices handbook was made to the students. The handbook was made with the objective to present to the CIDEB participant students an easy, clear and precise panorama about the principle laboratory techniques that are used in the synthetic biology, useful and needed tools for the development of projects in the iGEM HSD competition. In mentioned handbook a series of laboratory practices was included in order to teach the students topics since the use of the Parts Registry of the MIT and the manipulation of plates with BioBricks™, also the manipulation and assembly of them. Each procedure described in the handbook was made during the training workshop. Support material such as some simple bioinformatics tools was used in order to perform mentioned procedures.

The realization of the handbook had the principal purpose of introduce the CIDEB students in the basic, practice and experimental knowledge of the synthetic biology in order to prepare them to the iGEM HSD competition. Inside of the handbook was included a little section where the participants were able to write the obtained results in each practice and themselves could interpret them using the information studied in the workshop, as well as a section of questions that allowed us as instructors to know their weakness and explain the doubts later. We could observe that the use of the handbook with protocols and the experimental practice suring the training workshop were very useful to the participants, because they could develop the ability of working in the molecular biology and genetic engineering and they learn to take important notes to a efficient work in the laboratory. Notes that showed that they were understanding the calculus of the enzymes in cuts and ligations, the gels results, fragments size expected, notes about the bioinfomatics programs, Internet data or books that helped to the participants to obtain a critical mind with their experiments and achieve to formulate their own conclusions.