Notebook: Week 13
Preparations | Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | Week 5 | Week 6 | Week 7 | Week 8 | Week 9 | Week 10 | Week 11 | Week 12 | Week 13 | Week 14 | Week 15 | Week 16
Aims of the Week
Commence characterisation for the laccase BioBrick. Prelim curli characterisation (II). Improve presentation and present to DN&EKM Friday. Predict required density/mass of bacteria in terms of containment and degradation modules - requires further experimental data (containment) and elaboration of Simbiology degradation model. Talk to UNCLOS guy and become a legal expert. skype LMU Munich (metabolic flux modelling) and Bielefeld (laccase modelling). Draft of metabolic flux modelling for irrE. Characterisation of our nuclease biobrick (compare with the results from Nuw cells nuclease). Prepare more competent cells, as we are doing tons of transformations, and the ligations are on fire!
Monday 3rd September
Hackspace Day 1 - Martina, Leonard and Yeping worked with William, Tonderai and Simon. Philipp took lots of pictures! We attempted genomic DNA extraction from our marine bacteria Oceanibulbus Indolifex using Qiagen QIAamp DNA Mini Kit. In the afternoon, we attempted to PCR genes antifreeze and mercury reductase.
LMU Munich Collaboration - Aurelija skyped with Simon and Julia from iGEM Munich (LMU).
Hackspace Exhibition - Philipp and Howard met today to find a location for our exhibit.
Tuesday 4th September
Hackspace Day 2 - The hackers, Yeping and Martina ran a second gel today as well as doing PCR.
The modellers venture into the lab - Shockingly, this is Erin and Joanne’s first time in the lab! They made up some plates for a nuclease experiment which would inform their predictive models. Their overriding impression of lab work is that agar smells really bad.
Wednesday 5th September
Hackspace Day 3
Interview with UNCLOS researcher Had a Skype conversation with Alan Evans from the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton. Alan kindly answered some of our questions on the legal aspects of Plastic Republic. This completes our examination of the ethical, legal, and social implications of our project.
Thursday 6th September
Meeting Of Young Minds debate preparations Erin and Leonard wrote a script and storyboard for the 'crisis trailer', a short film which will introduce the debate audience to our crisis scenario.
DIYbio exhibition Philipp and Bethan have confirmed the Grant Museum of Zoology as a location for our exhibition!
Friday 7th September
Meeting of Young Minds debate preparations Erin spent the day getting in touch with various political and environmental youth organisations as well as other iGEM teams in order to find an interesting range of participants for the Meeting Of Young Minds debate. We're pleased to announce that representing iGEM will be Lukas Harnisch from UEA-Norwich (UK) and Claire Myers from Paris Bettencourt (France). Their project's ties to biosafety and agricultural issues will be particularly relevant to our 'crisis scenario' debate theme.
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