Project

The idea is a continuation of the EPFL's iGEM 2009 project. The initial plasmid designs come from a team member of the 2009 team. The cloning and troubleshooting and other further developments of these plasmids were done by the current team.

Experiments

The protocols mostly come from our advisors, but also from the kit suppliers and from the relevant core facilities at the EPFL. The advisors helped us learn the basics for most experiments. The cloning and the work in the mammalian cell lab was done by the team. The experimental designs come from the team and were reviewed by our advisors.

The DH5alpha host strain, CHO DG44 and HEK cells were kindly provided to use by the LBTC, the lab who hosted us for this summer.

Some flowcytometry and most microscopy experiments were performed by core facilities at the EPFL (as the devices we needed can't be used without a full training course).

Graphics & Website

All graphic design was done by the team. For the website, some open-source libraries/tools were used (Bootstrap, jQuery, Coffeescript) to help the development process.

Personal thanks

We would like to thank personally:

Prof Maerkl - For emotional support and advice.

Prof Deplancke - For his grand plans and bottomless optimism

Prof Hacker - For mammalian advice, HEK, CHO primers

Sowmya Balasubramanian - For helping the lab accept us, CHO cell culture and regular advice

Matthew Blackburn - For applying his paranoia at the right times (PCR!) andpushing through our orders

Pascal Odermatt - For quick & dirt... useful troubleshooting

2009 EPFL iGEM team - For inspiring us with the idea for the project

Sunil Kumar Raghav and Paola Alejandra Gilardoni - for helping us with WB & Silver Staining

Henrike Marie Niederholtmeyer - for helping us with rtPCR providing RT enzyme and with microscopy

Castro Diaz Natali - for providing pCEP

Prof Fussenegger - For providing us with the Melanopsin plasmid

Grisoni-Neupert Barbara - for providing pcDNA3.1(+)

Korneel Hens - for providing T7 primer

Alina Isakova - for advice for WB and rtPCR & providing antibodies and SYBR Green Mix

LBTC and LBNC - For hosting most of our experiments and letting use their ressoirces

Helen Chong Horrigan - for helping us with all the administrative issues

EPFL FCCF team members Miguel Garcia and Telma Lopes - for helping us with flowcytometry and letting us monopolise the flow cytometry machines

EPFL BI-OP team members Arne Seitz, Mathias Fournier - for helping us with the microscopy

Prof Petersen, Dr. Kremer - for providing us with calcium stainig for microscopy

Prof Hatzimanikatis - for helping us with modeling the dynamics of LovTAP binding to the DNA

Prof Dal Peraro - for helping us with modeling of the LovTAP-VP16 molecule

Dr Karlen - for the safety training and advisory

Karine Ryffel, Christian Hoyois and students of Beaulieu Gymnase; AMINIAN Taraneh and students of Burier Gymnase - for hosting us and proving themselves excellent interlocutors

Everyone who answered to the survey (gymnase students, EPFL students, people at the Geneva's student's fair)

& all the others who helped us!