Team:Exeter/Diary/t-minus1

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4th - 8th June 2012

We had our first day in the labs this week. It started with an initial induction to the labs which included a very in depth health and safety talk. We soon moved on to some basic lab techniques with plenty of pipette action which included gel preparation and creating single colonies, see our photograph insert for the very respectable results from two Physicists!!

For a second consecutive day we were in the lab. We isolated DNA and then separated the DNA fragments using Gel Electrophoresis. The estimated sizes were then mapped and compared to expected maps. Another fun day!

Through many hours of brainstorming and discussion over the past two weeks the team has managed to create a short-list of five strong ideas to put forward as a potential project. The below ideas were presented to a range of relevant academics.

• Phosphate Uptake Regulation – synthetically modifying Escherichia coli to significantly increase the uptake of phosphates and being able to control the release through a mechanism.

• Polysaccharide Synthesis – designer sugars. This would entail the creation of a biological toolkit and the ability to know the physical properties of a polysaccharide by knowing the enzymes being put into the system, and vice versa.

• One - cell Cellulose Degradation (pac-man) – Find commonality for three types of cellulases and affix to scaffold to improve the efficiency. Could have transfer sequence to cell exterior. This idea stemmed from the ability of cows to eat grass and the usage of their 4 stomachs.

• Logic-gated 'thinking' Bacteria – improve on what has already been done somehow. Should work at level of proteins, not genes, for instant response. The potential for a counting device?

• Biological Ionisation Radiation Detector (otherwise known as B. I. R. D) – a method of detecting the strength of Gamma, X-ray and UV radiation through a biological system.