Revision as of 11:21, 21 June 2012

Notebook: Week 2

Aims For This Week

After last weeks training week we hope to finally begin construction. There are still a few hurdles: Our genetic circuits need our supervisor's approval and we might need to order some additional parts.
One of the human practice events we're most excited about is collaborating with the DIYbio community. We want to finalize the concept and find a space for it, as well as apply for funding. Hopefully we also have a much nicer and more complete wiki by the end of this...
Also, we will be creating our "project trailer" this week, which we'll use for a very exciting Kickstarter compaign...

Monday

Wiki Meeting - Today we had a meeting to assess the progress on wiki.

Tuesday

We met early for a talk on the basics of synthetic biology, and for an introduction to Gibson Assembly, given by Ben Mackrow. Ben has a lot of personal experience of using this technique, and gave us a lot of useful advice about the benefits and limitations of such technique.

Press Team Meeting – What Should a Press Kit Contain? The team met to discuss how we can convey our project to the Press – in particular whether it would be best to place the focus on the problem of microplastics, or the concept of an island as a solution for this problem. For the press release, and for our other forms of media, we have decided to focus on the island. Though an ‘island’ it is an illusory endpoint to our project – it is highly visible, and will foo idea that synthetic biology can be used to improve the state of the planet.

Construction Crew Meeting – Conjugation. The Construction Crew continued their search for a way to prevent conjugation. They discussed ‘geneageddon’ - a theoretical biobrick enabling bacteria to secrete nucleases, which will digest any plasmids released during cell lysis. Also, they considered using the Imperial iGEM 2011 toxin/antitoxin system to prevent gene transfer by conjugation. Our GMO would carry a toxin gene on its plasmids and an antitoxin gene on its chromosomal DNA. Upon conjugation, only the toxin gene would be delivered to the wild-type recipient, and so any conjugation between GMO and wild-type would be lethal for the wild-type. Spread of genetically modified DNA would therefore be prevented. In particular, we aim to combine these genes on a single plasmid, and therefore improve the Imperial biobrick.

In the afternoon, there was Wet Lab Training. We were trained to use various equipment around the lab, and how to make important solutions for our experiments. In particular, we were trained to carry out a restriction enzyme digest, and how to inoculate bacteria.

Wednesday

Wet Lab Training - Today we proceeded to train other team members in restriction enzyme digest and transforming bacteria.

Modelling meeting – Talked through conceptual problems, outlined how the models should work, and made some decisions about how to proceed

London Hackspace Meeting – Philipp, Yeping, Leonard and Martina visited the Hackspace Base at old street to discuss our ideas for human practice. They also had the opportunity to try some of their equipment, including running a gel in their lab.

@@ Line 26: / Line 26: @@
 == Wednesday ==
-Today we had a very informative presentation by Paola Gomez-Pereira regarding her research into marine microbiology.
-<div class="notebook-meeting">'''Modellers meeting - Using models to inform experimental design'''. This afternoon there was a meeting between computer Modellers, Advisors, and the Construction Crew to discuss specific variables required for modelling our experiments. </div>
+'''Wet Lab Training''' - Today we proceeded to train other team members in restriction enzyme digest and transforming bacteria.
-This afternoon we met for further wet lab training, particularly for the process of miniprep for transformed cells, and ‘nanodropping’.
+<div class="notebook-sponsor"> '''Sponsorship''' - Biosilta and Lonzo have agreed to sponsor us!</div>
-<div class="notebook-meeting">'''Wiki meeting – implementing the wiki'''. Prior to this meeting, the Wiki Team had discussed ways in which to make the wiki coherent, and had developed a number of new ideas and designed a number of layouts. This evening, we began writing the content of the wiki, and the process of creating the site.</div>
-'''Human Practice''' - This afternoon we undertook filming of the first episode of our documentary, with Jazz Croft interview each team member about their experience of iGEM so far.
+<div class="notebook-meeting"> '''Modelling meeting''' – Talked through conceptual problems, outlined how the models should work, and made some decisions about how to proceed </div>
+<div class="notebook-meeting">  '''London Hackspace Meeting''' – Philipp, Yeping, Leonard and Martina visited the Hackspace Base at old street to discuss our ideas for human practice. They also had the opportunity to try some of their equipment, including running a gel in their lab. </div>
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Team:University College London/Notebook/Week2

From 2012.igem.org