Team:Tec-Monterrey/hpractice

Antifreeze game coming soon!

Workshop #1 (August 4th, 2012)

What is the material and equipment of a Lab and how to use it? The objective of this workshop was to introduce the team, our projects, give a very complete definition of Synthetic Biology, a description of the iGem competition and introduction to some basic protocols and equipment used in the Lab. We agreed in this first session students should become familiar with the facilities, equipment and laboratory instruments and for their introduction to practical protocols they learned to prepare growth medium (LB) and use a micropipette. There were a lot of questions and interest from the students who were more than happy to learn how to participate in the workshop.

Workshop #2 (August 21st, 2012): Bacterial DNA: Purification of Plasmid DNA (Miniprep)

This workshop had as a goal to share with the students one of the most basic and used protocols in the development of a Synthetic Biology project, the purification of plasmid DNA. In order to do this, we gave a clear explanation of the principles of bacterial DNA, the differences between genomic and plasmid DNA with the basis of their extraction and purification. They integrated teams and purified plasmid DNA (pUC19) from Top10F E.coli.

Workshop #3 (September 13th, 2012): Karyotype and Chromosomes

Since the students were becoming familiar with DNA, plasmids and chromosomes; we designed a workshop for them to observe and develop a karyotype protocol. It started with a brief description of chromosomes and their function (the majority of them were already familiar with the terms) and afterwards, they integrated teams to develop a staining and observation on microscopes of chromosomes from plant material.

Workshop #4 (September 18th, 2012): Restriction Enzymes and Electrophoresis

The objective of this workshop was for students to understand and practice the concepts of plasmids and restriction enzymes as well to develop a digestion and electrophoresis gel protocol. We gave a description of how electrophoresis and restriction enzymes work, we encouraged them to ask questions if needed. Afterwards, they practiced the concepts by making their own digestion, preparing the agarose gels and charging the samples. Finally, they observed their results and analyzed them. They observed the difference between a supercoiled DNA and a linearized DNA.

Workshop #5 (September 20th,2012): Applications of Restriction Enzymes and Electrophoresis

We decided to give a more fun twist to the last workshop by making the students analyze the many applications of electrophoresis. The workshop started by a brief explanation of some of the applications, then we promoted a discussion with the students for them to propose how and where they think electrophoresis and restriction enzymes were used. Afterwards, the students developed a protocol using a Forensic BIO-RAD kit to identify the supposed criminal of a crime scene. After that, we decided to make a conclusive discussion and encouraged students to analyze what they learned in all the workshops. We were very pleased to know that everyone showed interest and wanted to continue learning more about iGem and Synthetic Biology.

Human Practices

Synthetic Biology might be considered an unknown term for a significant part of the population even for young adults or college students enrolled in non-biological sciences courses. Our human practices focused on sharing and explaining the definition and applications of synthetic biology, making it a simple concept for the individuals involved to analyze and formulate their own ideas. An important experience of our human practices motivated a portion of society to examine and question themselves how synthetic biology takes part of their daily lives in products, scientific investigations they watch on TV, etc. It also revolved around making it easy to understand by simple explanations of our projects development and reaching out to the majority of people we could. To do all of this, our human practices included workshops for high school students, educational videogames of our projects and finally, an introductory presentation and discussion of synthetic biology for adults such as parents.

Workshops for High School Students

Developing a workshop program for High School students was a priority for us, the fact that iGem has their very own High School edition competition encouraged us to reach that section of society. With that said, our goal was to motivate, teach and discuss with the students who had the interest in the area and also, those who were not familiar with scientific terms or synthetic biology. The workshops consisted in giving an explanatory introduction and practical courses to students from High school Prepa Tec Valle Alto in Monterrey, Nuevo León; México. Five sessions were planed and achieved from August to September sharing with students how a laboratory works, the typical protocols used, the principles of DNA and Synthetic Biology also promoting to ask questions and discuss any ideas of their own.