Chemistry Year Conference at CIDEB

During the commemoration event to the International Chemistry Year, organized by the “Centro de Investigación y Desarrollo de Educación Bilingüe” (CIDEB), conferences planned took place by the IGEM-UANL team respect to the Chemistry, IGEM and Synthetic Biology during the 2 days of the event. This conferences were given to the students belonged to the Progressive Baccalaureate and the International Baccalaureate in the Principle Auditorium of the High School and they were originally prepared and designed by the IGEM-UANL 2011. The final objective of the visit was to invite the students to participate in the IGEM competition High School Division (iGEM HSD) giving a presentation with the requirements of that competence in division mentioned.

Finally, there was a talk with the Dr. Socorro Guajardo (CIDEB Principal) who accepted the invitation to participate in the IGEM HSD, giving the leader place of the project to the teacher Jannet Salinas and external aid by the IGEM-UANL.

Description

Objectives

• To show a general panorama of the close relation that exist between the Chemistry and the Synthetic Biology to the high school students of the “Centro de Investigación y Desarrollo de Educación Bilingüe” (CIDEB).

• Show a general view of the close relationship that exists between the chemistry and the synthetic biology to the high school students in the "Centro de Investigación y Desarrollo de Educación Bilingüe" as a commemoration of y the International Year of the Chemistry.

• Promote the iGEM contest inside CIDEB in order to motivate students to be part of the representative team CIDEB-UANL for their participation in IGEM-HD (High School Division).

Activities

To fulfill our mission, the next activities will be developed:

- Make a brief presentation of the team we represent, the iGEM contest and a basic introduction to SB.

- Expose each one of the topics regarding chemical activities that happen within biological processes using SB.

- Discuss some projects that involve chemical processes in genetically modified organisms.

- Short explanation of iGEM-UANL Project 2011.

- Contest rules and invitation to be part of the representative team of CIDEB to iGEM High School Division.

Syllabus.

1. iGEM and Synthetic Biology (Daniel Rodríguez)

2. Molecular Interactions (Albert Lerma)

3. Energy (Matías Reyes)

4. Light and Fluorescence (Diego Cuerda)

5. Chemistry VS Synthetic Biology (Heber Torres)

6. iGEM-UANL 2011 Project (Porfirio Quintero)

7. iGEM-HSD (Daniel Rodríguez)

Students that attend the conferences showed interest in the topics, this was reflected in the questions made to the presenters at the end of it. The interest in participate in iGEM HSD was known at the end of the event when some students came up to the team in order to ask questions about how to carry the project and about the aspects that should be taken in count to participate in the competition. In this way, we can say that the team iGEM-UANL really created, through the topics exposed, a significant impact in the CIDEB students that assisted to the conferences. In this way, it was reached a motivation to participate in a competition of an international impact and to create an interest in the synthetic biology and the LBG career.